If like me you love Instagram, you've probably encountered one of its less lovable phenomena: Instagram spam. You don't need to have massive follower numbers to start getting unwanted people sliding into your DMs, and because of the way Instagram works those people can quickly make the app unpleasant. But at last, that's changing. After two months testing, Instagram has now rolled out an important change to the way it handles message requests.
This is particularly good news for women and other marginalised people, who are often very familiar with inboxes filling with messages not just from product spammers but from more concerning characters. It's good news because the change removes strangers' ability to bombard you with message requests and to include unsolicited photos, videos or voice messages in those requests.
