Instagram update: Moderator tools for Instagram Live are official, streamers can now kick out someone from their broadcast

Instagram creators can now focus on interacting with their fans during an Instagram Live broadcast as the company officially launches new moderator tools. The range of new functions is expected to help creators deal with unruly viewers quicker.

Instagram Live is one of the most common ways for social media personalities and celebrities to interact with their fans. This has been quite a powerful venue, where United States Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared details of her traumatic experience from the 2021 US Capitol attack. Singer-songwriter Adele also made waves online when she provided a few seconds of preview of her new song “Easy on Me,” more than a month ahead of her “30” album release.

However, because everything is happening in real-time, that means viewers can also leave rude or harassing comments for everyone else to see. While that can still happen after the latest Instagram Live update, creators have a better chance at catching these bad behaviors and reporting such users to the platform.

Instagram shared a preview of what the new live moderator tools will look like, and the company confirms creators can assign a moderator before they go on Live. Moderators can then report comments to Instagram, immediately remove viewers from watching the live broadcast, and prevent certain users from commenting by turning off the comment section for specific people.

Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi first discovered that Instagram was working on an option for creators to add a moderator during a live session last November. More details appeared in the wild in the following months, such as that a chosen moderator can opt-out at any time during the broadcast. Paluzzi also previously found that Instagram creators can only assign one moderator at a time, which was confirmed by Instagram in its official announcement over the weekend.

Instagram creators can also make the moderator’s tasks a little easier by using other Instagram Live features. The app already supports keyword filters, so creators can hide comments with offensive words, phrases, or emojis. Creators can also block comments altogether by turning off the comment section before they go live.

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