About a month ago, I started to see an increase in group messages from strangers on Instagram. Unfortunately, the messages ended up being spam. There are two ways to deal with these unwanted messages.
How to Report Spam on Instagram
You can click on the profile image. Then click on the three dots in the top right-hand corner. Here you can either:
- Block this user
- Restrict this user
- Report User
When you report a user, you have two options to select from. ‘It’s spam’ is the easiest one. Alternatively, you can select ‘It’s inappropriate’ and ‘Report this user’.
Did you know that you can report accounts for a number of reasons, including not liking the content, suicide, self-injury or eating disorder, sale of illegal or regulated goods, nudity or sexual activity, hate speech or symbols, violence or dangerous organization, bullying or harassment, Intellectual property violation, scam or fraud and false information?
In the message requests section of Instagram, you can just go ‘Block’ and then ‘Delete’
You can also tap ‘Delete All’ at the bottom of the screen to ignore all requests at one time.
Be careful, when you allow a message request from someone, their future messages will go directly to your inbox.
Instagram says “Keep in mind that your report is anonymous, except if you’re reporting an intellectual property infringement. The account you reported won’t see who reported them.”
How to Stop Group Spam on Instagram at the Source
The better way to stop these unwanted messages is to change your settings to ensure you aren’t added to these annoying groups. On your phone, click on the Settings cog and then select Messages under Interactions. Here you can change the default setting to ‘Allow others to add you to groups’, to ‘Only People you Follow’ rather than ‘Everyone on Instagram’.
