Facebook and Instagram have launched their “Your Voice Matters” campaign, in time for this year’s Mardi Gras Festival. The campaign features new rainbow hashtags and story rings, celebrating LGBTQ+ stories and empowering queer expression.
Hey! Make sure you check out our chat with Kat Dopper, the Creative Director of Mardi Gras 2020 and the founder of Heaps Gay on this episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
They’ve also recruited ACON and Trans Pride Australia to create an LGBTQ+’s guide to using Facebook and Instagram, called ‘Safe And Strong’, with the aim of fostering safety across social media platforms. You can check out the full document here, but here’s a rundown of everything you need to know.
Creating Your Own Safe Space
Instagram and Facebook are making sure there are plenty of ways to have a safe space online through various features and abilities. The first recommendation is to make your account private. In doing so, you can choose who follows you and who engages with the content you post. If you consider yourself to be a content creator and want your content to remain in the public domain, you can always make a second account, that is private, and be selective with the people that follow it.
Alternatively, you can make use of the ‘close friends’ feature which gives specific individuals access to some content of yours that you deem exclusive to your inner circle. This feature is available on both Instagram posts and stories. Finally, creating your own safe space wouldn’t be complete without exercising control over comments on your own posts. By going to the Comment Controls page in the Settings menu of Instagram, you can choose to allow comments from certain people, blocking out any unwanted negativity. Speaking of…
Stop The Negativity
Stopping the negativity can be hard, but in the long run, it’ll be totally worth it. Instagram now has a feature where you can enter words, phrases and emojis you find offensive into ‘Settings’ and any comments containing them will be automatically hidden from you. To do this, just head to the Manual Filter option and click ‘Offensive Comment’.
But, stopping the negativity can sometimes be more than dealing with comments, sometimes you need to cut people out. Thankfully, Instagram has ‘Block’ and ‘Restrict’ features so that you can get rid of any negativity to the degree you see fit. Once you ‘Restrict’ someone, comments from that person will only be visible to that person. They also can’t see when you’re active on Instagram either. However, blocking someone means that the blocked person can not view your profile at all.
Also, stopping the negativity on your own feed helps create a positive social media experience. So, if you’re not liking the posts of one particular account, just unfollow them. Or, if you feel the need to keep following them, but don’t want to see their posts, you can just ‘Mute’ them and they’ll never know. It’s that simple!
Look Out For One Another
If you see homophobia or transphobia on social media, look out for one another and block it. You can do so by tapping the three dots, hitting the ‘Report’ button and deeming it as hate speech. The same thing can be done on Facebook. Once reported, Facebook and Instagram HQ will review the content and take action.
Find Your Community
If you’re in the LGBTQIA+ community and would like to find other like-minded individuals, social media can be a great way to do so. On Instagram, you can use hashtags to find other queer people and allies like, #YouAreNotAlone #TransIsBeautiful #LGBTQAustralia #LoveIsLove #LoveWins #BeKind #YouMatter. Also, on Facebook, you can join groups with a queer focus and meet new people!
Stay safe this Mardi Gras Festival! If you’re an ally and want to make sure you’re doing the right thing this Mardi Gras, don’t worry, we got you.
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