Instagram launched a new feature, designed to help better protect our community from unwanted images and videos in DMs. We think it will be particularly meaningful for women – and especially women in the public eye – who have historically been disproportionately affected by these kinds of unwanted messages. With this new feature, anyone looking to send DM requests to people who don’t follow them will face two new restrictions: Invite model: Rather than being able to send an unlimited number of DM requests to someone who doesn’t follow you, you will now only be able to send them one message – which will act as an invitation to keep chatting. You will only be able to continue to send them DMs when they’ve accepted your request to chat. Text only: This one invite message is limited to text only. That means you can only send images, videos or voice notes to someone who doesn’t follow you after they’ve accepted your request to chat. What this means in practice, is that people will no longer receive unwanted images or videos from people they don’t follow, nor will strangers be able to message them repeatedly.