Social media giant Instagram announced on Tuesday, Dec. 6, new features for comments and profiles, which aimed to create a friendlier atmosphere for the image and video-focused social networking tool.

According to Digital Trends, Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo and video-sharing mobile app, introduced new features aimed at combatting cyberbullying and other forms of internet harassments.

The social media tool is currently planning to roll out new tools, which includes the ability to turn off or disable comments on specific posts, the ability to anonymously report who might be at risk of getting injured and last, the ability to remove followers from private accounts. All of these Instagram features are said to make available these coming weeks.

One of the new features, according to The Verge, was designed to curb abuse of the social media tool. The latest announced update will allow users to turn off comments on specific posts, like others' comments, and even remove followers from private accounts.

Removing abusive followers, without alerting them, will no longer a big problem for Instagram users. According to Instagram, this can be done, by going into the follower list and tapping the "..." option in the menu, just next to someone's name. Before, the only available way of getting rid of those abusive followers was to block them.

In addition, Instagram will now allow users to "Like" or "Heart" comments on specific posts, just like what the users doing on Facebook.

Also coming next week, is the ability to anonymously report someone who might be at risk of self-injury, such as suicide attempt. Currently, Instagram has teams working around the clock and worldwide to report such incidents, but if the social media tool decides to jump in and intervene, it can connect that person to some organizations or even authorities willing to help.

With Facebook's backing, Instagram has become an increasingly high-profile social networking tool, though, it has sometimes struggled with the behavior of its users, particularly harassment and bullying.

Fortunately, Instagram has been working hard to address these issues, like the ability to filter out abusive words. This tool has now being rolled out to the general public use.

Founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, Instagram is an online photo and video-focused social networking service that enables users to take images and even videos and share them on the app and other social networking platforms. In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for a whopping $1 billion in cash and stock.

Upon release, Instagram has received numerous positive feedbacks and awards, including the "Best Locally Made App" in the SF Weekly Web Awards in September 2011 and more. In addition, Apple has also named Instagram "App of the Year" for 2011.

Tags Instagram, Facebook, Social media