When you’re traveling and you go to a place where wild or exotic animals live (or are caged in most instances), the immediate impulse is to take a selfie and post it on your social network, probably Instagram. But now the Facebook-owned photo sharing app wants its users to know that it’s not always okay to do so and that we need to protect nature from exploitation. You will now get a content advisory screen whenever you will search for hashtags or photos/videos associated with harmful behavior to animals or the environment.

You would think, “Who would post those kinds of photos on Instagram?” and we’ll say you’re probably living under a nice rock. Tourists would pose for pictures and the even more nefarious ones would actually sell endangered animals illegally of course on Instagram. While the latter is technically not allowed, people would still post and even put hashtags like #exoticanimalforsale. So now Facebook wants you to be more thoughtful when it comes to things like these through the content advisory screen.

Whoever you search for a hashtag that may be associated with any of this behavior, a screen will pop up with the title “Protect Wildlife on Instagram”. There’s a short message about how these pictures or videos may be violating community guidelines and that the hashtag you’re looking for may be associated with harmful behavior to animals or the environment. There’s a Learn More tab or if you’re not at all bothered by it, you can still click on Show Posts.

Hopefully, this move will lessen those kinds of posts, although as we all know, people will still post what they want to post. Instagram is working with World Wildlife Fund, TRAFFIC, and World Animal Protection, to help educate people on this issue.

SOURCE: Instagram

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