FREE GUIDE
Instagram Protection Guide
How To Stop Coordinated Bot Attacks And Harassment On Your Account
Who is this for?
Anyone experiencing coordinated spam comments, bot attacks, defamatory comments, or targeted harassment on Instagram. Follow these steps in order for maximum protection.
STEP 1 — Enable Limits (Most Important)
This setting automatically blocks new and unknown accounts from commenting. It will stop the majority of bot accounts instantly.
- Open Instagram and tap your profile picture (bottom right)
- Tap the three lines (top right)
- Tap Settings and Privacy
- Tap Privacy
- Scroll down and tap Limits
- Tap What to limit — select Some interactions
- Tap Who to limit — turn ON Recent followers and Accounts that don’t follow you
- Leave Everyone but your close friends OFF
- Set duration to 4 weeks
- Tap Done
🚨 Important: Choosing ‘Some interactions’ limits comments only. Your DMs and message requests from followers remain open and unaffected.
STEP 2 — Restrict Who Can Comment
Change your comment audience so only people you follow can comment on your posts and reels.
- Go to Settings and Privacy → Privacy → Comments
- Tap Posts and Reels
- Change from Everyone to People You Follow
- Go back and tap Stories
- Set story replies to People You Follow as well
STEP 3 — Hide Unwanted Comments
Turn on Instagram’s automatic offensive comment detection.
- Stay in Settings and Privacy → Privacy → Comments
- Tap Hide unwanted comments
- Select More — this hides the most offensive and spam content automatically
STEP 4 — Add Keyword Filters
Find the Hidden Words setting to add your custom keyword block list.
- Go to Settings and Privacy → Privacy
- Look for Hidden Words as a separate menu option
- Tap Manage Custom Words
- Copy and paste the full bot comments and separate words with “,”
- Tap Add
- Example: “This word, that word, another word”
STEP 5 — Restrict Individual Accounts
Use Restrict on any specific accounts you can identify. They think their comments are posting but nobody else can see them — they won’t know they’ve been restricted.
- Go to the attacker’s profile
- Tap the three dots (top right)
- Tap Restrict
- Their future comments are invisible to everyone except themselves
STEP 6 — Report Each Attacking Account
Mass reporting accelerates Instagram removing bot accounts. Ask all affected friends to also report.
- Go to the attacker’s profile
- Tap three dots → Report
- Select It’s spam or Posting inappropriate content
- For the extortion DM — Report → It’s a scam or fraud → Extortion or blackmail
- Do NOT delete the extortion message — it is evidence
🚨 Important: This May Be a Criminal Matter
If you have received direct threats or extortion messages referencing your location, this is a criminal matter. The UAE has some of the strictest cybercrime laws in the world under Federal Law No. 34 of 2021. You should file an official report.
Do NOT pay or respond to any extortion demands.
Take screenshots of ALL threatening comments and messages with usernames and timestamps visible.
Go to ecrime.ae — Dubai Police’s official cybercrime reporting portal.
File a report attaching all screenshots.
Reference extortion, defamation, and coordinated harassment.
Quick Checklist
🚨 Important: Share this guide with anyone affected. These settings need to be applied individually on each person’s own Instagram account.