Instagram ‘spam message’ surge as bots add users to scam group chats – here’s how to fix it

MANY Instagram users have noticed an increase in strange accounts adding them to suspicious group chats.

The messages can appear in the ‘Requested’ section of your Instagram DMs and often put you in a chat with lots of people you don’t know.

Even users who set their Instagram accounts to private can still be plagued by the problem.

The spam messages can put you in chats with lots of people you don’t know and may encourage you to open a suspicious link in the chat.

You should never often links that you’re unsure of as it could end up in you getting scammed by cybercriminals.

Luckily, online educator Vix Meldrew, has posted a video to her own Instagram explaining how some users can avoid the spam messages.

Getty Images – Getty

There’s two ways you can try and tackle the problem[/caption]

There are actually two ways to try and tackle the annoying problem and it depends on what kind of account you have.

How to stop spam Instagram messages

Meldrew explains in her video that you should go to your Instagram “Settings” and then click “Privacy” and “Messages”.

Some users will see a setting that says “Allow others to add you to groups”.

Change this so only your friends can add you to groups.

Some people have complained that they can’t see the “Messages” option in their settings.

This may be because their account isn’t set to private.

If you’re in this position you can still stop yourself getting notifications about the messages.

That means they’ll go into your “Requests” folder and you can just ignore them or choose to delete them whenever you like.

Go to your Instagram settings, click “Notifications” and then “Direct Messages”.

Then, under the “Group Requests” section, click to turn the notifications off.

There’s also a section for you to turn message request notifications off entirely.

Instagram – the key facts

Here’s what you need to know…

• Instagram is a social network for sharing photos and videos
• It was created back in October 2010 as an iPhone-exclusive app
• A separate version for Android devices was released 18 months later
• The app rose to popularity thanks to its filters system, which lets you quickly edit your photos with cool effects
• When it first launched, users could only post square 1:1 ratio images, but that rule was changed in 2015
• In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for $1billion in cash and stock
• In 2018, some analysts believe the app is worth closer to $100billion
• In October 2015, Instagram confirmed that more than 40billion photos had been uploaded to the app
• And in 2018, Instagram revealed that more than a billion people were using the app every month

In other news, Instagram shocked fans when it accidentally removed the ability for many users to see likes.

Twitter has launched paid subscriptions that let you charge followers to see your “exclusive” posts.

And, WhatsApp is having another go at getting all users to accept controversial new privacy terms.

Have you had any issues with Instagram recently? Let us know in the comments…

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