MANILA -- In an effort to combat online trolls and hate messages, photo-sharing social media app Instagram is quietly launching new features that apparently filter custom keywords out of the comments section of posts.

Another feature is to shut off entirely comments on these posts.

As reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP), these new features are initially intended for use by “high-profile” accounts, although there is the possibility of having these rolled out to other users as well in the coming weeks when the test is successful.

"Our goal is to make Instagram a friendly, fun and, most importantly, safe place for self expression," according to an Instagram message to an AFP inquiry.

The introduction of filtering features on Instagram, which is owned by social media giant Facebook, comes at a time when celebrities have started to complain about harassment and cyber-bullying on their social media accounts.

American actress Tia Mowry, model Ashley Graham, and singer Taylor Swift were recent victims of harassment on their Instagram accounts.

One of the more recent cases of cyber harassment was that of “Ghostbuster” actress Leslie Jones, who left Twitter after allegedly being targeted.

Instagram is one of the biggest social media apps with 500 million active users who share at least 95 million photos in a day.

The company was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for a whopping $1 billion.