Instagram announces new features to prevent sextortion of teens
Oct 22, 2024, 3:00 PM
File - Instagram says it’s testing out new tools to protect young people and combat sexual extortion, including a feature that will automatically blur nudity in direct messages. The social media platform said in a blog post on Thursday, April 11, 2024 that the new features are part of its work to fight sexual scams and other forms of “image abuse” and to make it tougher for criminals to contact teens. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
SALT LAKE CITY — Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, launched an educational campaign this week to protect teens from sextortion. The campaign rollout came alongside an announcement of new safety features on Instagram for teens.
What is sextortion and how to spot it
Sextortion is the act of blackmailing someone with explicit images or photos.
Ravi Sinha, head of Child Safety Policy at Meta, told Dave & Dujanovic the campaign focuses on how to spot sextortion, how to avoid it and what to do if you’re a victim.
“The truth is that financial sextortion is a crime that’s been on the rise in recent years across the internet. So as part of our education campaign, we want to make sure that parents and teens know what to spot, and what to look for wherever they may encounter it,” Sinha said.
To increase awareness about sextortion, Meta partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Thorn to create an educational video.
Sinha said Meta put this video directly onto the Instagram feeds of teen users.
“This is airing in the feeds of millions of users already and it provides this kind of important information about what to look for.”
The video outlines red flags like someone coming on too strongly, asking to trade photos and asking to move to another app.
The video encourages the viewer to stop responding, tell someone they trust, report the account and not pay someone attempting to extort them.
More resources are available on Meta’s Stop Sextortion webpage.
New safety features on Instagram to prevent sextortion
Instagram is also launching more safety features, which Meta said “complement” its recent rollout of teen accounts on the app.
Teen accounts on Instagram are automatically private now, but now the app will restrict requests from accounts that have shown what they call “scammy behavior.”
Instagram will either block requests completely or send them to a teen’s spam folder depending on the behavior of the account.
Other new safety features include a nudity protection feature that blurs potentially explicit images in direct messages.
Sinha said this feature would be turned on by default for people under 18 on Instagram.
“We’re erring on the side of safety to blur any image that is sent to someone that could contain nudity, Sinha said.
The feature will also address users who may be attempting to send nude images of their own.
“It also advises someone who appears as though they may be sending a nude image about the risks of doing so and frankly, tries to discourage them from sending a nude image,” Sinha said. “[It] also discourages the forwarding of any images that appear that they can contain nudity.”
Additionally, Meta will soon stop allowing people to take screenshots and screen recordings of photos or videos sent in private messages.
Alexandrea Bonilla contributed to the reporting of this story.
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