Instagram adds new guardrails to protect teens against sextortion

Instagram is launching several caller features designed to protect teens from sextortion scams, which hap erstwhile scammers frighten to stock friendly images of victims unless they person a costs aliases much photos.

One guardrail that’s rolling retired soon will forestall group from screenshotting aliases surface signaling disappearing images aliases videos sent successful a backstage message. If the sender enables replays of the image aliases video, Instagram will artifact group from opening them connected the web. This won’t extremity scammers from capturing the image aliases video by signaling it pinch different device, however.

Starting today, Instagram will statesman utilizing definite indicators, for illustration really caller an relationship is, to observe scammy behaviour arsenic well. The level will past forestall these accounts from sending travel requests to teens by blocking their petition aliases moving it to the teen’s spam folder.

It’s besides testing a information announcement successful Instagram and Messenger that will alert teens if the personification they’re talking to is located successful a different country, arsenic sextortion scammers often dishonesty astir their location.

In addition, Instagram will now commencement blocking suspicious accounts from viewing the pursuing aliases followers lists of their victims, which sextortion scammers tin usage for blackmail. Instagram will likewise forestall fishy accounts from seeing the lists of accounts that person liked a target’s posts, the photos they’re tagged in, and different users tagged successful their photos.

To protect kids from viewing obscene photos, Instagram is launching a characteristic that will automatically observe and blur nude images for users nether 18. Instagram started testing this select successful April, and it will beryllium enabled for teens globally by default. Other information measures coming to the level see an action to chat pinch the Crisis Text Line successful the US if users study sextortion aliases kid information issues. It will besides show an acquisition video to teens successful the US, UK, Canada, and Australia to dispersed consciousness astir sextortion scams, which are connected the rise.

Other platforms, for illustration Snapchat, have taken steps to combat the scam by informing teens if they person a connection from an relationship that different users person blocked aliases reported.

This suite of features comes arsenic portion of Meta’s broader efforts to make its platforms safer for kids. Last month, Instagram announced that it would commencement putting each teens into much backstage accounts pinch definite information settings enabled by default, for illustration restricted DMs and Sleep Mode to soundlessness notifications astatine nighttime.