Instagram Protects Teens from Sextortion

Instagram has launched a new campaign aimed at raising awareness and protecting teens from sextortion scams. The campaign includes a series of important safety features designed to combat this growing threat and make the platform safer for young users. Key measures include hiding follower and following lists from potential scammers, preventing screenshots of certain images in direct messages, and globally rolling out a nudity protection feature. These updates are developed in collaboration with NCMEC, Thorn, and Childnet, providing parents with resources to help their teens avoid sextortion.

Sextortion is a serious crime where scammers target young adults and teens, threatening to expose intimate imagery unless their demands are met. Instagram’s new measures aim to make it significantly harder for sextortion criminals to operate on the platform. Accounts displaying suspicious behavior will face restrictions on sending follow requests to teens, with potential spam folder placement for questionable requests. This initiative helps to reduce the risk of scammers exploiting follower lists to blackmail users.

Furthermore, Instagram will soon prevent users from screenshotting or screen recording ephemeral images and videos sent through DMs, particularly those marked as ‘view once’ or ‘allow replay.’ This feature ensures that users can share sensitive content without the fear of unauthorized captures. Additionally, Instagram is enhancing its technology to better identify and remove scammers by recognizing patterns in their profiles and behaviors, allowing for faster action against sextortion accounts.

The nudity protection feature, which will be automatically enabled for teens under 18, will blur images that contain nudity in direct messages and provide warnings about the risks of sending sensitive content. Parents can access a video from ConnectSafely on Meta’s Family Center’s Stop Sextortion page to understand how this feature works.

These new safety features complement the recent introduction of Teen Accounts, which provide built-in protections for users under 18, including stricter messaging settings that limit contact to only those users they follow. The rollout of Teen Accounts will begin in the EU later this year and globally in January.

Instagram is committed to taking action against sextortion criminals, having recently removed around 1,600 Facebook Groups and accounts linked to the “Yahoo Boys” scam network, known for recruiting and training new scammers. This follows the removal of approximately 7,200 similar accounts earlier in July. Instagram’s strict Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy ensures that accounts engaged in criminal activity are swiftly addressed.

With these proactive measures, Instagram aims to educate teens and their families on recognizing sextortion scams, prevent potential scammers from reaching their targets, and collaborate with other platforms to combat this serious issue. Through this campaign and the introduction of new safety features, Instagram is dedicated to fostering a safer online environment for its young users.