Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is testing new tools to help protect young users from sextortion and other forms of intimate image abuse.
Sextortion is a form of cyber extortion or blackmail which involves a threat to share intimate information, images or clips without consent.
A new nudity protection feature on Instagram will protect people from seeing unwanted nudity in their DMs from other users and potential scammers by blurring images detected as containing nudity.
Nudity protection will be turned on by default for teens under 18, and will notify adults to encourage them to turn it on too.
When nudity protection is turned on, people sending images containing nudity will see a message reminding them to be cautious when sending sensitive photos, and that they can unsend these photos if they have changed their mind.
Anyone who tries to forward a nude image they have received will see a message encouraging them to reconsider.
When someone receives an image containing nudity, it will be automatically blurred under a warning screen, meaning the recipient is not confronted with a nude image and they can choose whether or not to view it.
Meta said it is expanding the work it does to prevent scammers from connecting with teens by removing their account, taking steps to prevent people engaging in sextortion from creating new accounts, and where appropriate, reporting them to law enforcement.
Users who may have been approached by scammers will be directed to local helplines.
Meta said it is also “adding new child safety helplines into our in-app-reporting flows, directing users to their local helplines when they report relevant issues such as nudity, threats to share private images or sexual exploitation or solicitation.”
“We’re testing new features to help protect young people from sextortion and intimate image abuse, and to make it more difficult for potential scammers and criminals to find and interact with teens,” Meta said.
“We’re also testing new ways to help people spot potential sextortion scams, encourage them to report and empower them to say no to anything that makes them feel uncomfortable,” it added.
