Instagram New Feature To Protect Teens From Sextortion

Instagram New Feature: Instagram is introducing a series of new safety features to protect users from sextortion scammers, the company announced on Thursday. 

Most notably, the company is no longer going to allow people to screenshot or screen record ephemeral images or videos sent in private messages.

Instagram New Feature Protect Teens 

These updates, which are part of a campaign informed by NCMEC, Thorn & Childnet, also aim to help parents feel more equipped to support their teens in avoiding these scams.

Meta said, “Sextortion is a horrific crime, where financially-driven scammers target young adults and teens around the world, threatening to expose their intimate imagery if they don’t get what they want.”

“Today, we’re announcing new measures in our fight against these criminals – including new safety features to further help prevent sextortion on our  apps, building on protections already in place.”

To prevent the sextortion crime, Instagram will test new safety notices in its direct messages and Messenger, which will inform teen users if they are speaking with someone who may be located in a different country.

The Uniqueness of The New Feature

Sextortion scammers can also take advantage of a user’s following and follower list for blackmail. To counter this, Instagram said accounts suspected of this behavior will not be able to see others’ following and follower lists, or the accounts that have engaged in someone’s posts or accounts.  

Users will eventually also no longer be able to screenshot or screen record images or videos sent in Instagram direct messages or Messenger without the person’s consent and awareness, and a nudity protection feature will also be enabled for all users under 18, Instagram said.

This will blur images featuring nudity and warn recipients before teenagers open the photo.  

Also, young users can’t receive messages from anyone they don’t follow or aren’t connected to, but they can still receive follow-up requests from anyone. 

Now, Instagram is making it harder for suspicious accounts, like those that were recently created, to request to follow teens.

Depending on how scammy an account appears, Instagram will either block the following request entirely or send it to a teen’s spam folder. 

Also Read: Instagram’s New Feature Let’s you Add Songs on your Profile Bio

Other Safety Features Rolled Out

The app is also rolling out safety notices in DMs to let teens know when they’re talking to someone who might live in a different country. The company says it’s doing so because sextortion scammers often lie about where they live to get teens to trust them.

Since sextortion scammers often use a teen’s following and follower lists to try to blackmail them, Instagram is going to prevent accounts depicting scammy behavior from seeing people’s following and follower lists. These accounts also won’t be able to see who has liked someone’s post or see which photos they have been tagged in.

The teen accounts are now private by default for all users younger than 18, who must manually accept new followers and can only be messaged, tagged, or mentioned by people they follow.  

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