Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has announced it is working on a new set of tools to protect young users from sextortion (or sexual extortion) and other forms of intimate image abuse.
The company made the announcement in a blog post published last week. The new tools to prevent sextortion will make it “more difficult” for malicious actors and scammers to seek out teens and engage with them, according to the statement.
Meta says it is also working on new ways to “empower” young people against content that makes them feel uncomfortable, and encourage them to spot and report scammers to Meta.
The primary highlight of Meta’s preventive measures include blurring nudity in direct messages (DMs) on Instagram. This feature will detect messages containing nudity and encourage users to reconsider while sharing such media, according to Meta.
“This feature is designed not only to protect people from seeing unwanted nudity in their DMs, but also to protect them from scammers who may send nude images to trick people into sending their own images in return,” says Meta.
The company says it will turn on nudity protection for users aged under 18 globally, while adults will receive a notification encouraging them to switch on the feature.
“When nudity protection is turned on, people sending images containing nudity will see a message reminding them to be cautious when sending sensitive photos,” Meta says, adding that the images can be unsent if the users have changed their mind.
An image containing nudity will be automatically concealed under a warning screen and the recipient of the message will not be able to view the image directly. Meta will send receivers a notification encouraging them not to feel pressured to respond, providing them with an option to block the sender and report the chat, the company says.
Users will also be directed to safety tips and guidance from experts on safety risks, which will include reminders that images can be screenshotted and shared without the sender’s knowledge and to review profiles carefully in case of scammers.
“Now, we’re also developing technology to help identify where accounts may potentially be engaging in sextortion scams, based on a range of signals that could indicate sextortion behavior,” Meta says. “While these signals aren’t necessarily evidence that an account has broken our rules, we’re taking precautionary steps to help prevent these accounts from finding and interacting with teen accounts.”
Messages sent from potential sextortion accounts will be sent to the recipient’s hidden requests folder. “For those who are already chatting to potential scam or sextortion accounts, we show Safety Notices encouraging them to report any threats to share their private images, and reminding them that they can say no to anything that makes them feel uncomfortable.”
Meta says it will enforce stricter measures for users under 16 related to messages from accounts to which they are not connected.
“We won’t show the ‘Message’ button on a teen’s profile to potential sextortion accounts, even if they’re already connected,” it says. “We’re also testing hiding teens from these accounts in people’s follower, following and like lists, and making it harder for them to find teen accounts in Search results.”
