Instagram takes new measures to protect teens from sexual extortion

sexual extortion or Sextortion This is not a new problem on the Internet, but it is becoming more common on the Internet. instagram. Although such criminal activity can affect people of all ages, its perpetrators typically target teenagers and children. This is why Meta has decided to take new measures to protect its underage users while combating this crime.

Sextortion is very serious because it involves the perpetrators obtaining intimate photos and videos – in most cases through deception – who then threaten their victims with revealing these materials unless they get what they are looking for, which is usually money.

Instagram recognizes that sexual extortion is an ongoing threat to its users, especially those under 18 years of age. The company decided strengthen account protection with new features that promise to make it much harder for suspicious profiles to start conversations with teens or gain access to their contacts.

Similarly, measures have been taken to prevent sensitive content transmitted through private messages from being intercepted and virally distributed for blackmail purposes. These features are in addition to restrictions on teen profiles that the social network announced last month.

Instagram takes a stand against sexual solicitation or sextortion

The first thing to note about Instagram’s fight against sextortion is that it will now provide more information about suspicious accounts that are trying to stalk teens. Although the platform stresses that it has strengthened protections to avoid unwanted subscribers, it admits that some of them may be “filtered” if minors approve the subscription and, in turn, give follow to the corresponding profile.

The same number of cases of sextortion arise from conversations initiated by criminals hide behind fake profilesInstagram will be more aggressive in dealing with suspicious accounts. That’s why, by following various parameters such as the date they were created, you can completely block tracking requests sent to minors or automatically move them to the spam filters of targeted teens.

In the event that a potentially fraudulent account manages to contact teens privately, Instagram will reveal some additional details that could serve as a deterrent to a hypothetical sexual extortion. For example, it will indicate whether the profile that started the conversation belongs to someone potentially located in another country.

Another important innovation is that Instagram will prohibit accounts suspected of sexual extortion from seeing the list of followers and subscriptions of other profiles. This will prevent them from accessing the contacts of their potential victims or hijacking additional accounts to gain attention. They also won’t be able to see who has liked other people’s posts or which users have been tagged in photos or videos.

Restrictions on showing and viewing nudity

Finally, Instagram announced two important measures regarding content shared through private messages. First of all, It will no longer be possible to take screenshots or recordings when opening ephemeral photos or videos.; for example, those that can only be viewed or played once. This content will only be visible from the social networking app, not the web version, to prevent potential criminals from bypassing this protection.

Secondly, there will be a new worldwide restriction on nudity content shared via direct messages. Photos or videos of this type They will look faded and with a warningtherefore, to open them you will have to do it manually. Instagram will warn about the risks of explicit content and provide safety tips to avoid sexual extortion. It’s worth noting that the latter feature will be enabled by default on all accounts under 18 years of age.

In addition to new protections against sexual extortion, Instagram has launched an educational campaign aimed at raising awareness of this criminal activity and its consequences for victims. According to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, cases of online sexual blackmail are on the rise in the US. more than 300% between 2021 and 2023, which will have a profound impact on children and adolescents.