Instagram adds new anti-sextortion features for all users

Meta is ramping up its teen safety measures for Instagram as the company faces rising concerns about how it handles the privacy and safety of younger users in its apps. The most recent series of changes aims to strengthen its anti-sextortion measures.

Meta said the modifications will make it more difficult for "potentially scammy" profiles to target teenagers on Instagram. The company will begin directing follow requests from such accounts to users' spam folders or blocking them outright. The app will also begin testing an alert that warns kids when they receive a message from such an account, indicating that the communication appears to be coming from another country.

Additionally, when the firm detects that a possible fraudster is already following a teen, it will block them from being able to examine teens’ follower lists and accounts that have tagged them in photos. The business isn't sharing exactly how it determines which profiles are "potentially scammy," but a spokesman said they look at factors including the account's age and whether it has mutual followers with the adolescent it's attempting to communicate with.

Meta is also implementing measures to prevent the transmission of personal photographs. Instagram will no longer allow users to screenshot or screen record photographs shared via DMs through the app's ephemeral messaging function, and these images will no longer be openable from the Instagram online version. The app will also expand the nudity protection function, which it began testing earlier this year, to all teens who use the service. The tool automatically blurs photographs when nudity is recognised in an image shared over DMs, and provides warnings and resources when such an image is detected.