Instagram to blur nudity in messages in bid to protect teens | Technology
Instagram says it is deploying new tools to protect young people and combat sexual extortion, including a feature that will automatically blur nudity in direct messages.
The social media company said in a blogpost on Thursday that it was testing the features as part of its campaign to fight sexual scams and other forms of “image abuse”, and to make it tougher for criminals to contact teens.
Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors. Recent high-profile cases include two Nigerian brothers who pleaded guilty to sexually extorting teen boys and young men in Michigan, including one who took his own life, and a Virginia sheriff’s deputy who sexually extorted and kidnapped a 15-year-old girl.
Instagram said scammers often use direct messages to ask for “intimate images”.