Instagram to Automatically Blur Nudes Received by Teens in DMs
- Laurent Giret
- Apr 11, 2024
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Meta announced today that it will be testing new nudity protection in Instagram DMs to protect teens from unsolicited nudes and sextortion scams. Images containing nudity sent via Instagram DMs will be automatically blurred for all users under 18, and adults will also be invited to turn nudity protection on.
“Nudity protection uses on-device machine learning to analyze whether an image sent in a DM on Instagram contains nudity,” Meta explained today. “Because the images are analyzed on the device itself, nudity protection will work in end-to-end encrypted chats, where Meta won’t have access to these images – unless someone chooses to report them to us.”
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While teenagers will be able to easily unblur pictures in their Instagram DMs that may contain nudity, the app will display a warning screen explaining that they shouldn’t be pressured to respond. Instagram will also show options to report the chat and block the sender.
Moreover, nudity protection will show warning messages when teens try to forward pictures containing nudity. The app will also recommend users to be cautious when sending “sensitive photos.”
Teenagers will still be able to disable nudity protection on Instagram at any time, however. But Meta is also testing other features to identify accounts that may be engaging in sextortion scams on the platform. “Now, any message requests potential sextortion accounts try to send will go straight to the recipient’s hidden requests folder, meaning they won’t be notified of the message and never have to see it,” the company said.
Meta is already protecting teens on Instagram from DMs from people they’re not already connected to. But going forward, if a teen is already connected to an account that Instagram identified as a potential scammer, that account won’t see the “Message” button on the teen’s profile. Instagram will also test restricting potential scammer accounts from seeing teen accounts in search results and people’s follower, following, and like lists.