Instagram adds new guardrails to protect teens against sextortion

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram is launching several new features designed to protect teens from sextortion scams, which occur when scammers threaten to share intimate images of victims unless they receive a payment or more photos.

One guardrail that’s rolling out soon will prevent people from screenshotting or screen recording disappearing images or videos sent in a private message. If the sender enables replays of the image or video, Instagram will block people from opening them on the web. This won’t stop scammers from capturing the image or video by recording it with another device, however.

GIF: Meta

Starting today, Instagram will begin using certain indicators, like how new an account is, to detect scammy behavior as well. The…

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