Instagram Begins Blurring Nudity In Messages To Protect Teens And Fight Sexual Extortion

LONDON (AP) — Instagram says it’s 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 platform said in a blog post on Thursday that the new features are part of its work 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.

Instagram and other social media companies have been facing growing pressure for not doing enough to protect young people.