BTMeta has revealed new information about their work to reduce sextortion and intimate image abuse, with features being tested across Instagram to protect young people and adults from intimate image abuse.
Enhanced Protections
This feature aims to enhance protections for individuals being targeted by sextortion scammers through Instagram DMs, by automatically blurring intimate images under a warning screen. Additionally, users involved in sending or receiving such images will receive safety tips and information about available resources. These protections will be turned on by default for teens under 18 and will show a notification to adults encouraging them to turn it on.
Sextortion Support
The latest changes will make it harder for potential scammers and criminals to target individuals by automatically placing message requests from suspicious accounts in the recipient’s hidden requests folder without notifying the recipient. Further protections will also be implemented to protect teenagers from interacting with potential sextortion accounts.
Updated Resources
Resources will also be provided to anyone who may have interacted with an account that has been removed for sextortion. A pop-up message will direct them to sextortion resources, critical support helplines, and non-emergency services, such as the Revenge Porn Helpline for adults in the UK, StopNCII.org for those over 18, and Take it Down for those under 18.
Rising Cases of Sextortion
The new announcement coincides with increasing reports of sextortion affecting both adults and young people. Our data revealed a continuous rise in reports around this form of blackmail starting in 2021, with sextortion being the most commonly reported we support.
Outside of the Helpline, reports have revealed that sextortion is a growing issue for young people, with UK Safer Internet Centre partner, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), revealing a record amount of sextortion cases being reported to the hotline in 2023.
"Sextortion, alongside other forms of intimate image abuse, can have a devastating and lasting impact on the lives of the individuals affected. We welcome changes from online platforms that strengthen their protections against this form of abuse. Moving forward, we hope to see further protections put in place to ensure users feel safe online, and we will continue our work to encourage more industry to join initiatives such as StopNCII.org.” — Sophie Mortimer, Revenge Porn Helpline Manager.
Available Support
For more information about sextortion, you can visit our Sextortion Advice Page and Awareness Hub, which provides information on the steps you can take if you, or someone you know, has been affected by sextortion. To get in contact with us, our Helpline operates from Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm, and can be contacted by phone, email, or anonymous methods to suit your needs.
We always recommend that any adult who is concerned about intimate image abuse uses StopNCII.org, a tool designed to prevent intimate images from being shared across participating platforms. Find out more information about StopNCII.org.
Our Helpline (operated by SWGfL) can only support adults living in the UK; however, our advice pages can tell you more about the support available outside of the UK and for young people.
