Instagram said Thursday it is bringing a number of new safety measures to protect users from sextortion scammers. Perhaps the most significant: the platform will no longer permit users to screenshot or screen record any ephemeral photos or videos sent in private messages.

Until now, you could screenshot content sent in an Instagram DM only if the content was a disappearing one that would expire. Of course, others would get notified that you took a screenshot of the content. So this new update will mean if you share some photos or videos via DMs and you set them to "view once" or allow replay, then such recipient will no longer have the ability to screenshot it. Plus, Instagram will not let people view "view once" or "allow replay" images or videos on the desktop to make sure that they cannot bypass the security measures. Where Instagram really is pushing ahead of Snapchat is in ensuring that ephemeral content remains such by not allowing users to screenshot that particular material. On Snapchat, if you send somebody an image, they are able to screenshot that image. While Snapchat alerts the user that they have saved your image, it doesn't take any action to prevent users from taking screenshots of ephemeral content at all.

By contrast, Instagram is now making sure that the content meant to be seen once will indeed only be seen once.

The Meta-owned social network noted that new features launched today complement the recently launched Teen Accounts, which automatically enroll young users into an app experience with protections built in that limit who can reach them.

With Teen Accounts, the young users cannot receive messages from anyone who they do not follow or whom they are not connected to; however, they still receive requests to follow any person. From now on, it's getting hard for suspicious accounts to request followers, including newly created ones.
 
According to how suspicious an account appears, Instagram will block the follow request outright or send it to a teen's spam folder.

In the meantime, the app will also roll out safety notices within DMs, making teens aware when they're talking with someone who could very well live elsewhere in the world. Sextortion scammers make it a habit to lie about where they live simply to gain the teens' trust, the company says.

Since sextortion scammers often use a teen's following and follower lists in an attempt to blackmail them, Instagram is going to prevent accounts depicting scammy behavior from seeing people's following and follower lists. These accounts won't be able to see who has liked someone's post or see which photos they have been tagged in.

In addition, the platform is now rolling the nudity protection feature globally after first testing it from April onwards. The safety measure automatically blurs images containing nudity in DMs. It will be automatically enabled for teen users. From the people sending them, however, Instagram will warn them of the risks associated with sending private photos.

To better support its users via the app, Instagram is teaming up with Crisis Text Line in the United States. Now, if a user chooses to report an issue that concerns child safety or sextortion, they will be given the chance to speak to a crisis counselor.

The moves come ten months after Instagram and other large social networks were grilled by lawmakers for not doing enough to protect young users on their platform.

As part of its fight against sextortion, Instagram is going to start serving an educational video to its users based in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada, which features scammers who perpetrate sextortion schemes. The social network is also teaming up with influencers such as Bella Poarch and Brent Rivera in efforts aimed at creating content around how to spot sextortion and what to do if the user happens to fall victim to it.