Meta announced some new measures to combat the rise of sextortion scams, which is the fastest-growing cybercrime to now affect thousands of Facebook and IG users. Indeed, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), sextortion cases have risen 300% in just the last three years.

First, Meta is expanding its detection capabilities by indicating possible sextortion accounts with new elements being displayed for connection requests to identify possible elements of concern.
Now, requests for an IG connection from teen users will come with a note about how long an account has been around, where it's based, and who doesn't share common followers with you, therefore signaling new indicators to help young users' decisions in which connections to accept, sealing the sextortion scammers' fate.

Using those same indicators, Meta is also now enforcing new limits around who can see your following list.
From Meta:
"Sextortion scammers often use the following and follower lists of their targets to try and blackmail them. Now, accounts we detect as showing signs of scammy behavior won't be able to see people's follower or following lists, taking away their ability to exploit this feature.".

This could be a strong step, in the context of limiting blackmail threats to users, constraining the potential for scammers extorting cash for intimate images.

Meta's also applying limits to screenshotting and screen recording for ephemeral images or videos, while it's also building out its blur feature for detected nudes.

This feature, which will be enabled by default for teens under 18, will blur images that we detect contain nudity when sent or received in Instagram DMs, and will warn people of the risks associated with sending sensitive images.\"
Meta is also expanding its partnership with NCMEC and Thorn to develop new educational resources to help teens recognize signs that someone may be a sextortion scammer.

The most important thing here is a new video that will outline the main elements to look for in order to detect such scams.

"The video sends teens to instagram.com/preventsextortion, which features tips – co-developed by Meta and Thorn – for teens who have been affected by sextortion scams, a link to NCMEC's Take It Down tool that helps prevent teens' intimate images from being shared online, and live chat support from Crisis Text Line in the US," stated Meta.

Reports Meta, which will promote this video to millions of teens and young adults in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia-the countries most targeted by sextortion scammers.
Earlier this year, Meta also collaborated with NCMEC in its "Take it Down" initiative, providing a privacy-friendly way to address the spread of intimate images online, and partnered with Thorn on a new guide for teens on how they can avoid sextortion online.

As explained above, sextortion is a new threat where criminal groups coordinate efforts to hack into the accounts of young users and then blackmail them using their intimate images.

During the summer, Meta took down around 70,000 profiles, Pages, and groups related to a sextortion group operating from Nigeria, and last week, Meta took down another 800 Facebook Groups and 820 accounts related to a known sextortion group known as "Yahoo Boys.".

As the frequency of cases like this keeps increasing, it would be fitting for Meta to give more information and security options, and these new tools may just be a huge advantage in curbing the exploitation of the sextortion scam.