Meta has new anti-sextortion tools, but some say they’re ‘far too little, far too late’ to protect youth

Warning: This story deals with suicide. If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual extortion, or is struggling with mental health, you can find resources for help at the bottom of this story.

New anti-sextortion features announced Thursday by Meta, the company that owns the Facebook and Instagram, have not only come years too late but do not go far enough, says the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

Sextortion is a growing crime in Canada, and the perpetrators often use social media as a platform. The perpetrators will pose as someone they are not, share an explicit image with someone, lure them into sending an intimate image in reply, and then threaten to send the victim’s images to their contacts if they don’t send money.

“It’s far too little and far too late. We’ve been begging for some of the things that they’ve announced here for probably a decade,” Signy Arnason, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s associate executive director, said of the new tools being tested by Meta.

“While some of the things here may be helpful, it really seems like a Band-Aid approach. The responsibility still rests with kids to keep themselves safe — and there’s just so much more these platforms could be doing.”

The new Meta features are aimed at stopping sextortion attempts by interceding when images are sent, by:

• Blurring images when someone tries to send a nude picture through Instagram Direct Messenger (DM), to encourage people to think twice.
• Blurring nude images for people receiving them.
• Triggering warnings about the dangers of sharing when a nude picture is detected.
• Linking to web sites with safety tips and resources.

Users would have to have these protections turned on, but the company said that would happen by default for users under 18. Adults would be encouraged to turn on the protections.

‘Harry is lost to us because of this’

The crime of sextortion can have tragic consequences. Last April, 17-year-old Harry Burke died by suicide in eastern Prince Edward Island just hours after sending nude images of himself to someone who claimed to be a teenaged girl.

Harry’s father, Carl Burke, is dismayed that despite these tragedies being repeated again and again, it has still…