Instagram Will Automatically Blur Nudes in Direct Messages

Instagram will soon start testing blurring nudes in direct messages, according to an announcement from Meta on Wednesday. It will use “on-device machine learning” to detect nudes, and is aimed at stopping sextortion schemes that target teenagers, the company wrote.

The “nudity protection” feature will detect nudes in direct messages and automatically blur them, both when you’re getting a nude sent to you and when you’re attempting to send one to someone else. Users will also see a popup message that says, “Take care when sharing sensitive photos. The photo is blurred because nudity protection is turned on. Others can screenshot or forward your photos without you knowing. You can unsend a photo if you change your mind, but there's a chance others have already seen it.”

Because the processing is performed on device, Meta says its detection will still work on end-to-end encrypted chats, with Meta not having access to the images themselves unless a user reports them. 

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