Unsolicited sexual photos: Instagram is working on user protection, finally

Meta spokespersons have announced thatinstagram was working on a system to block unsolicited photos in DM.

It’s a well-known problem for some Instagram users, especially women: unsolicited explicit photos. If the social network is not the only one to be affected, it concentrates many of these problems. The Meta subsidiary has finally announced a feature project to protect its users.

The “dickpics”a problem that does not date from yesterday

This is one of the paradoxes of Instagram, and even Meta group sites in general. While on the one hand the network is waging open war against any photo that would show a little too much skin for its taste or worse, a female nipple, some of its users are nevertheless outrageously confronted in private messages with much more explicit photos.

Last April, a report by the CCDH (Center for Countering Digital Hate), a British association specializing in these issues, revealed that Instagram had so far been largely powerless to prevent this type of behavior, or even to act. a posteriori against its authors. He pointed out that one in 15 DMs sent to women with the most subscribers was considered abusive, and that 90% of their authors were never worried.

Another report from last year indicated that one in three 35-year-old women had experienced sexual harassment online. While Instagram isn’t the only platform to blame for its lack of control over these matters, it could clearly do better.

A filter to hide unsolicited photos?

Meta told The Verge that a filter project, which is still in its infancy, was in development for Instagram. This protection should, once completed and made available to users, automatically detect and block DMs containing photos whose content is detected as nudity. The American firm specified that this functionality would however be optional, adaptable, and would also concern DMs without a photo but still abusive by means of a list of blocked words.

However, Meta knows she is walking on eggshells. The company is regularly singled out and even condemned for the management of its users’ private data, and this time it took the lead: one of its spokespersons explained to The Verge that this system, if it blocked the images, would not transmit them to anyone, employee of Meta or not. Moderation and sanctions against the authors of these messages therefore remain, for the moment, almost non-existent.

Sources: The Verge, Vice, Prew Research Center