Meta cracks down on ‘Yahoo Boys’ and thousands of sextortion accounts

Meta shut down 63,000 Instagram accounts based successful Nigeria that it says were engaged successful fiscal sextortion scams and connected to what Meta calls a “loosely organized” radical of cybercriminals known arsenic Yahoo Boys.

Meta has been getting superior astir cracking down connected sextortion scams and educating users astir however to debar them. Earlier this year, Meta said it would automatically nonstop suspected sextortion relationship messages to users’ hidden requests folder. And if users are already talking to a imaginable scam oregon sextortion account, it would show a information announcement prompting them to study threats to stock backstage images. Meta said it would besides marque it truthful that imaginable sextortion accounts wouldn’t beryllium capable to presumption the “Message” fastener connected teens’ profiles, adjacent if they’re already connected.

Meta said that the caller method signals it’s created helped way down the web of sextortion accounts. Of the 63,000 accounts Meta said it removed, 2,500 were portion of a coordinated web linked to a radical of 20 people. Meta said the web mostly targeted big men successful the US, and astir of their attempts were unsuccessful. After identifying the web of 2,500 accounts, Meta said it was capable to find much accounts successful Nigeria engaged successful akin scams, starring to the remainder of the accounts it removed.

Meta besides removed thousands of Facebook accounts, groups, and pages based successful Nigeria that gave scammers tips, fake photos to usage connected accounts, and scripts. Its strategy is present identifying and blocking immoderate attempts by these groups to instrumentality to the site.

The institution has been moving connected caller features to pass users astir imaginable scams oregon person them deliberation doubly earlier sending intimate images. Meta said successful April it was investigating a new diagnostic that detected images with nudity, and prompts users to deliberation doubly earlier sending a nude representation via nonstop message. It besides fto them unsend the connection aboriginal on. The diagnostic would besides show a informing to recipients who effort to guardant the image.