Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, announced the removal of thousands of accounts in Nigeria involved in sextortion schemes, international media reported.
Such accounts typically target their victims with fake identities of young women to trick the victims into sending sexually explicit material, which the scammers use to extort money.
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‘Sextortion’ is damaging psychologically as some victims have been reported to commit suicide due to the pressure from the scammers and societal stigma.
In its blog post on Wednesday, Meta said it had removed around 63,000 accounts that tried to engage in these scams. ”Financial sextortion is a heinous crime that often produces dire repercussions,” the company stressed.
Meta also deleted 5,700 Facebook groups where fraudsters shared information about how to defraud people. Sextortion has increasingly become a worry to authorities and experts who regularly urge social media users to guard themselves against it.
