Parents typically prepare their children for various risks and dangers in life, but online safety experts say parents need to urgently add another threat to that list: sex totting.
The problem is not new: Bad actors have long pressured teens into sending them sexually explicit images and used them to blackmail them, but online safety experts say evolving tactics and tools, such as deepfake software, have made it easier to relentlessly pursue teens and blackmail them for sex.
Several victims have committed suicide after being targeted by perpetrators of organized crime groups from Nigeria and the Ivory Coast for financial sextortion. Victims who thought they were speaking to another teenager were relentlessly pressured to release explicit photos of themselves unless they paid the scammers.
Melissa Stroebel, vice president of research and insights at Thorn, a nonprofit that develops technology to protect children from sexual abuse, said parents should talk openly and frequently with their kids about how to keep them safe as soon as they’re online. This should include discussing sexual threats in an age-appropriate way.
Blatant deepfakes are traumatic. How do we deal with that pain?
Unfortunately, Stroebel and other online safety experts say parents can’t rely on the platforms alone to protect their kids from sextortion — in fact, there’s no foolproof strategy for avoiding being a target of sextortion.
Even if teens do encounter criminals or scammers and refuse to send explicit images of themselves, the perpetrators can steal photos from their social media accounts, create explicit deepfakes of the victim, and threaten to send them to everyone they know. But Stroebel says there are ways to reduce the risk of sextortion and protect yourself if it does happen.
“These conversations can be hard to start, and they can feel a little uncomfortable for a variety of reasons,” Strobel said. “The reality is, these conversations need to be happening long before that moment arrives.”
The conversations should be non-judgmental and focus on warning signs rather than unrealistic expectations for a child’s online behavior, Stroebel said. Additionally, teens should be helped to know what to do if they are threatened and feel confident about telling a parent or another trusted adult.
How to talk to your kids about sex blackmail
It’s hard for parents to imagine their children taking explicit photos and sharing them with strangers online, but Stroebel wants parents to understand that while it’s important to have honest conversations about the risks of sharing nude photos, many pre-teens and teens end up doing so despite repeated warnings.
Thorne’s research has found that young people online are less suspicious of strangers, especially if they see that the accounts are connected to friends and peers. In their minds, so-called strangers can quickly become friends if they share common interests or online connections. That means lectures about “stranger danger” are likely to seem unrealistic or irrelevant.
Strobel said bad actors and criminals may use fake accounts posing as teenage users to gain the trust of their victims. They exploit young people’s openness and curiosity through seductive comments and direct messages. It isn’t long before bad actors are sending explicit photos or videos of themselves and asking for or simply demanding photos or videos in return.
Parents shouldn’t embarrass their children by stopping them from talking or sharing images online, but rather reserve judgement while explaining the risks of trusting someone online.
Mashable Top Stories
Strobel added that ongoing discussions about sextortion “will give kids confidence that even if they do something we tell them not to do, coming to us is their best option rather than trying to deal with this on their own.”
How common is sextortion?
As part of its efforts to stop sextortion scams, Meta recently announced that it had taken down 63,000 Nigerian Instagram accounts attempting to extort money from victims. The scam was highly organized and relied in part on thousands of since-deleted Facebook assets (accounts, pages, groups, etc.) selling scripts and guides to trick people by embedding collections of photos in fake accounts.
But it’s not just international crime groups trying to manipulate and deceive young people online. Sex offenders and predators, primarily interested in collecting and distributing child sexual abuse material, are also extorting money from young people. Sex blackmail threats can also come from people the victim knows in real life, such as acquaintances, romantic partners, or ex-partners.
A 2018 survey of middle and high school students estimated that 5% of respondents experienced sextortion before adulthood; this figure is likely even higher today. In 2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received approximately 27,000 reports of financially motivated sextortion, more than double the number in 2022.
A recent Thorn report found that while sextortion has historically affected girls and young women, boys and young men are increasingly being targeted by financially motivated sextortion.
How to Respond to Sextortion
Parents should help their kids anticipate sextortion attempts and develop a plan to deal with them, Strobel said.
First, if you’re talking to an online contact you’ve never met in person, don’t trust that they’re really a “friend of a friend” just because they appear to be connected online. Instead, you should talk to people you know in real life to find out more about how your new contact is connected and how long your friend has known you. If you’ve never met a trusted contact in person, there’s a very good chance the account is a scam or malicious.
Stroebel also points out that asking to speak to a person in person over the phone or video call is not a foolproof way to verify a person’s identity: Bad actors are increasingly using a variety of technological tools to hide their true identity, she says.
Jared Barnhart, customer experience team lead at digital research firm Cellebrite, encourages younger users to take a “zero trust” approach to any encounters that make them feel uncomfortable or uneasy: in those situations, don’t engage with the person further.
Parents need to help their children understand that if they are being blackmailed, the perpetrator may have a plan to scare them, including spreading the image, putting them on the news, or threatening to ruin their child’s life.
These interactions are designed to be high-pressure and don’t give kids time to pause, ask for help or think of an alternative solution, Strobel said.
That’s why you need a list of escape strategies in advance, she adds. In addition to notifying a trusted adult right away if this happens, these include reporting the sextortion to the platform it’s on, blocking or reporting the person, and contacting a hotline like 1-800-THELOST for help with sextortion. Thorn posts these and other important steps on its website.
Teens may want to delete conversations and images, but it’s important to save everything for police investigations, Bernhardt said, as digital files may contain identifying information or details about the perpetrator.
Bernhardt recommends reporting sextortion to the NCMEC Cyber Tip Line and local police. Their response will depend on their own resources and training, but Bernhardt said some local agencies are prepared to investigate sextortion cases.
While some parents may consider the threat of sextortion to be minor compared to everyday dangers like riding in a car, they should still prepare their children for the possibility.
“(Bad actors) can basically scour the internet all day looking for your child,” Barnhart said. “They just have to pick your child and your child becomes a victim. It’s not easy to avoid this.”
If you are a child being sexually exploited online, know of a child being sexually exploited online, or witness online child exploitation, you can report it to the CyberTipline.It is run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.Or contact us directly (email address protected) or 1-800-THE-LOST. If you are outside the U.S., InHope Hotline Directory Find a hotline near you.
topic
Social Good Family and Childrearing
