CyberChat #16
I’ll be honest with you, just a few years ago, I would have thought sextortion was a made-up word, something invented by someone on the internet. However, sextortion is a real problem. Online enticement has increased by 323% since 2021, stealing the dignity and safety of our children. Last year alone, we lost nearly three dozen young people to sextortion. Behind every statistic is a family left heartbroken and a future cut short. I hope that this issue will not only inform you but also encourage open conversations within your family. Together, we can create a safer environment for our children, one built on awareness, compassion, and action.
WENDY WADDELL
SafetyNet® Program Manager
Sextortion
Sextortion is a form of child sexual exploitation where children are threatened or blackmailed, most often with the possibility of sharing with the public a nude or sexual image of them, by a person who demands additional sexual content, sexual activity, or money from the child. Sextortion often begins with online enticement.
Between 2021 and 2023, incidents of online enticement increased by 323%, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A dramatic increase in sextortion cases has been reported to their CyberTipline, especially financial sextortion, where the offender demands money from the child. Teenage boys have been the most common targets of financial sextortion.
How does this happen?
In many cases, children are targeted by an individual they met online who obtained a sexual image from the child through deceit, coercion, or some other method. In many cases, the blackmailers may have stolen or taken images of another person, and they are communicating through a fake account. The blackmailer may have sent images as well, posing as a peer, to gain their trust.
According to the FBI, young people believe they are communicating with someone their own age who is interested in a relationship or with someone who is offering something of value. After the criminals have one or more videos or pictures, they threaten to publish that content or threaten violence to get the victim to produce more images. The shame, fear, and confusion children feel when they are caught in this cycle often prevents them from asking for help or reporting the abuse.
Financially motivated sextortion is on the rise. In these cases, the offender receives sexually explicit material from the child and then threatens to release the compromising material unless the victim sends money and/or gift cards. The FBI reports that the amount requested varies, and the offender often releases the victim’s sexually explicit material regardless of whether or not they receive payment.
Since 2021, this increasing threat has resulted in at least 30 deaths of teen boys by suicide. One of these victims was Ryan Last, a 17-year-old, straight-A student and Boy Scout. In February of 2022, Ryan received a message on a school night from someone he believed to be a 20-year-old woman. After relentless messages threatening to reveal his intimate photos, Ryan sent $150, and left behind a suicide note describing how embarrassed he felt.
Although it does not bring Ryan Last back, the men who targeted him were brought to justice this year. In May, four men from the Ivory Coast in West Africa were arrested on criminal charges for their role in the international sextortion scheme that targeted Ryan and thousands of others.
The majority of sextortion attempts are traced to predators in West African countries and Southeast Asian countries, according to the FBI, which makes it challenging to track down these criminals.
Prevention
There are a couple of things you can do as a parent or caregiver to help reduce the likelihood that your child will experience sextortion (or increase the likelihood that they will tell you if it happens). Review the tips below provided by SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse).
1. Create an Open Line of Communication
Having a healthy, open relationship with your child is one of the best ways to prevent them from experiencing sextortion.
2. Build an Action Plan
To make it less likely that they’ll try to comply with a perpetrator’s demands, talk about the hypothetical scenario in advance so your kid feels more secure at the time.
3. Instill Strong Online Safety Skills
Sextortionists almost always catfish their victims in order to gain their trust in the beginning. One way you can help prevent your child from being sextorted is by helping them learn to have a healthy skepticism of strangers online and identify red flags that they may not be who they claim.
How to Support a Victim
Victims of sextortion may feel overwhelmed or that there is no way out, but there is always hope. If this happens to a child in your life, remember that the sextortionist is to blame, not the child.
To better understand the perspective of a child targeted by sextortion, we encourage you to watch this interactive film produced by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, called the “No Escape Room.”
If you or someone you know believes that they are a victim of sextortion, immediately report the activity to law enforcement. Collect and report any evidence of abuse and/or blackmail. You can report it to the FBI by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI or visiting tips.fbi.gov.
If the child was targeted on social media, report the account via the platform’s safety or reporting feature. Block the suspect, but do not delete the child’s profile or messages because these can be used as evidence in a potential investigation.
Engage in an honest and non-judgmental dialogue with the child. Seek resources that may help them heal from their trauma. One resource that may be helpful is NCMEC’s Resources for Child Sexual Exploitation Survivors.
If your child has unwanted imagery online, check out NCMEC’s Take It Down tool. It is a free service for minors that can help them remove or stop the online sharing of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit images or videos.
Resources
- Sextortion scams targeting kids on the rise
- NCMEC – Sextortion
- NCMEC – Cyber Tipline
- FBI – Sextortion
- FBI – Financially Motivated Sextortion
- These teenage boys were blackmailed online – and it cost them their lives
- CNN – Ryan Last
- “Sextortion” scam leads to 4 arrests in Ivory Coast
- SOSA – How to Help Prevent Sextortion
- NCMEC – No Escape Room
- FBI – Submit a Tip
- NCMEC – Resources for Child Sexual Exploitation Survivors
- NCMEC – Take It Down
SafetyNet: Smart Cyber Choices® is a collaborative program of the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (SD-ICAC) and the San Diego Police Foundation. It is designed to help kids, parents, educators, and concerned adults learn how to keep kids safe online.