By Wendy Hanson | VP for Community Impact
Have you received an online threat claiming that all your online activities are being monitored, and for a small fee paid in cryptocurrency, they will leave you alone? Now imagine being a teenager and being threatened by someone you trust, who threatens to share intimate photos of you with the public. Scary, overwhelmed, and ashamed are only some of the words you might use to describe this situation.
This summer, we are working to ensure parents and individuals who work with youth know how to provide support. The number of reported online enticement and or sextortion cases more than doubled between 2023 and 2024, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Enticement is when an adult communicates with a child via the internet with the intent of committing a sexual offence or abduction. Often, the offender tries to befriend the child and offers money, gifts such as clothing, concert tickets, or jewelry, food, or lodging in exchange for photos. In some cases, these photos are sold or traded. Sextortion is a threat to share nude or sexually explicit images with the public. Sextortion and Enticement take place across all internet venues, including social media, messaging apps, and gaming platforms. Financial Sextortion is where the offender demands money from the child with the promise not to share photos that they already received. Currently, teenage boys have become the most common target for financial sextortion.
What do you do? Reassure the child that they are not to blame. Don’t pay or comply with the threat, that seldom stops the offenders. Block the suspect, but do not delete the profile-it will be needed to pursue the individual. Report the incident to www.Cybertipline.org. These cases are very complex, so get help: gethelp@ncmec.org. For more information, check out: https://www.missingkids.org/netsmartz/home.
By Wendy Hanson | VP for Community Impact
By Wendy Hanson | VP for Community Impact
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