Sexttort occurs when a predator using a fake or hacked account has a sexual conversation online and threatens you with a nude photo or sexually explicit message you exchanged. Masu. Even if you don’t send nude photos, crimes can occur. The scary person uses artificial intelligence to generate highly trustworthy images.
The most common victims of financial sextori are teenagers aged 13-17.
In extreme cases, you can often connect to a suicide within 24 hours.
Red flag to watch out for:
Those who reach out are strangers. If you do not share mutual friends with strangers who received the message, or if your profile is unusual, blurry, or highly edited, you will need to raise the alarm bell. In some cases, the account is very trustworthy. Hacked by a real teenager or curated with photos for over a month. The shaking becomes sexual immediately. Users insist on texting instead. Predators often ask to move their conversations from social media to a private text platform or another encrypted messaging service. Language is unusual. Since con artists can be non-native English speakers, poor grammar and unusual languages are also tip-offs for those who assume a false identity.
If you or your child is born six minutes
Block predators on social media, block additional text messaging or video calling platforms you communicated, and don’t send money to predators.
We have reported predator accounts for abuse of social media platforms, but please keep accounts and documents for all messages. Having paper marks with timestamps is essential to finding the identity of the criminal.
Use the National Center for Missing and Exploed CybertiPline at Report.cybertip.org, call 1-800-843-5678, contact your local FBI field office, or FBI.gov/home Please report to
Scammed minors can work to delete images from the Internet through NCMEC’s Take It Down service. If you are over 18 years old, use stopcnii.org to delete the image.
Tell someone a relative, teacher, coach, counselor, mentor, or someone from a religious organization.
If you need immediate mental health help, you can call or text the 988 Suicide Hotline.
Make sure that the victims of sexttorter are supported.
Bottom line: The threatening person is to take responsibility, not the person who communicated with them. It is the predators who committed the crime.
Parents and communities, including schools and law enforcement, need to share information and work together to openly talk about online safety. Educators, doctors and parents should keep up to date with NCMEC and FBI alerts and follow the trends of online abuse.
Tips for parents
If you want to talk to teenagers about sexttort, here are some things you need to know before having a conversation.
Evasion is outdated: Telling teens to avoid social media platforms or not interact with strangers online is outdated advice given the scale of the problem, and cybersecurity experts says. Furthermore, thanks to AI, children can be threatened regardless of whether they first shared a naked image. over time. Discuss internet abuse in a broader context than what healthy relationships and boundaries should look like, explaining that it’s not okay to put pressure or pressure someone to sexually behaviour on. Have three trustworthy adults who can put them in crisis will be named. A trustworthy adult could be a relative, teacher, coach, counselor, mentor, or someone from a religious organization. Prevention prioritization: How to create and implement emergency plans with teens in advance to navigate online abuse when targeted, just like how to prepare for fire drills and tornadoes. know. A policy that allows teens to look to them for help in dangerous situations with no consequences. This is reminiscent of the law of a good Samaritan. Make sure the kids know that it’s not their fault: predator victims blame the teens and create a sense of isolation, so that they don’t report sexttor I’ll do it. Adults need to make sure that even if they make a mistake, the threatening person knows that they are responsible and not them.
Resources for teens and adults
FBI TIPLINE: Victims can contact their local FBI field office or report the FBI to CybertIPLine at TIPS.FBI.GOV.NCMEC. 843-5678.ncmec’s Take it Down Service: The service works by assigning a digital fingerprint called a hash value that reports sexually explicit photos or videos from minors. These hash values allow online platforms to delete content without the original image or video being displayed. Takeitdown.ncmec.org/.988 Start case tickets with Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. If you need immediate mental health help, you can call or text the 988 Suicide Hotline.
Illustrations by USA Today and Veronica Bravo
This article is part of an ongoing USA Today series examining the surge in financial sextomies and the impact on mental health on teenagers. The first article in the series discussed online terms that should raise the red flag to teens and their parents. The second article describes teenage suicides linked to Sexttorth.
If you would like to share your experiences with Sexttorth, cybercrime, or recovery scammers, please contact us here.
Rachel Hale’s role in covering youth mental health at USA Today is funded by grants from pivotal ventures. Important ventures do not provide editor input. Contact her at [email protected] and @rachelleighhale.