During this holiday season, from now through the New Year, the FBI is warning teens, parents, and educators to be even more vigilant about sextortion, which has risen exponentially in the past few years.
Relatively recently, some Michigan teens have committed suicide because of threats related to sextortion nationwide. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has emphasized that sextortion targets not only teens but younger children and adults. Multiple reports from law enforcement report that sextortion has risen exponentially in the last three years.
We reached out and interviewed local parents, educators and others (who want to remain anonymous) and also conducted cross-referenced research about these threats.
What is sextortion
Sextortion occurs when someone is threatened or blackmailed into providing private/personal sexual imagery via text or the Internet. The predator will then (without consent) shame and potentially devastate the victim by sharing the image(s) via the internet, with mutual friends, the community, in texts or in another widespread, unwanted, and harmful manner. This is all done without the person’s consent and in order to destroy the person’s reputation to degrade them.
The result is the victim is often terrified, dehumanized and traumatized by the potential of this occurring or if it still occurs even after giving in to the demands. Sometimes the predator demands more sexual images, money, or certain favors and is even threatened by violence. When money is demanded, it is called “financial sextortion.” The victim may feel devastated by the loss of standing in the community, by being stigmatized or dehumanized.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) also noted that financial sextortion is on the rise. According to NCMEC, as many as 79% of sextortion predators ask for money rather than more sexual images or favors. According to NCMEC, this year financial sextortion has more than doubled to 20,000 from their most recent data. Last year, the NCMEC tip line received 80,000 reports of the more general inappropriate enticement of children, but those numbers also included financial extortion.
Officials state the holidays are potentially a more vulnerable time because many crimes, in general, are on the rise during the holiday season, such as robberies and cyber crimes as well as youngsters have more leisure time off and may be online and socializing more.
Prominent Michigan cases and local input
A prominent case concerned the now late 17-year-old Jordon DeMay who died by suicide after being blackmailed with sexually explicit photos. Two Nigerian men targeted DeMay via Instagram, who posed as a girl who was interested in him. The Nigerians pressured DeMay for more and more money, even after DeMay had given them some. Authorities tracked down the Nigerians, and extradited them to Michigan, and they are now facing charges. According to the NCMEC many predators find their victims via the internet, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, Online games, online dating sites, chat rooms, or many other online avenues.
Authorities and local community members point out that like trafficking, sextortion also occurs by people known to the victims. Inappropriate photos of youth are reportedly taken in the locker room, while drunk/passed out, by a romantic interest and due to violent threats — and then shared without consent in a shaming and malicious fashion. Photos may be made public for money, favors or just out of pure hatred. The hurt and damage caused is often long-term and perceived as irrevocable.
The FBI states that over 20 minors have committed suicide over the last few years due to extortion of which four have been from Michigan. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports cases in 2023 has greatly outpaced 2022 for reported sextortion.
In a related statistic, the CDC announced that girls are “in crisis” with an unprecedented rise in suicidal behavior with almost 1/3 considering suicide, many associated with threats of sexual violence, assault, and related inappropriate behavior.
New AI technology
In recent years, it has been more commonplace for people to take appropriate and normal images off the internet, such as headshots on LinkedIn or Facebook, and create AI-generated fake explicit photos of girls, also known as “deep fake” images.
School officials at a Winnipeg school notified parents just this past week that doctored photos of female students in grades 7-12 were being shared online to cause harm. AI-generated nude images were recently shared in New Jersey teen girls recently. Many states are now criminalizing the distribution of such images over the internet, even criminalizing the newly distributed deep fake images/videos that did not actually occur. Child pornography laws may also potentially be used against these predators.
Strategies to deal with sextortion
- Contact authorities immediately if you are inappropriately solicited
- Do not delete the evidence if contacted on the Internet, as it can provide evidence and help authorities track down the predators
- While you should never send or text explicit images of yourself on the internet, if you were coerced to do so, remember, it is not your fault. Do not punish yourself or consider suicide. Your life is very important and not defined by those images.
- Do not send any money. Again, contact the authorities.
- Do not make contact with people on the Internet that you don’t know.
- Try not to post too many photos of yourself and your loved ones online.
