In Friday’s episode, I talked about AI porn and how the ability to make deepfake pornography from photos of kids and teens is just the latest technology-based issue for you to discuss with your teenager.

And unfortunately, there are a couple of other related online dangers that I want to talk to you about today that your kid may be vulnerable to. Both of these issues involve online extortion and have warranted recent public service announcements from the FBI, and concern from government agencies in the UK, Canada, Australia and beyond. Stay with me and I’ll explain.

This is Speaking of Teens, the podcast that that teaches you the science of parenting adolescents so you can be less stressed and more excited about having a teenager. I’m Ann Coleman, I’m an attorney turned parent educator and I’ve spent years studying the science of teen behavior and I want to help you learn how to parent your teens for the best possible outcome.

First, let me talk to you a little about the issue of online sexual extortion or sextortion. I discussed it back in episode 32 in the context of sexting. But the problem has only grown since then and you and your kid, especially your son, need to understand how very dangerous it is.

If you’ve never heard of sextortion, let me tell you what you need to know.

The individuals who perpetrate these crimes are men, and they primarily target teenage boys – typically between 14 and 17 years old.

These criminals will either hack a boys account to find compromising photos or other information they could leak, but they appear to mostly hack a teenage girl’s Instagram account and pretend to be her or set up some other type of fake account as a teenage girl.

So, generally they’re online masquerading as someone their age - a cute girl, and they start interacting with the boy. Sometimes it takes days or weeks and sometimes it happens within hours – they send the boy a nude photo of a young girl to entice the boy into sending them a nude photo. They generally will insist that the photo include his face. Once they have the photo, the campaign of extortion begins. The perpetrator threatens to send the photos to everyone, hack in and post it to their Instagram feed, send it to their parents, unless the victim sends them hundreds or thousands of dollars or gift cards or sends more photos. And even if they comply – they demand more. It’s not only disgusting and perverted but it has also proven deadly.

These subhuman monsters have directly caused the suicide of at least 21 adolescent boys, inflicted emotional pain and severe trauma on countless others and is the fastest growing crime targeting children and teens, in the U.S., Canada, and Australia – but other counties are on the radar as well.

The largest ring of these criminals calls themselves the Yahoo Boys and they share their strategies and tactics for these crimes on TikTok, YouTube and something called Scribd, allowing others to learn how to do it themselves.

They most often use Instagram, Snapchat and another one I’ve never heard of – Wizz to find their targets. And, according to the FBI, they’re also using what I talked about Friday, generative AI, to perpetrate these crimes. That means they’re taking a photo of the kid from a public online space or maybe hacking it from their account and using AI to make this believable nude or explicit image of them and then threatening to share it out as the real thing. So, this type of sextortion doesn’t even require tricking your teen into sharing a nude photo – any photo of them online will do. That’s especially frightening.

The Network Contagion Research Institute was actually tracking these incidents in 2021 and says from 2021 to 2022 there was a 7,200% increase in sextortion against kids and teens.

Then the FBI issued a warning about it in early 2023 because they had seen another 1000% increase in sextortion from in 2022, with at least 3000 teen victims (again, mostly boys) with this crime being blamed at this point with 21 suicides. The FBI Director Wray calls this is “global crisis that demands everyone’s attention”.

Australian authorities said just days ago that sextortion cases of adolescent boys is up 400% in the past 18 months.

Cybertip.ca says in 2023 there was an 88% increase in sextortion of teens. They received 2,500 reports in 2023 and right now receive an average of 10 reports a day.

Additionally, the Internet Watch Foundation in the UK just reported in March that sextortion cases of boys there increased by eightfold from 2022 to 2023.

But understand this – these are only the cases that have been reported. There’s no doubt that countless other teens and families have faced this issue in silence and even paid the extortionists. The amount of humiliation, shame, and trauma these boys face when confronted with, “pay up or everyone you know will see your naked photo and know what you were doing online” – it cannot be overstated.

And consider this, Snap - Snapchat’s parent company – released research they conducted on this issue just under a year ago and it’s pretty shocking.

According to their data, approximately 2 out of every 3 teenagers on social media are targeted by sexual extortionists and about one-third of those teens, had shared explicit photos with the perpetrator (as opposed to having their account hacked). We’re talking about tens of millions of kids here.

And I should mention that Instagram just rolled out a tool they think may help protect against this type of online crime. Of course, I’ll link to their announcement, and you can read it for yourself. They say they’re “defaulting teens into stricter messaging settings so they can’t be messaged by anyone they’re not already connected to, show Safety Notices to teens who are already in contact with potential scam accounts, and offer a dedicated option for people to report DMs that are threatening to share private images.”

They also announced that they will “soon start testing our new nudity protection feature in Instagram DMs, which blurs images detected as containing nudity and encourages people to think twice before sending nude images. This feature is designed not only to protect people from seeing unwanted nudity in their DMs, but also to protect them from scammers who may send nude images to trick people into sending their own images in return.”

“Nudity protection will be turned on by default for teens under 18 globally, and we’ll show a notification to adults encouraging them to turn it on.

When nudity protection is turned on, people sending images containing nudity will see a message reminding them to be cautious when sending sensitive photos, and that they can unsend these photos if they’ve changed their mind.”

Okay, hold on a minute, while I call Mark Zuckerberg: Yes, hello, Zuck please, Yeah, it’s Ann. Hey Zuck, how are ya? So, you have 3 girls right, Maxima (cute name by the way,) she’ll be 10 soon, right? Let me ask you this, do you just want the old perve’s pictures blurred when they send them into their DMs? I have an idea – let’s not let people send nudes – period – on any of your platforms? Deal? Good talk.

Seriously, if Instagram has the technology to see someone is sending a nude, why allow it at all?! Why allow nudity on the platform at all? What the hell?

So, let’s talk about what’s happening in your teenager’s mind here. And again, it’s generally boys that end up falling for the scam. Boys probably don’t even think about being the victim of a sexual crime – it’s usually girls that we always talk about and worry about being victims - online or in person, right? So this sort of scheme wouldn’t even be on their radar.

Some pretty teenage girl reaches out to them, flatters them, befriends them, says she lives in the same state, looks totally normal, sounds totally normal in messages, why would they ever think it’s some 35-year-old Nigerian dude sitting in his kitchen with a laptop just waiting for the money to roll in. And I didn’t make that up by the way – the FBI and other international sources say these criminals mostly originate in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast – at least two of them have been arrested, extradited and charged here in the US related to the suicide of a teenage boy in Michigan.

So, not only is your son not thinking about the possibility of being extorted online but their brain’s reward system is going to be intensely revved up by this online relationship which seems perfectly legit and new and exciting.

So, when the girl says, “here’s my pic, send me yours” – or whatever they say to each other – he thinks nothing of it – because I’m telling you, sending a nude photo of oneself for a teenager, is simply not as big of a deal as it would have been for us at that age.

And when the threats start, the kid’s not only thinking oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…and totally panicked out of his mind, he may also be thinking, how am I going to pay them without telling my parents because they’re going to kill me and I’m going to be grounded for life and what am I going to do?!

This is one of those times where your connection with your teen matters more than anything else. If they’re terrified to tell you they’ve really messed up, that’s when the really dark thoughts can creep in and it’s those dark thoughts that have driven boys to take their own life. We’ll talk about that connection again shortly.

Online Gangs

Now let me tell you about a similar type of threat that I just became aware of and mentioned in last week’s newsletter; these violent online groups that, again, operate on platforms and social media sites widely used by minors, like Discord, Telegram, Instagram, Soundcloud and Roblox. And although the platforms know about these groups, they’ve been unable to do much about them so far because the members are very adept at evading whatever they do to block them.

The people in these groups are even more sick and twisted than sextortionists and they are intent on victimizing minors. What they do is beyond horrific.

They use various extortion techniques which could include obtaining explicit pictures, threat of SWATing or DOXing[1] to coerce kids and teens into committing acts on live stream. The FBI says they are targeting kids between 8 and 17 and especially LGBTQ+ kids and teens, racial minorities and those who are struggling with mental health issues; depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm. They are targeting the most vulnerable.

I hate to even speak out loud what they’ve forced kids to do while being live streamed – but just so you understand the violence and the seriousness of it, I’ll give you a brief and very sanitized version…they’ve coerced kids into killing their own pets, drink from toilets, cut the abusers initials into their own bodies, attempt suicide and apparently die by suicide.

According to reports, some of these abusers are in it for sexual gratification, some for power or control, or just for the hell of it and others record the videos or explicit content and sell it on the dark web. They are the sickest of the sick.

A consortium of journalists from The Washington Post, Wired magazine and Der Spiegel and Recorder uncovered thousands of members spread across multiple countries and at least 3 continents. And The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says they received hundreds of reports about kids and teens extorted into hurting themselves last year and continue to receive dozens of reports each month.

These are seriously scary people – some of which have been linked to nihilist Eastern European skinheads who’ve been accused of murders and attacks in Russia and Ukraine and others who’ve committed kidnappings, robberies, weapons violations, and killings. And others who’ve been connected to a neo-Nazi satanist cult in Great Britain.

Again, these are sophisticated networks of psychos and sociopaths who are hellbent on (and are) systematically victimizing kids worldwide – it’s not just some crazy one-off story.

How do we talk to our kids about this?

First, I think you need to try and understand their online world a little better. To give you  some insight, I consulted a technology nonprofit THORN. THORN does some really impressive research and creates products to fight child sexual abuse on a really broad scale – they work with over 21 thousand law enforcement agencies and NGO partners. And they work with online platforms, parents and influence policy in the US and the EU. I’ll link to a great TED Talk by their CEO Julia Cordua.

According to their research on online grooming, one in three kids say they meet some of their closest friends online. One in seven say they’ve shared something with someone online that they’ve never shared before with anyone.

And, as I’ve mentioned before LGBTQ+ kids and other marginalized groups are even more at risk – online communities are even more important for them to feel themselves and safe. These kids are twice as likely to say they’ve shared something with someone online that they’ve never shared before with anyone and they’re more likely to respond to messages from people they meet online.

Teens and tweens also, according to THORN’s research, find it easy to flirt and find romance online and at least one on four report they don’t stick to their own age group when doing this – many will flirt with much older people. And this is one of those “norms” that can easily lead to abuse and extortion.

THORN points out that any platform where kids and teens talk to each other or upload content, is an open arena for predators. This is where they find their targets and then set about gaining their trust – grooming them for future abuse. Once they gain their trust, they usually move to a private online setting, like in another platform or private chat so no one else can see what’s going on and they can make their move. Around 2 out of 3 kids say they’ve had this happen to them – an online contact asking them to move to a private conversation.

Now kids are not ignorant of these tactics. As a matter of fact over half have reported they believe online grooming is a common experience for kids their age and around 40% say they’ve actually experienced it.

But then listen to a couple of quotes from kids from THORN’s website:

A 17-year-old girl says, “I think it is normal for people to connect with people online that they haven’t met in person because social media is such a big part of people’s [lives] that people will start to meet people online and form bonds.”

A 12-year-old female says, “Well I knew that I would never meet this person, so it made me comfortable to talk about anything. It made me feel excited. It was much more convenient for me because I am not allowed to date.”

They way you and I think about the internet or anything else for that matter, is simply not the way teens think.

So, understanding this is first. And then obviously, you caution your teens about what some very evil people are out there doing and that they are so good at it that thousands of teens have been victimized and that no matter how much they think they would be able to tell if someone is telling the truth about who they are, they can’t. Also tell them you understand that AI is being used to manipulate innocent pictures and that if anything like this ever happens to them, despite these conversations you’re having, that you will help them – no questions asked – they come to you first. You must convince them you’re their first stop.

The FBI also says, and I certainly agree – you need to not only monitor your teen’s online activity, but you have to teach them how to be careful online, not to ever share any type of personal information, to carefully consider all photos they share and to remember that they can be very easily manipulated through AI now. Everything online is fair game for predators and criminals.

The FBI also says it’s a really good idea to run frequent online searches of everyone’s name in your family, their phone numbers, your address, to what’s out there. Use reverse image search engines to find any photos online that you don’t know about, limit public exposure by making sure everyone keeps their online accounts private.

Talk to your kids about accepting friend requests, messaging, having video conversations with, or sending pictures to people they don’t know in real life. Remind them that anything can be screen-captured, recorded, manipulated, shared, and used to exploit them in the future.

Explain that if someone were to try and extort money from them to never give it to them because it absolutely does not stop them from sharing what they have. Again, you should be their first stop.

Tell them to be especially cautious if someone they actually do know in real life suddenly appears to be acting differently online. Explain how accounts can be easily hacked by these criminals.

The FBI also says to use complex passwords and multi-factor authentication when possible to make it harder for hackers to get into your online accounts.

And I’ll have lots of resources in the show notes and remember you can also get the transcript to this episode right there in the episode description where you’re listening.

Now, finally, let me remind you that in these types of situations and every situation, how important your connection to your teenager is.

If you’re a regular listener, you know I say all the time that your connection with your teen, is your only influence. Your influence in their life is completely dependent on your relationship with them, how well you listen, support their autonomy, acknowledge their feelings and opinions, allow them to make mistakes and decisions with guidance, how well you teach and guide them rather than punish and control them.

If you do this right, your teen will trust you, they will feel safe sharing personal, emotional, private, or possibly upsetting things with you. Things like being extorted for money because they made a mistake and shared a nude photo of themselves.

On the other hand, if you’re always in conflict with your teen, constantly battling for control, you stay upset with them, correct them more than you try to connect with them, punish them for every infraction, parent by making them fear you, by lecturing, yelling, and on and on. Your teen will not trust you with information that you need…so you can help them. Instead, they will fear your wrath, your anger, your punishment, your over-the-top emotions or your utter disappointment and disgust. And in that case, what do they do? They feel their back is up against a wall.

Specifically, understand that if your kid gets caught doing something wrong, makes a mistake, screws up, they will base their decision about sharing potentially incriminating information in the future, largely on your response right now.

Are you helpful or hurtful? Kind and firm or impatient and unfair? Whether they get caught vaping, sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, or coming home drunk – they’re gauging your response and filing it away in their mind, and will base future decisions on it.

So, if you guide them and help them to learn how to NOT do these things in the future, they will be much more trusting of you in the future. Having calm discussions, figuring out how you can help them stop vaping, perhaps negotiate a later curfew, help them with refusal skills – these tactics build trust and connection.

But getting angry, yelling, lecturing, taking away their phone or computer, will not help them quit vaping, will not help them stop sneaking out, will not help them avoid alcohol. It will simply teach them to do better job of being sneaky, so they won’t get caught…and will show them your intolerance for mistakes. I’m not saying consequences are never okay but there are so many other ways to help your teen learn how to manage life and rebound from mistakes, which will protect your relationship and your influence.  I’ll link to some other episodes to help.

What if despite all your efforts, and conversations your teen does become a victim?

Per the FBI, if you’re in the US, report it to your local FBI field office, call 1-800-CALL-FBI, or report it online at tips.fbi.gov.

In Canada report to Cybertip.ca

In Great Britain report to the CEOP

In Australia report it to the eSafety Commissioner

Again – all links will be in the show notes through the episode description – including a link to all other European reporting channels.

 

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has outlined steps parents and young people can take if they or their child are a victim of sextortion, including:

• Remember, the predator is to blame, not your child or you.
• Get help before deciding whether to pay money or otherwise comply with the predator. Cooperating or paying rarely stops the blackmail and continued harassment.
• REPORT the predator’s account via the platform’s safety feature.
• BLOCK the predator and DO NOT DELETE the profile or messages because that can be helpful to law enforcement in identifying and stopping them.
• Let NCMEC help get explicit images of you off the internet.
• Visit org/IsYourExplicitContentOutThere to learn how to notify companies yourself or visit cybertipline.org to report to us for help with the process.
• Ask for help. This can be a very complex problem and may require help from adults or law enforcement.
• If you don’t feel that you have adults in your corner, you can reach out to NCMEC for support at gethelp@ncmec.org or call NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST.

I certainly hope I haven’t totally scared you to death, but I just wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t give you as much information as possible to keep your teens safe. Just remember, brief conversations are best, in the car or side by side on a walk or doing chores, no big sit downs. And if you need to work on your connection, please go check out my series on connection in episodes 104, 106, 108 and 110.

That’s it for today, I’m glad you were here with me and I hope you got something valuable out of today’s episode. Please consider sharing it with other parents who might appreciate it and come join us in the Facebook Group to join the conversation. The link is at the bottom of the episode description in your app.

And if you enjoy the show, be sure to check out Parent Camp, our online community of parents just like you, learning to be the best parents they can be. The link is also right there in your app in the episode description.

Alright, until next time, remember, a little change, goes a long way.

[1] ¹SWAT also referred to as SWATTING is the action or practice of making a prank call to police or emergency services in an attempt bring about the dispatch of armed police officers such as a SWAT team to a particular address.

²DOX also referred to as DOXXING is the action of obtaining and publishing personally identifiable information (PII) on the internet, usually for malicious intent.

³Fansigning is writing or cutting specific numbers, letters, symbols, or names onto your body.