Financial Sextortion Schemes Mainly Target Teenagers: Report

Lauren Sforza and The Hill

41 minutes ago

(The Hill) — Teenagers are the most common targets of financial “sextortion” schemes, often conducted through Instagram and other social media platforms, according to a new report.

The report was released Monday jointly by technology company Thorn and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and examined more than 15 million reports made to NCMEC's ​​CyberTipline from 2020 to 2023.

The study found that sextortion is on the rise, with an average of 812 reports of sextortion per week to NCMEC over the past year.

The report defines sextortion as “the threat to reveal sexual images of a person if they do not comply with their demands.” The report found that about two-thirds of all reports involved requests for money.

Research noted that in the past, sextortion programs frequently affected girls and included demands of a “sexual or relationship nature.”

However, the latest report reveals that most victims of financial sextortion are now boys. The report found that 90% of victims of financial sextortion were boys aged 14 to 17.

“These reports often involve cases of “catfishing” (in this case, an attacker pretends to be another young person) to manipulate a teenager into sharing sexual images or videos of themselves. The perpetrator then threatens to share these images with family, friends, or followers unless they are paid,” the report states.

The report reveals that Instagram is the most common platform listed in financial sextortion data. Facebook and YouTube were also frequently mentioned as platforms where perpetrators threatened to post content.

Instagram was mentioned in 81.3% of threats to distribute content online and was the platform of choice in 60% of reports in which content was ultimately distributed online.

Instagram and Snapchat were also the two main platforms where first contact was made with victims. Instagram was listed as a first contact platform in 45.1% of reports mentioning a first contact platform, while Snapchat was listed 31.6% of the time.

The Hill has reached out to Instagram and Snapchat for comment.

YouTube said in a statement: “These schemes are abhorrent, and we are committed to removing content that is intended to harm our community. We take this issue very seriously and have strict policies in place to protect our users from scams and other harmful behavior, and we rigorously enforce them using a combination of human review and machine learning technology.”