Parents and Caregivers:
We’ve become aware of multiple incidents where teens have been targeted online for sextortion, but not because they sent a nude of themselves. In these cases, offenders, usually organized crime groups, have used AI deepfake apps, something that we talk about here https://thewhitehatter.ca/deepnudes-undressing-ai-generated-intimate-image-abuse-material/ ,to manipulate fully clothed photos that were screen captured from a teen’s public social media platform like Instagram. The altered images are then “nudified” to extort money or actual explicit content from the targeted teens, with threats to share the manipulated images publicly or with parents if the teen does not comply with the offenders depmands. We recently assisted a family where the teen provided the picture from their social media platform to confirm that they had not sent a nude, but that an existing picture on their social media platform was screen captured and nudified.
This is yet another reason why teaching youth and teens to keep their social media profiles private and being cautious about online connections can help minimize this risk, it’s also essential to understand that this strategy may not entirely prevent such incidents from occurring.
It is also important for parents and caregivers to understand that sometimes the nude being weaponized may not have been self-generated by their child! Why is this important, in the case we assisted on, the parent at first did not believe it was an AI generated nudified picture given that they were unaware that such technology existed.
Knowledge and the understanding and application of that knowledge is power and information to be useful must be shared!
Digital Food For Thought
The White Hatter
