Over the past 2 years, four teenagers in Canada have tragically ended their lives due to being the target of a sextortion. As of February 28th, 2024, we’ve now assisted 310 teenagers, and their families, who faced similar threats. It’s crucial to note that the fear of their pictures being exposed can cause immense emotional, psychological, and social distress among teens that can lead to suicidal ideations.
According to Dr Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston,
“teen brains are still developing. When something catastrophic happens, like a personal picture is released to people online, it’s hard for the teen to look past that moment and understand that in the big scheme of things they’ll be able to get through this”
It’s no wonder that some teens will have suicidal ideations that they will sometimes act on.
It’s imperative to alleviate stress in our children as soon as possible, as this can help reduce suicidal ideations. That’s why we’ve been sharing this 10-step emergency protocol, which we have developed over the past couple of years, with teens and parents that we have found effectively reduces stress, while also providing hope to teenagers that things are going to be ok.
- Stop All Communications – Don’t’ Engage
- Don’t Pay Any Ransom (money, gift cards, more pictures or video)
- Screen Record Is Most Desirable, If Not Screen Capture All Communications
- Deactivate But Don’t Delete Yet
- Notify The Police
- Block and Delete
- Don’t Accept Any Friends or Followers For the Next 48hrs
- Set Up Google Alerts
- Don’t Hire A Fee-For-Service Takedown Company
- Change Your Phone Number
#1 Stop All Communications – Don’t Engage:
Immediately STOP all communication with this person (Capper). Often, teens believe that they can negotiate their way out of the situation or lower the price of the ransom. The reality – the longer you try to negotiate your way out of the situation, the worse it will get.
#2 Don’t Pay Any Ransom (money, gift cards, more pictures or video):
Do not pay any ransom that this person may be asking for including money, gift cards, pictures, or more videos (PayPal, Venmo, money order, e-transfer, bitcoin, Apple gift cards). If you pay, you will be labeled a “whale” and they WILL come back for more. According to cybertips.ca report https://bit.ly/3GEor26 in 93% of cases where a ransom is paid, the capper comes back to ask for more money. This is something that we have seen with several teens who we have helped who did pay a ransom. If money was paid, connect with your bank or credit card vendor to see if it can be canceled.
If you have paid a ransom online, you may be able to stop the payment. Here are some of the link to the most common money transfers that are commonly used:
Cash App – https://cash.app/help/3051-canceling-a-payment
Venmo – https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/235171088-Cancel-Payment
Western Union – https://wucare.westernunion.com/s/article/How-do-I-cancel-a-money-transfer?language=en_US
WorldRemit – https://www.worldremit.com/en/faq/cancellations-refunds
Zelle – https://www.zellepay.com/faq/can-i-cancel-payment
#3 Screen Record Is Most Desirable If Not Screen Capture All Communications:
Screen Recording is best evidence if possible, if not then screen capture all communications as evidence if possible. If you can’t screen record/capture, think about placing your device on airplane mode so that any pictures or text-based evidence cannot be deleted remotely by the capper.
#4 Deactivate But Don’t Delete:
Deactivate and don’t delete your account, and do not block or delete this person until after you speak with the police, and they let you know to go ahead and do so. There are times that police may want to conduct an account takeover (pretending to be you) in an attempt to locate the capper. If you delete your account, this can’t happen. Also, do not delete any nude that you sent, often a first instinct for many youth – you will read why this is important in step #5.
#5: Notify The Police:
Given that this is a crime (known as extortion) you should report it to the police first. If it is someone who you know personally, often police can assist in getting the intimate picture or video deleted. However, if this person is someone you do not know, then it has been our experience that people who do this online are usually, not always, located in Russia, Southeast Asia, Somalia, Nigeria, or the Ivory Coast of Africa. Due to this geographical challenge, police intervention might be limited in effectiveness. Nonetheless, we still advise reporting the incident to the authorities, although the decision ultimately rests with you.
Also by reporting it to the police they can work with the Canadian Center For Child Protection https://bit.ly/3NNythw If you still have the nude that you sent, they will take it and do something that is called a “hash” (digitally fingerprint the picture) so that if it does appear online (both on the surface web and the deep web), it will immediately be identified by a program that they use called “Project Arachnid” (Canada Only) https://www.projectarachnid.ca/en/ , and action taken to have it taken down wherever possible – thus why we do not want you to delete the nude that you sent.
***Note***
You can still notify Project Arachnid online for assistance, without having to connect with the police.
In the United States, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have a similar program called “Take It Down” https://takeitdown.ncmec.org/
***Note***
It’s very common that the capper will state that if you notify the police, you will be arrested because if you are under the age of 18 you broke the law by creating and sending in their words “child pornography” which is illegal. However, in Canada, this assertion is legally inaccurate, and you WILL NOT face arrest. This misinformation is intended to heighten pressure for compliance with their demands and dissuade you from contacting law enforcement.
#6: Block and Delete:
After informing the police and receiving their approval to block and delete the capper, proceed accordingly. However, if you opt not to involve law enforcement, promptly block, and delete the individual. If you choose to retain your account, make it private, change your password, and activate two-factor authentication if available.
#7 Don’t Accept Any Friends or Followers For the Next 48hrs
Once you have blocked and deleted the person, they will attempt to reconnect with you via a different feed or social network. Do not accept any new friends or follow requests on any of your platforms for the next 48hrs, and do not answer any calls from people you don’t recognize including on Apps like Snapchat.
Based on our experience with 310 teenagers we’ve assisted, it’s “likely” that the nude images won’t be widely redistributed. In fact, we haven’t encountered a single instance where the sent nudes were widely disseminated. While we can’t guarantee this won’t occur (as we’ve heard reports of it happening elsewhere), none of our cases have resulted in widespread distribution – not one. However, in six instances, the nude images were shared with one or two friends as part of the coercion tactics to compel payment of the ransom. It’s not uncommon for the perpetrator to send you screenshots of your friends on social media to increase pressure for compliance with their demands. If this happens, and your face was not in the picture, then you have deniability and can say “that’s not me” to those few friends and followers who were sent the picture/video. If your face was in the picture, it would make it more difficult, but good friends will not re-distribute.
Additionally, it’s crucial to understand that several leading social networks employ highly effective artificial intelligence (AI) systems. These systems can swiftly detect and remove nude content posted in public areas of their platforms, although this isn’t always guaranteed. If such content isn’t promptly removed, it’s advisable to contact the social media platform directly to request its removal.
Usually, after 48hrs, this person will move on to another target because time is money to these criminals. This is a money game, and time is money in their world. If they think they can get anything from you, they will continue to put time and effort into their pressure campaign. Thus, why blocking, deleting, and having no more interaction is so important.
#8 Set Up Google Alerts:
The next step, set up Google Alerts https://www.google.ca/alerts – you will need a Gmail account to use this tool. In the Google Alerts search bar, type your name in quotation marks “John Smith”. By doing this, Google will search your full name every day and if the nude gets posted/reposted and tagged with your name on the surface web, Google will likely pick up on it and send you an alert to your Gmail account. Now if you get an alert, don’t panic, there may be hundreds of other people in the world who have the same first and last name as yours. If you get an alert, click on it, and make sure it is you. If it is your nude, you will now know where it is being hosted online and can then make an application to have it taken down as child sexual abuse material if you are under the age of 18yrs.
#9 Don’t Hire A Fee-For-Service Takedown Company:
Be very careful about hiring a company that advertises that for a fee they can stop the capper from distributing the intimate images sent, and recover the intimate images sent so they could not be used again. We have worked with several teens and their parents where they located such a company online, and paid a significant amount of money, and in the end, these companies stated they did everything possible but there was nothing they could do.
#10 Change Your Phone Number:
We’ve encountered multiple instances where sharing your phone number with the scammer and complying with their ransom demands led to them passing your number to another scammer, who then targets you. This underscores the importance of taking action if you’ve shared your number. Reach out to your cellphone provider to change your number. While it might be inconvenient, it’s a crucial step to avoid further contact from these criminals.
Again, we know how traumatic an intimate image/video that goes or is threatened to go public online can be for youth. Remember, once the capper reveals themselves, they will “induce stress, anxiety, or discomfort so that the victim will make decisions that contravene their best interest”, this is especially true with youth & teens!
We must emphasize that in most cases that we have been involved in, where it was a stranger (capper) that targeted a teen for sextortion, in the vast majority of cases the nude is not redistributed – but we can’t guarantee this fact. However, in most cases after 48hrs, these cappers will move on to their next target and the nude will not be posted and you will not hear from the capper again.
For more in-depth information on sextortion, we have dedicated a whole chapter in our FREE web book for parents on the topic that you can find here https://thewhitehatter.ca/sextortion/
The White Hatter
