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In this podcast, we are going to be discussing the crime of sextortion and youth vulnerability to this real online threat – Not only are we going to define what sextortion is, we are also going to discuss the two major types of sextortion that youth will likely face online, what parents can do to educate their kids on this topic from a prevention standpoint, and best practices as to what to do next if your child does fall victim to this online threat.
Resources mentioned:
Our Website: www.thewhitehatter.ca
Our FREE webbook “Parenting In An Online World” https://www.thewhitehatter.ca/book-list
How to request the removal of an intimate image/video from popular social networks https://ln5.sync.com/dl/d501b6eb0#jb2gyj5r-9p8yyu4d-vkd5j56s-n7bvc5ky
Welcome to the White Hatter parenting in an online world podcast! On this podcast, we are going to take a more holistic approach to online safety in an “enlightening” and not “frightening” way, based facts and not fear. We will provide parents, caregivers, and educators with real-world examples, experiences, and evidence-based research that will help to keep our kids safer emotionally, psychologically, physically, and even socially when they are navigating today’s onlife world. Let’s get after it shall we!
Well…….welcome everyone, I’m Darren and I am excited to be your host, and On this podcast we are going to talk about teens and sextortion but To do this, we must first define what sextortion is. Here’s my definition:
“Sextortion is a serious crime that occurs when someone, either known or unknown, threatens to publicly distribute your private intimate image or video that you sent them if you don’t provide further sexualized images or video, sexual favors, money, or financial alternatives such as e-gift cards like iTunes cards”
It is so important that youth and teens, no matter what their sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as parents and caregivers become more aware of the pretexts, tactics, and strategies being used specific to this online threat. Given my 30 years in law enforcement, I became a student of history when it came to tactics. As Sun Tzu, a wise and ancient Chinese warrior once stated, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
If we parents and caregivers can understand the tricks and lures that these online predators will use, we can now create counter tactics that we can share with our kids.
An important note – stranger danger education of the past doesn’t work, especially when it comes to sextortion in the online world! Why?
The Internet and social media have changed the traditional “binary” meaning of the word friend. To say an online “follower” “subscriber”, or “Friend” is not the same thing as a real friend, is often factually incorrect in today’s onlife world; doing so will only result in your child ignoring your message of online safety as “Boomer” logic. Sometimes an online follower can be a friend, and sometimes not. However, sometimes a friend can also be an online frienemy. Identifying anyone online, either known or unknown, who has bad intentions, based upon a label be it stranger, friend, follower, subscriber can often be a significant challenge for youth (and even adults), in today’s onlife world. Once again, this is why parents need to move away from teaching stranger danger, and start teaching situational danger when it comes to keeping our kids safer in the onlife world. Remember, It is much easier for youth to understand dangerous situations, rather than a “stranger profile and this is what today’s podcast is all about
It has been our experience that there are two categories of sextortion that parents, caregivers, and teens need to know about.
The first category of Sextortion is committed by someone who the intended target knows, loves, or trusts. Here Nudes are shared in an intimate relationship and are later posted after the relationship ends as a revenge weapon utilized for peer embarrassment, or as a threat to be published if a partner is considering leaving a relationship. Example, “If you break up with me I’m going to send your nudes to everyone at school”
However, the second and the largest category of Sextortion is often committed by someone the youth or teen does not know and just met online – someone who we like to call the “capper”, which is short for “capturing” .
Although cappers can be located anywhere in the world, it has been our experience that many operate as organized online crime groups, and are usually located in Russia, South East Asia, Somalia, or Nigeria. Why, risks are low of law enforcement involvement and any subsequent legal consequences.
In this podcast, we are going to be concentrating primarily on the second category of sextoritist – the capper!
From January 2020 to June 2022 we here at the White Hatter have now helped 87 teens, 85 identified as teen boys, 2 identified as teen girls, all were under the age of 18yrs (the youngest was 13yrs), who were targeted online by a sexualized capper and then extorted for money. In all these cases, the sextortion took place in under thirty minutes of initiating first contact with a targeted youth online.
For perspective, here are some interesting 2022 stats and facts from the Canadian Center For Child Protection specific to youth sextortion in Canada.
Between December 2021 and May 2022, they have seen a 150% increase in youth being sextorted in Canada.
Cybertips.ca on average receives 57 teen sextortion reports per month from across Canada
87% of sextortion incidents were targeted toward those who identified as teen boys. This is also reflected in the cases that we have assisted teens and families with as well
PAUSE
So now that we know what sextortion is and who the capper is, let’s talk about the sextortion Pretext – in other words, how does the capper bait their digital hook to capture their target.
Often, the capper will initiate contact with a youth utilizing social media platforms that are popular with teens such as Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Omegle, Emerald Chat, and gaming sites. Once contact is initiated, one or a combination of these three strategies are often utilized:
1 – The Baiting/Grooming phase – here, the capper will unsolicitedly connect with the teen, often pretending to be the opposite gender of the intended target. They use a curated fake account, also knows as a “sock puppet” that is peppered with screen scraped pictures that they have copied from the internet as the bait.
Remember, wherever youth are online, no matter what the platform, there will be those who will want to target our kids for online predation and exploitation using these fake accounts.
A common trait of these sock puppet accounts that we have identified! – often they will have a high following number, combined with a high follower number, but the actual number of posts made by the owner of the account will be extremely small, usually under 5. Most will also contain info in the bio that will lead to a link where more private communications can take place like a SnapChat account link
Now, Here’s a real-world example of an unsolicited first contact, initiated by a capper, that was directed at a teen here in Canada that we helped, who was targeted and lured online using a sock puppet account. This led to the capper convincing the targeted teen to move over to snapchat, where the actual sexual online acts took place, which were then covertly recorded and used to sextort the teen.
Capper – Hi , how are you doing?
Teen – Good, how are you?
Capper – not bad either, where are you from??
Teen – BC Canada, WBU?
Capper – Vancouver
Teen – Nice I’m from Langley, How old are you?
Capper – 17 , 18 in a few weeks
Capper – HBU
Teen – 17 in a few months (actually much younger)
Capper – Oh Cool, What do you do for fun?
Teen – Basketball, WBU?
Capper – I love to hang out with my friends, I love tennis and sexy games too
Teen – Nice
Capper – Yeah
Teen – Wdym (what do you mean) by sexy games?? Laughing emoji
Capper – it just exchange of pictures without screenshot, but on snapchat tho
Teen – What’s your Snap
Capper – xxxx_xxx
Teen – K I’ll add you, Did you get it
Once the capper connects with the teen, usually via a direct message, they will escalate their interaction sexually to the point where they will ask the youth , as just mentioned, to move to a more “private” communication platform such as Google Hangouts, Skype, Instagram private messaging, or Snapchat messaging – this is something known as off-platforming by the capper community. Why is off platforming important to the capper, because they want to cut their prey from the heard – privacy become their primary goal before they make their move to sextort. Once they have moved the teen to a more private communication platform, they will begin to exchange sexualized language which then escalates to nude pictures or live video of sexual acts being shared.
However, Unknown to the teen, everything being shared (text, pictures, and video), is actually being covertly recorded without their knowledge, which will then be used for the purpose of extorting money, or obtaining financial goods such as iTune cards, or even obtaining more nudes from their target.
Once the nude has been captured, the next step that is common is a Direct Threat – which is used as a pressure and manipulation tactic, the capper will threaten to forward the screen captures or a recorded video to a teen’s friends, followers, or a school’s Facebook or Instagram account. This tactic increases the likelihood of compliance by stating that if the targeted teen doesn’t pay the ransom, or send more nudes, then the nudes the capper does possess will be sent to a youth’s friends, followers, or their school’s public social media account. It has been our experience that although this type of threat is common, it is often not carried out. However, we also know of some rare cases where this threat has been carried out, especially on Snapchat. In fact, we helped one teen, and their family, where this was the case.
Now the last tactic that we have seen is what we categorize as an Implied Threat – here, the Capper will connect with the teen on a social media platform where they will send their target a direct message saying that they have seen “nudes” of the teen on a specific site. They will then attach a phishing link that directs the teen to see where their nudes have been posted. Once the student clicks the link, it will take them to a fake social media account sign-in page, where the teen will often enter their user name and password which is now captured by the Capper. The Capper now having this information will sign into the teen’s Social media account, take it over, lock the teen out, and hold the account hostage unless the teen sends them money or nudes.
Now Teens are smart; because of the news, social media safety education programs, and learning from their peers who have fallen victim to sextortion, many are aware of the tactics being used by cappers to bait them into the sextortion trap. However, Cappers Are Adapting To Teen Counter Measures:
In the past, and still continuing today, cappers will often use screen-scraped nudes from porn sites or looping recorded porn video as their bait. Many teens know this, and therefore will employ counter-tactics in an attempt to confirm that the person they are interacting with, via a private live stream, is in fact a real person and not a looping recorded porn video. As an example – a teen will ask the other person they are communicating with to touch their nose or make the ok sign with their hand. If the person they are interacting with does not comply with this request, many teens will assume that they are in fact interacting with a video and will break from all further discussions.
However, since January 2022, we have helped several teens, and their families, where the teen ended up being sextorted online by a “real” teen female they first met in an open social network. As the youth was being groomed online, they were convinced to transition over to a more private space to engage in sexualized behaviour that no one else could see.
In these cases, rather than using a recorded looping nude video, the teen female was a real person who sexually engaged with the youth via a live streaming video. We believe the females in these cases are not willing participants, but likely victims of human trafficking that a capper was using as the lure to hook their intended target. However, in some cases they may be willing participants. As an example, Here’s an actual posting that we located on the dark web that was posted by a capper:
“By a happy coincidence, I now have a girl that I will partner with in order to make some money e-whoring with. She is in her mid 20’s, attractive, more the cute type of girl. She told me she would do pictures and video and also send verifications when people ask for it”
Once their intended target shares an intimate image/video of themselves, the actual capper behind the camera then reveals the trap and begins the extortion process. In all the cases we have assisted with where a real person was used, the capper also sent screenshots they captured from the recorded video or a picture sent to several online friends of the youth , that they located on the targeted teens Snapchat or Instagram account, as a part of the sextortion process to increase pressure on the targeted teen to pay a ransom.
Most teens have been educated about capping and sextortion, where pictures and recorded looping video are commonly used as the bait. However, many are not aware that some cappers have upped their game and are now using “real” teen females, who are likely being forced to engage in live sexual acts by commercialized sexual exploiters and cappers, as the lure. A teen who we recently helped shared with us:
“I took all precautions to ensure it wasn’t a recording, but I was still fooled because it was a real live person who was my age”
Now, With the permission of the 15-year-old teen and their parents who we helped, I’m going to share with you an actual grooming process of a teen that was conducted in a private Social Media messaging stream.
Capper : Hi, how are you
Teen: Good hbu. do you live in France
Capper : I am fine, a little bit bored, font thing we know each other but Facebook was created to make friends. I saw your profile at the right to my screen. I like make new friends. Am I bothering you?
Teen: Where are you from?
Capper : okay, you look cool nice to meet you, I am Esthelle, where do you live
Teen: nice to meet you too
Capper : never been in this part of Suisse I am from France but at the moment I am in Maryland, I came to visit my sister, How old are you?
Teen: ohhh that’s cool im 19
Capper : I just turned 20 last march, and what fo you do for work?
Teen: ive neem to France before on holidays its very cool. I am going to school right now how about you?
Capper : Ok that is awesome, I am hairdresser at home in France, but since I came to America for the summer, I do nothing at this time. But on mu return to France, I will go to a casting to be model. Its my dream to be model lol. Do you have a girlfriend
Teen: haha that awesome, good for you
Capper : ok im single too im looking for a good man one day what do you do for fun? Haha, but youre far away, I have an idea what is your name on gmail? I want to add u on hangout and we will chat in private there.
Teen: what is hangout
capper: I sent you message on hangout answer me
Teen: I just installed the app it isn’t showing up send another
Capper : add me on hangout, call me now, you see me know?
Teen: yea I see you
Capper : write me I have a problem with microphone ok, I can not wait for you write me ok
Teen: can you hear me
Capper: you are very beautiful
Teen: so are you, can you hear my voice
Capper : I am excited I want to see your beautiful cock and you will see my pussy
Teen: ok you go first
Capper: fo down your cam on your beautiful cock and you’ll see my pussy now
Teen: the video is laggy though
Capper: drop your camera on your beautiful cock ill see and you’ll see my pussy now
Teen: the cams not really working
Capper: So sir right ow this video is on the channel YouTube but in private world. That is to say that it is you and I who know its existence. So if you try to hold me up I swing the link of your video to your loved ones, friends, family and your place of work. So youre going to stay calm and discuss the removal of your video, answer all my questions as I do this for a good cause. OK. I am the devil who came to earth to show you hell on earth. Then if you want to try to stand up to me you’ll regret it all your life. I swear, I swear to you that only one stupidity and I will react very badly by rotting your life so stay calm and listen to me very well if your really want your privacy and your image. You know very well that I can do it. In addition, your video is a video pedophile, this is forbidden on the net and by the law then if published you will do the rest of your life in prison. I swear to you because I am the most determined to make you know hell. So stay calm and answer my questions to end this video case once and for all
Teen: ??? what do you want bro what do you want to delete it
Capper: I swear if you try to block me or withdraw on facebook I will ruin your life with this well understood video
Teen: what do you want
Capper: I am on the verge of rotting your life, but it will depend upon your actions. If you so not want to see me post this video everywhere, you will calm down and answer my questions and everything will be fine
Teen: okwtf, what do you want ???? what do you want bro
Yes, awareness of this crime is key, however, sometimes all the awareness and education on this topic may not be good enough, and youth or teens can still fall victim to sextortion. If this happens, here are our recommendations:
1 – Do not pay any ransom that this person may be asking for. If you pay, you will be labeled a “whale” and they WILL come back for more. If money was paid, connect with your bank or credit card vendor to see if it can be canceled.
2- Immediately STOP all communication with this person.
3 – Screen capture all communications as evidence if possible.
4 – Given that this is a crime (known as extortion) you should report it to the police. If the capper is someone who you know personally, often police can assist to get the intimate picture or video deleted. However, if the capper is someone you do not know, then it has been our experience that people who do this online are usually located in Russia, South East Asia, Somalia, or Nigeria. Because of this fact, there is often not much police can do to help. However, we still recommend that you report it to the police, but that is a choice you need to make. Also by reporting it to the police they can work with the Canadian Center For Child Protection https://bit.ly/3NNythw If you have the nude that your child sent, they will take it and do something that is called a “hash” (digitally fingerprint the picture) so that if it does appear online, it will immediately be identified by a program that they use called “Project Arachnid”, and action is then taken to have it taken down wherever possible.
Case Study:
Recently, we helped an adult who was located in Canada who fell victim to a sextortion. After connecting with us, she followed our suggestions, police got involved, and the offender was located and arrested in the United States. Unfortunately, the offender was able to post both her intimate pictures and videos to several sites online, but we were successful in having all of them removed!
5 – 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. Some police department may want to initiate what is called an account takeover where they pretend to be your child to gather more evidence. However, if you are not going to speak with the police, immediately block and delete this person. After you have done this, they will attempt to reconnect with your child via a different feed or social network for the next 24-48 hours, again block and delete. Also, do not accept any new friend or follow requests on any of your platforms for the next 48hrs.
6 – In some cases, you may decide to delete your child’s account. If you do not decide to delete it, privatize it, change their password, and ensure to turn on two-factor authentication if it is offered to further protect it.
7 – It has been our experience, dealing with 87 teens that we have now worked with, that the nude will “likely” not be re-distributed widely. In only two cases, the nude was sent to a few select number of friends as a part of the pressure campaign to get you to pay the ransom. If this happens, and your child’s face was not in the picture, then they have deniability and can say “that’s not me” to those few friends and followers who were sent the picture/video. If their face was in the picture, it does make it more difficult, but good friends will not re-distribute. Many of the most popular social networks are now using really good artificial intelligence (AI) so that if a nude is posted, it will often, not always, be deleted fairly quickly by the social network. If not, then connecting with the social media site directly to request a takedown is strongly recommended.
8 – Usually, after 48hrs, this person will move on to another target because time is money to these criminals. 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.
9 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 child’s name in quotation marks “John Smith”. By doing this, Google will search their full name every day and if the nude gets posted/reposted and tagged with your child’s name in 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 your child’s. If you get an alert, click on it and make sure it is your child. If it is your child’s nude, you will now know where it is being hosted online, and can then make an application to have it taken down as child pornography if your child is under the age of 18yrs.
10 – You need to let your child know that no matter what the online challenge they face, you are there to help without criticism or judgment. If your child does come forward to let you know they are being sextorted, take a few deep breaths then hug your child and let them know you are there to help. Remember, disclosure is the first step in the recovery process for your child. They sought you out for help (not often an easy task for teens), not your criticism, ridicule, embarrassment, or punishment. Reasonable consequences to actions can be discussed after the crisis has passed. Until then, be that supportive mama or papa bear that your child needs to help them navigate their perceived crisis, and don’t play the blame game. Remember, in most families, a parent’s love for their child is unconditional love – your child needs to know that although you may not like the fact that they sent a nude, you will still love them, and are there to help protect them from further harm.
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! In fact, Dr. Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Mass General Hospital in Boston stated in a CNN story on teen sextortion,
“Teen brains are still developing so when something catastrophic happens like a personal picture is released to people online, it’s hard for them to look past that moment and understand that in the big scheme of things they’ll be able to get through this.”
So What if My Pictures or Video is posted
CAVEAT:
As social media vendors update their reporting protocols, takedown procedures can change without warning. What I am about to share with you are current at the time of publishing this podcast.
No matter what social media platform you will be connecting with to request a takedown, it is important that you share these six essential elements with the social media vendor if possible:
Screen Capture the intimate image/video that was posted as evidence, as well as it’s URL (where it is located on the platform/internet). The URL is required in most takedown requests.
Confirm that your child is the person in the intimate image/ video that was posted.
Confirm the age at the time the intimate image/video was posted, this is especially true if at the time of the production of the picture/video your child was under the age of 18yrs, which would make it “child pornography” which is a federal crime in Canada and in most countries.
Confirm that your child did not post the intimate image/video, and they did not give consent to anyone else to post the image/video – which is a federal crime in Canada.
If you notified the police, provide the name of the police department, the police case number, and the investigating officer. Often, this can expedite a social media platform to take an image down.
Include the section of the social media Terms of Service (TOS) that the image/video violates. Most social media vendors state clearly that the posting of any nudity is a clear violation of their policy and subject to immediate removal.
Important Note:
If you are reporting the non-consensual distribution of an intimate image/video to the police (which we highly encourage), we recommend that before you start connecting with a social media platform to have it taken down, ensure that the police give you the go-ahead to do so first. In some cases, and depending upon the police agency, law enforcement may need to gather required evidence before a takedown action is initiated.
We have written a guide on how to request the removal of non-consensual posted intimate images/video from the most popular social networks I will attach to the podcast notes
We must emphasize that in most sextortion 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 widely online.
It is so important that teens, no matter what their sexual orientation or gender identity, and their parents become more aware of the pretexts, tactics, and strategies being used by online “cappers” specific to this clear and present threat of online sextortion. As mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, Sun Tzu, a wise and ancient Chinese warrior once said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
For those listening to this podcast who want more in-depth information on this topic, check out our FREE webbook that you can find on our Web Site at www.thewhitehatter.ca
Thank you for listening and until our next podcast, have a great week everyone.
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