Sextortion

Sextortion is when someone's sexual imagery is used to extort them. Put simply, it's when someone blackmails or threatens to expose another person's sexual imagery to make that person do something they don’t want to do, like send more compromising…

In October 2017, Thorn launched a second wave of our sextortion survey to more closely examine the experiences of minors. A previous Thorn survey, found sextortion experiences to be diverse, but stem primarily from an aggrieved romantic partner or online…

The following post is written by Stacy Jeleniewski, PhD, Senior Research Specialist at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Since 1984, NCMEC has served as the national clearinghouse and resource center for families, victims, private organizations, law…

The following post is written by Chrissy Chambers. She became the first person to seek damages and the criminal prosecution in England of a former partner for posting revenge pornography on the internet. Chrissy continues to share her story, advocate…

Sextortion scares me. When we launched our sextortion research survey last year, the number of responses from individuals who have experienced sextortion was shocking. Learning what victims went through was heartbreaking. I believe the internet is used by mostly good…

Safety teams at social media companies are working hard to ensure that you know the options when it comes to your online experience. Not only can they point you to tools to help you report abusive content, they can also…

The following post is written by Ashley Reynolds. She has spoken about her story in several states and was invited by the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to help spread the word about sextortion.…

Carrie Goldberg is a victims’ rights’ attorney in Brooklyn who represents targets of stalking, sexual assault, and blackmail – online and off. She contributed to the 2016 Brookings Institution report on sextortion and the Interstate Sextortion Prevention Act introduced to…

The following post was written by Jacqueline Beauchere, Chief Online Safety Officer at Microsoft. It’s fundamental that each of us plays a critical role in our own online safety, and young people and teens are no exception. Adults could take…

The following post is written by the team at That's Not Cool, an initiative from Futures Without Violence dedicated to preventing teen dating violence and digital dating abuse, and working to build healthy teen relationships online. It’s never easy when…