Counsellors are receiving an increasing number of calls from young people being blackmailed over faked indecent images
One Childline worker said of the emotional impact of sextortion on young people: ‘They feel extremely foolish, they feel very embarrassed.’One Childline worker said of the emotional impact of sextortion on young people: ‘They feel extremely foolish, they feel very embarrassed.’The 17-year-old boy said he was scared and did not know what to do. He had been contacted by a “girl” on social media claiming to be his own age and, after an exchange of messages, had sent her an intimate image.
“What we’re concerned with is the emotional impact it has had on them,” says Hipkiss, who works at Childline’s London base. “They feel extremely foolish, they feel very embarrassed. They are concerned that family and friends will find out.” She adds: “Sometimes they’ve paid money, sometimes they haven’t.”
Gawain Griffiths, a website supervisor at Childline, says children who contact the service about sextortion incidents are told about the Report Remove platform as part of a package of support. “Report Remove is a really useful tool for young people because it helps them to put them back in control of their images, where somebody is trying to take that control away,” he says.
In one case heard by a Childline counsellor, a 15-year-old girl said a stranger had made a “really convincing” fake nude of her that used her face and bedroom, having been apparently taken from their Instagram account. Childline said the “nude” images were typically made of the victim’s face transposed on to someone else’s body. In another apparent AI case, a 14-year-old boy sent some pictures of his face to a girl he had met online and they were used to make a deepfake pornography video.
One sextortion victim, a boy aged 16, told a Childline counsellor they feared they would have to move schools if intimate pictures were published. “I met someone online and sent them a nude photo,” said the teenager in quotes that have been anonymised by Childline. “I’m now being blackmailed for money – they say they’re going to share the photo if I don’t send them money. I don’t know who they are in real life. I’m so worried about my friends and family finding out and judging me.
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