Who is being targeted most by sextortion on social media? The answer may surprise you

Financial "sextortion" schemes have surged in recent years with offenders appearing to primarily target teenage boys through Instagram and other social media platforms, threatening victims with compromising imagery in exchange for cash, a new report found.

The report, released jointly by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and technology nonprofit Thorn on Monday, analyzed more than 15 million reports made to the NCMEC's hotline from 2020 to 2023. It detailed dangerous trends in sextortion, including financial sextortion, which the NCMEC called a "growing crisis impacting children around the world."

The report found that sextortion incidents have significantly climbed in recent years with reports of online enticement increasing by 82% from 2021 to 2022 when the NCMEC's hotline received over 80,500 reports. The number of incidents continued to grow in the last year at an average of 812 reports per week, according to data analyzed between August 2022 and August 2023.

The report defines sextortion as "threatening to expose sexual images of someone if they don’t yield to demands." And while sextortion schemes are nothing new, the report found a rising trend in financial sextortion that appears to target boys and involves demands for money.

In 2023 alone, NCMEC said it received more than 26,700 reports of financial sextortion.

"Financial sextortion represents a grave and growing threat to children, especially teenage boys," Julie Cordua, CEO of Thorn, said in a statement. "Unlike traditional forms of sextortion, these perpetrators demand money, leveraging fear and the threat of sharing intimate images to extort their victims before they have time to seek support."

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Reports frequently include the use of 'catfishing'

Historically, girls have been the most frequent targets of child sextortion schemes, according to the report. These schemes often involved demands that are "sexual or relational in nature," such as demands for intimate imagery, engaging in sexual acts, or being in a romantic relationship, the report said.

But over the last several years, concerns over a "unique" form of sextortion have increased, according to the report. Financial sextortion deviates from sexual or relational demands and instead involves demandsspecifically for money.

The report found that a majority of victims of financial sextortion incidents that were submitted to the NCMEC were teenage boys and 90% were between the ages of 14 and 17.

"These reports most often include the use of 'catfishing' — in this case, a perpetrator impersonating another young person — to manipulate a teenage boy into sharing sexual images or videos of himself," the report states. "That perpetrator then threatens to share that imagery with family, friends, or followers unless they are paid."

Some cases have also involved the use of deepfakes, in which victims have reported perpetrators using artificial intelligence-generated images against them, according to the report.

Interactions between the victims and perpetrators are also "often transactional," as incidents can quickly escalate from initial contact with the victim to payment in 24 hours or sooner, Thorn said in a news release.

"Sextortion can be a high-stress situation for children who may fear reporting the incident or seeking help, but it's important to remember that the threats are scripted to intimidate, silence, and isolate their victims," Cordua said. "Paying the perpetrator can lead to continued harassment. The best course of action in these situations is to not pay, to report the sextortion to NCMEC, law enforcement, and the platform where it occurred, and block the offender."

Schemes operated on global scale through social media platforms

The report identified Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire as the two countries most often linked to sextortion schemes with incidents tied to crime networks that operate in these countries. "Because financial sextortion is increasingly an organized, international operation, there are many similarities across incidents," according to Thorn.

Similarities include perpetrators posing as other teenagers, victims sharing intimate images in response to catfishing, and perpetrators threatening to "ruin" the victim's life, Thorn said.Instagram and Snapchat were the most common social media platforms named as initial contact points for schemes, according to the report. Facebook and YouTube were also common platforms used by perpetuators to threaten victims.

The report found that Instagram was the common distribution platform mentioned in financial sextortion data. The platform was named in over 81% of reports of distribution and 60% of reports of threats of distribution.

The report also noted trends of offenders using end-to-end encrypted messaging apps — such as WhatsApp and Telegram — to communicate with victims and the use of gift cards and Cash App as methods of payments.

Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook were the leading reporters of sextortion to the NCMEC's hotline, according to Thorn. Meta, which owns Instagram, told USA TODAY that the company is working "aggressively to fight this abuse and support law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting the criminals behind it."

"As NCMEC has noted, higher reporting numbers are often the result of a platform's efforts to detect and report abusive content - and we've spent years doing both," Meta said in a statement. "We've already implemented many of the report's recommendations, and recently announced a range of new features designed to help protect people from sextortion."