Children as young as 12 are being coerced into producing extreme content, from sex acts to self-harm, over the internet at a rising rate, Australian federal police have warned parents and guardians.
The practice, which police term sadistic sextortion, involves extreme online communities. Members from around the world, using nicknames, are coercing children on social media and messaging platforms to self-produce explicit sexual and violent content to gain entry to the groups, an AFP statement detailed. Offenders can be the same age as victims.
What distinguishes sadistic sextortion is that most offenders are motivated by “obtaining status or notoriety within the group” rather than money, Helen Schneider, AFP commander of human exploitation and the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, said.
“They are driven by exploiting vulnerable victims into producing abhorrent content for their deranged amusement.”
The victim becomes entrapped
Sadistic sextortion offenders initiate an online relationship with a victim before encouraging them to produce explicit sexual or violent content, AFP intelligence has found.
They then share the content with other group members, triggering a vicious cycle in which the group threatens to share the material with the victim’s family or friends unless they produce more. These demands often escalate in severity – including to specific live sex acts, animal cruelty, serious self-harm, and live online suicide, according to the AFP statement.
RMIT’s Prof Nicola Henry, a specialist in sexual violence, said escalation is “a common tactic”. “Often these people who are engaging in sextortion are very sophisticated in terms of the grooming that happens,” Henry said.
“It starts in a very innocuous way and it escalates over time”
Henry described this form of sextortion as a form of entrapment: “getting young people to become ‘active participants’ in their own abuse with the promise of membership to an exclusive group.”
“Because the perpetrators are trying to make victims complicit, it might lower victims’ willingness to report or tell someone about it.”
Schneider warned that because of this, identifying offenders and closing down such groups was “extremely difficult”.
“Unfortunately, some victims in these groups do not see themselves as victims,” Schneider said. “ They do not believe they are being coerced into performing these extremely horrific acts and therefore are unlikely to report it to the authorities.”
Sextortion in Australia
The eSafety commissioner reported a 117% increase in reports of image-based abuse for the 2022-2023 period, with sextortion the most frequently reported form, Henry said.
Intimate partners are most likely to be perpetrators.
“[It] goes a little bit against what our common understandings are of sextortion, where there is this idea that it is about strangers, scammers,” Henry said.
“The research does show that the perpetrator is more likely to be an intimate partner.”
Abusive and controlling behaviours in a relationship “might start out in an innocuous way but end up escalating”, Henry said.
“It is really tricky … with domestic and family violence, there [are] emotional connections to the perpetrator.”
Young people, minority racial or ethnic groups, and sexual minorities are more likely to experience sextortion, and men and boys are more likely to be perpetrators, Henry said. Studies vary over whether men and boys or women and girls are more likely to be victims.
Sextortion is relatively high in Australia, Henry found in a survey of adults across 10 countries.
“In terms of victimisation, we found that just under 16% of people in our survey said they had experienced someone threatening to share their intimate images.”
“That was higher than most other countries that we surveyed, with the exception of the USA, which was just slightly higher.”
European countries surveyed had “much lower rates”, she said.
Red flags and where to find help
The Victorian coroner Audrey Jamieson called for improved education in online safety for young people after 17-year-old Rohan Cosgriff was found dead at his home in 2022, two days after falling victim to a sextortion scam.
He had been pressured into sending an intimate picture of himselfon Snapchat, and was threatened the image would be distributed unless money was paid.
Jamieson said there needed to be a shift in education.
“The fact remains that with all the education in the world and no matter how many times the message ‘don’t send intimate images’ is repeated, young people will continue to do these things,” Jamieson said.
“The conversation must turn to ‘should you find yourself in this situation, it is going to be OK’.”
The AFP on Friday urged parents and guardians to be aware of warning signs young people might be being groomed by coercive groups online.
Those could include increased screen-time on computers or phones, isolating from friends and family, or being secretive about online interactions, Schneider said.
“Whether a child is or has been a victim of sextortion online, please reassure them it’s not their fault and report it to the ACCCE.”
For those engaging with strangers online, Henry said to look out for red flags like a new friend asking for sexual content early in a conversation, and advised men and boys to be wary of false images of women being used to extort content.
Those worried their intimate images will be shared can use a tool such as StopNCII, which creates a digital hash, or fingerprint, of images that is shared with companies such as Instagram, Snapchat, OnlyFans and Pornhub so they can block them from being posted to the platform.
If targeted by a stranger, Henry said, “stopping all contact with the person and seeking help is really important”, as well as collecting evidence and blocking the perpetrator from all online accounts.
– with Australian Associated Press
In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International
