Sextortion Scams Are Driving Teen Boys to Suicide

Buffaloman2001 · 2024-04-16T16:14:55+00:00

I was literally a victim of this once. This shit is super traumatizing, and it's part of the reason I don't flirt or send pics of myself anymore when talking with women.

AppointmentUpper6677 · 2024-04-16T13:16:30+00:00

Just One more way young men in this country are suffering and dying. I'm surprised Bloomberg was able to even mention it without being labelled Andrew Tate supporters.

AppointmentUpper6677 · 2024-04-16T16:49:09+00:00

I had a talk with my son about it. So did his mom. He knows.

poltronaperdue · 2024-04-16T18:25:43+00:00

Archived link.

CimZim · 2024-04-17T01:46:14+00:00

My FWB fell for one of these scams recently, even though he's 54 and really should hopefully have known better. I helped him through it, but while texting with the "woman" myself it was indeed extremely manipulative and cruel.

Foxsayy · 2024-04-16T17:45:57+00:00

I personally helped a guy through one of these. It was like 17 or 18, he didn't know what to do, he was just terrified.

Thankfully, he listened to me and took my advice, before that he had no money to pay and thought his life was over.

Plenty_Lettuce5418 · 2024-04-16T22:01:29+00:00

this is beyond heinous

BannanasAreEvil · 2024-04-17T13:39:04+00:00

Their was a 17 year old in a neighboring town who killed himself over this. He was tricked into sending a dick pic and then they wanted money or they where going to send his picture to all of his friends and family.

He paid them, he gave them 300 dollars, then they asked for more, he didnt have more to send. You know what those people did, they sent his picture out after he killed himself to one of his friends anyways!

The saddest part is, he never needed to do this. I don't mean "yeah suicide is stupid" but he was so terrified of his picture being sent out that he felt death was a better option!

Teaching kids to be more careful on social media isn't enough!!!! We need to tell them that those pictures don't mean shit! As parents we need to tell them that if pictures like that ever got to us we wouldn't care. That if their picture got leaked to their friends that they shouldn't care!

We need to tell our youth that their body isn't shameful, they should be having conversations with their peers about this, fuck the SCHOOL should be having open conversations about this in class! We need kids to not be so fucking terrified and shamed of their bodies so that not only scammers but even ex partners can't hurt them by sending private photos out.

Trying to prevent teens from being extorted is a losing fucking battle, we can't protect them and they won't be able to protect themselves because ANYONE they ever put trust in could betray that trust!

Kids are horny and stupid, they will always be horny and stupid (hopefully) so they need to have confidence that can transcend this possibility.

If we want to save lives due to this it's not going to happen by trying to protect them from it happening, it's going to come from us giving them the confidence that pictures like this are not shameful if they get leaked. Unfortunately that is the opposite message we are telling them, especially with the "don't ever send pictures like this, you could get scammed" because the moral they are being taught is those pictures are bad!

We're telling them that "those pictures" are what's actually wrong and not the people trying to scam them. With messaging like that now if a kid falls for it he/she has to admit to their parents after just having this conversation that they got scammed. We didn't prevent shame, we just reinforced it with an extra layer of failure!

The conversation we need to have with our teens is this

"Hey, if you're going to send a picture of yourself like that, you need to be ok knowing that your friends could potentially see it. So you can if you want, but once it's sent out like that it's no longer private and you need to be ok with that"

Done! Keep having this conversation, keep letting them know that if they want to they can but they need to understand it's no longer private and be ok that others they didn't intend on seeing it could see it.

Phuxsea · 2024-04-16T16:19:31+00:00

This is horrible and why all young people should be taught social media safety. Block anyone who sends their nudes or asks you for yours. Assume every one "pussy in bio" account is a dangerous male scammer.

CeleryMan20 · 2024-04-17T14:34:28+00:00

There was a recent case in Australia that made the national news.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-08/nsw-nigeria-arrested-alleged-sextortion-australian-teenager/103680380

https://thenightly.com.au/australia/sextortion-scourge-claims-four-victorian-teens-as-cyber-safety-expert-susan-mclean-issues-grim-warning-c-14258871

cracksparove · 2024-04-16T14:51:52+00:00

Call the cops

WannabeLeagueBowler · 2024-04-16T17:49:04+00:00

Maybe it shouldn't be illegal to send someone a picture.

CeleryMan20 · 2024-04-17T14:55:38+00:00

If you do send dick pic, don’t include face or identifying marks. Then you can disavow it and say that it's just something you lifted off the internet. (And hope the EXIF metadata got stripped off the file, don't want your home geo-coordinates embedded in that.)

Do real women really wanna see isolated penises, though? I'd have thought they would more like to see a shot showing ripped abs and undies on. Not that I would know.

Equivalent-Wheel-588 · 2024-04-17T17:43:07+00:00

Honestly they were stupid

Maleficent-Neat6321 · 2024-04-16T20:23:39+00:00

Eh I didn't take Amanda Todd seriously and in order to not be a hypocrite I won't take this seriously. If you're to stupid to understand that sending nudes means they might get leaked then idk what to tell you

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