I'd like to draw the attention of those who have children with a smartphone, particularly boys, to an activity labelled sextortion which has resulted in suicides.This is a type of blackmail where threats are made to share intimate pictures of them unless they meet their demands for either money or more pictures. The usual platforms are Instagram or Snapchat and predominantly come from Nigeria. Manuals & scripts are being shared throughout Nigeria telling people how to carry out these crimes.
Whilst it's difficult to obtain accurate figures, because there's a massive amount of underreporting due to embarrassment and shame, the US had 27,000 cases last
year, resulting in 27 deaths.
One young man, Jordan, ended his own life just 6 hours after being targeted. He sent them some money, but they said it wasn't enough. After having no more money to send, he then pleaded with them not to share the pictures or he would probably kill himself.
The response was to say good,do it now or we'll force you to do it and, tragically, he did.
The advice to children is to never accept friend requests from someone you don't know, never let people take you off platform, don't pay them any money, block them and inform your parents or a trusted adult, however difficult this might be.
The BBC's Cyber Correspondent, Joe Tidy, says that Teachers have been alerted and asked to warn pupils about this.
Regularly checking children's devices is often the best way to keep children safe
From about 0:35:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001zvvt