Sexual Extortion (Sextortion) It Can Start Anywhere

This is a cheat sheet for young people written to them rather than about them.

It walks through every door sextortion can come through, from a comment on TikTok to Instagram, Snapchat,Games, Discord, WhatsApp, group chats full of strangers, and all the way to a random text message, and it shows them how to lock each one. It covers the warning signs, the settings to change tonight, words they can use when they don’t know what to say, and exactly what to do if it is already happening.

Most importantly, it tells them plainly, and more than once, that they will not be in trouble. For young people in Australia it makes clear that even if they shared a nude, they are the victim, and that this is true even if they are under 16. The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation is there to catch the people doing this, not to punish them.

Please print it, share it and leave it somewhere they will find it. Better still, sit down and read it together. The people behind this rely on fear and silence. A young person who already knows what this looks like, and already knows who they can tell, is far harder to trap.