Sextortion, intimate images and deepfakes

A quick note first. This lecture covers sextortion and intimate images, in plain words, nothing graphic. If this is happening to you right now, it's not your fault, and there's a clear way through.

Ana is twenty, a college student in Boston from a Brazilian family. For two weeks she's been chatting on Instagram with a cute guy who says he studies across town. Things got flirty, and she sent him a private photo. This morning a new account messages her. Pay five hundred dollars, or the photo goes to everyone who follows you.

So here's the question. What do you do in the next hour, and what does the law say?

First, you're far from alone. In twenty twenty-five the FBI received more than seventy-five thousand sextortion reports, and people in their twenties were the biggest group. Federal Trade Commission data from twenty twenty-two found people aged eighteen to twenty-nine were over six times as likely to report it as people over thirty. Canada's child tipline says girls are often pushed for more images, not money, but that's data about teenagers.

Now the law, as general information, not legal advice. Since July twenty twenty-six, it's a crime in Canada to threaten to share someone's intimate images, and that includes realistic fakes made with AI. Sharing them without consent was already a crime. In the United States, the Take It Down Act makes publishing them a federal crime, fakes included, and platforms must remove a reported image within forty-eight hours.

The steps. Stop replying. Don't pay, because paying usually brings more demands. Don't send anything else. Screenshot everything, then block and report the account. Report it to the police, and in Canada to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, online any time or by phone on weekdays. In the United States, report it to the FBI. Cybertip.ca is only for people under eighteen.

Then protect the image. For adults, StopNCII.org makes a digital fingerprint of the photo on your own phone, so the image never leaves it, and partner platforms can block copies. For photos taken when you were under eighteen, use the Take It Down service. And tell someone you trust. You trusted a person who lied to you. That's on them.

Now, his side. Sextortion hits young men hard too, so our companion course for men warns guys about exactly this. It also tells them plainly that photos a partner shared with you stay hers. Posting or forwarding them is a crime in both countries, and in Canada, so is threatening to. So if an ex ever makes that threat in a rage, he isn't heartbroken. He's committing a crime, and you can report him.

Let's change one fact. Ana never sent a photo at all. The picture is a fake, made with AI from her beach photos. It feels different, but the steps are the same. In Canada, a fake that could be mistaken for a real photo now counts as an intimate image. In the United States, the Take It Down Act covers digital forgeries too. Real or fake, you can report it.

The trap to avoid is paying to make it stop. It feels like the fastest way out. But it usually brings a second demand, then a third. The other trap is going silent out of shame. Shame is the tool they're using, and telling one person takes it away from them.

Here's the rule, in one breath. Stop, don't pay, save the evidence, report it, use StopNCII.org, and remember it's not your fault.

This week, save these steps in your phone's notes, so if it ever happens to you or a friend, nobody's searching in a panic. Next time, a new module, reading him, and how to simply ask what he wants.