This One Setting Can Save Your Child's Life

What is Sextortion?

Sextortion is a form of online exploitation where predators coerce minors into sending explicit images or videos and then blackmail them by threatening to share this content with friends, family, or publicly online. Increasingly, predators are demanding money instead of or in addition to more explicit content.

The psychological impact is severe - about 1/3 of victims experience self-harm or suicidal thoughts. That's thousands of children suffering severe trauma every year.

How Sextortion Attacks Work

To effectively protect your children, it's important to understand that sextortion has evolved into a sophisticated criminal operation:

• Organized Crime Networks: Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) recently shut down 63,000 Nigerian scam accounts dedicated to these operations, along with groups training new scammers.
• Scripted Attacks: Scammers use highly refined scripts and methodologies that systematically exploit teen vulnerabilities.
• AI-Generated Content: The Department of Homeland Security reports scammers are increasingly using AI to generate deepfake nude images of real girls to make their approaches more convincing.
• Psychological Manipulation: Scammers are trained to target core biological drives to trap victims, making even cautious teens vulnerable.

A typical attack follows this pattern:

1. A "teen" (actually an adult scammer) contacts your child on social media or in a game
2. They build trust through conversation, often giving compliments and showing romantic interest
3. They share fake explicit photos and ask for photos in return
4. Once they have compromising photos, they immediately turn to blackmail
5. They demand payment (usually $200-500) within a short timeframe (often 20 minutes)
6. If payment is sent, they typically demand more money rather than stopping

The Camera Connection: Why Disabling Cameras Works

Sextortion requires two key elements to succeed:

1. Online communication with strangers
2. A camera to create compromising images

Even if a child engages in risky online communication, sextortion cannot succeed without a camera. This makes camera access the critical vulnerability that enables these crimes.

Think of it this way: If you knew a simple setting change could reduce your child's risk of being in a car accident by 90%, would you make that change? Disabling device cameras provides this level of protection against sextortion.

A Comprehensive Prevention Approach

What makes sextortion unique is how preventable it is with a single technical change. While we can't eliminate all risks in our children's lives - they'll still ride in cars and face peer pressure and deal with bullies - we can drastically reduce the risk of camera-based sextortion by disabling camera access.

While this article focuses on the technical solution of disabling cameras, a complete prevention strategy includes:

1. Discuss sextortion specifically with your child, especially teenagers. The average age of victims is 15. Discuss specific scenarios and what they would do in each case. For teens in romantic relationships, suggest keeping interactions of a sexual nature completely offline. Attaching sexuality or nudity to the internet in any form is high-risk, regardless of the recipient.
2. Talk about online safety regularly, not just once. Ensure they understand never to share personal images online, even with someone they believe they know. They should be suspicious of new online contacts who show romantic interest quickly and tell a trusted adult immediately if anyone requests photos. Make clear that paying a scammer doesn't make extortion stop.
3. Use the readiness principle: If your child is not mature enough for conversations about sextortion and online safety, they are not ready for an internet-connected camera.
4. Implement device location rules: Do not allow personal device use in private areas like bedrooms and bathrooms, especially at night. Devices should be used and charged in common areas of the home.
5. Disable all cameras on your child's devices, following the step-by-step instructions below. For young children, also consider removing online chat systems.
6. Enable temporary camera access when needed for legitimate purposes, then disable again when finished.
7. Address school-issued devices: Ask district administrators to disable the camera via their device management system - it's a simple setting change with no budget impact. Schools put children at risk by leaving cameras enabled. Contact your school's principal to facilitate communication with the district superintendent and IT department.

Rather than teaching fear of technology, we're teaching defensive digital citizenship. Just as we teach defensive driving rather than banning teens from cars, we're teaching safe technology use through appropriate boundaries.

Just as you buckle their seatbelts without a second thought, disabling their camera access should become an equally automatic safety measure. This may sound extreme, but remember that teenagers are the most vulnerable to these scams even though it might otherwise seem safe for them to have an internet-connected camera.

The 5-Minute Technical Action: Disable Device Cameras

Click each device type below to view step-by-step instructions for disabling cameras:

How to Talk About Sextortion with Your Child

Age-Appropriate Scripts:

Scenario-Based Discussions:

Ask your teen: "What would you do if..."

• Someone you just met online starts complimenting you a lot and then asks for pictures?
• A person you're talking to sends you a revealing photo and asks for one in return?
• Someone threatens to share a private photo unless you give them money?

Why Camera Disabling Works

This approach creates multiple barriers between your child and potential predators:

1. Eliminates the critical tool: Without camera access, children cannot create and share compromising images, even if they're being manipulated.
2. Works even if communication fails: Unlike communication limits, camera disabling works even if a child is using an app or website you're unaware of.
3. Protects against peer pressure: Removes the capability to make impulsive decisions during moments of poor judgment.
4. Creates a technical barrier: Unlike purely educational approaches, this provides a concrete technical protection.
5. Offers flexibility: Can be temporarily disabled for legitimate purposes and then re-enabled.

High-Risk Apps to Monitor

While disabling cameras addresses the critical vulnerability, you should still be aware of apps that are frequently used to initiate sextortion:

• Snapchat: The disappearing messages feature can encourage risky behavior
• Roblox: Gaming platform with built-in chat features connecting children with strangers
• Minecraft: Multiplayer servers allow chat with unknown players
• Discord: While useful for gaming, it can expose users to strangers in public servers
• Instagram: Direct messaging features are heavily used by scammers
• TikTok: Private messaging with strangers is common
• Anonymous question apps (like NGL, Yik Yak, Whisper): Create opportunities for harassment