Protect & Prevent - The Role of Schools in Combatting the Financial Sextortion of Teens

The following may contain sensitive topics, listener discretion is advised.

For the past few years, the Million Kids Team has explored the challenges related to global financial sextortion of our kids. It is truly a pandemic with many victims and many kids who pay the ultimate price. One of the discussions we have had is centered around the role that schools and educators can or should play in prevention and intervention of sextortion cases.

The discussions often center around the idea that most sextortion victims are school- age-kids and most kids get introduced to online digital activity at schools. And yet, at this writing, there is no centralized approach to intervention if a student is being blackmailed, and there is no safe haven for a young person to report when they are in a crisis. Add to this issue the fact that now, some of the students are accessing “nudify” sites and using AI to create “deepfake” images of other students. The victims of “deepfake” images also are victims of digital exploitation and it is a crime to do so.

Our first thoughts is that this is a global epidemic as developing countries come online and access our kids. The blackmail can be so extreme, most victims are severely distraught. This is a a somewhat new criminal trend and most school leadership is not prepared to deal with it. During this podcast we review the suggestions from the U.K. educators and outline the challenges for educators.