Red flags of Sextortion

Red Flags

Source- MSU

Those involved in the sextortion of children often:

Approach a child on social media after using it to learn about the child’s interests, friends, school, family, etc.
Move quickly and ask for nudes immediately after following or friending a child on a social media platform.
Intentionally move their communications with the child from one online platform to another (e.g., moving from social media to private video chat or messaging apps).

The following are some common tactics predators use to entice victims:

Developing a bond with the child by establishing a false friendship/romantic relationship. 
- Reciprocation (“I’ll show you, if you show me”).
- Pretending to work for a modeling agency to obtain sexual images of the child.
- Buying their friendship with gifts (i.e. game currency, in-game items, free movie, game passes, cell phone minutes/internet data plans, gift cards, etc.)
- Spending a lot of time gaming or chatting with them online daily
- Telling them to keep their friendship, gifts, or other requests a secret
Using multiple identities to contact the child
Pretending to be younger or a member of the opposite sex
Secretly recording explicit videos and messages during chats
Hacking accounts to steal sexual images
Threatening to commit suicide if the victim refuses to send images
Threatening to create sexual images or videos of the child using digital-editing tools.
Visiting public social media profiles to find out more about the victim, including accessing the victim’s friend list and searching for other personal information that may harm their victim’s reputation
Taking them off site onto other chat platforms or coerce them into creating a new social media account