Sextortion is a form of blackmail in which someone threatens to share intimate images of a person unless they pay money, send more images or comply with other demands.
Sextortion often starts with someone posing as a romantic or sexual contact online, persuading the victim to share intimate images or video, then threatening to send them to family, friends or an employer. Some schemes use hacked accounts, secretly recorded video or AI-generated fakes, and some are mass emails falsely claiming to have recordings. Teenagers are frequently targeted by financially motivated schemes.
Threatening to share intimate images is a crime in many jurisdictions, and in the US the TAKE IT DOWN Act makes threats to publish non-consensual intimate images a federal offence. Where the person depicted is under 18, the images are treated in law as child sexual abuse material, and platforms and police treat reports as a priority.
In practice
If this is happening to you, it is not your fault. Stop responding, don't pay or send anything more, and keep the evidence — usernames, messages, payment requests — before blocking. Report the account to the platform and the police. StopNCII.org can help stop the images being shared on participating platforms, and NCMEC's Take It Down (takeitdown.ncmec.org) helps when the images were taken under 18. If you are in danger, contact local emergency services.
Source: StopNCII.org ↗
Related removals
- Intimate image abuse — Free confidential assessment, pay on success
- Leaked content — Free confidential assessment, pay on success
Related terms
- NCII (non-consensual intimate imagery) — NCII (non-consensual intimate imagery) means nude or sexual images or videos of a person shared, or threatened to be shared, without their consent — including AI-generated fakes.
- TAKE IT DOWN Act — The TAKE IT DOWN Act is a 2025 US federal law requiring covered platforms to remove non-consensual intimate images, including deepfakes, within 48 hours of a valid request.
- Deepfake — A deepfake is AI-generated or manipulated image, audio or video content that resembles a real person, place or event and would falsely appear to be authentic.
- Impersonation — Online impersonation is pretending to be a real person or organisation — through a fake profile, website, email or ad — in a way that misleads people about who is behind it.