A man has learned the hard way not to send explicit images of himself online. Photo / Getty
A man has learned the hard way not to send explicit images of himself online. Photo / Getty
OPINION:
These days Instagram is one of the best ways to meet your future partner – just look at Harry and Meghan. But what happens when the exchange turns out to not be what you’d hope for?
It was a lonely Saturday night when my friend Max* was scrolling his Instagram feed. For context, Max is mid-20s, single, works in real estate and enjoys going to the gym.
An account featuring a woman named “Thea Azumi” followed and then messaged him. She broke the ice by telling Max they trained at the same gym – easily available information because of his public profile and proficient use of location tagging.
Max was being bombarded with messages. Image / Supplied
Without hesitation, Max engaged with Thea and they continued to speak throughout the week.
Thea would share stories on her profile and upload new photos. She had followers and decent engagement.
On the surface, it didn’t appear to be one of those obviously fake profiles spamming your inbox asking if you’d like a massage – so Max didn’t suspect anything.
As their banter continued via messaging on Instagram (and then Telegram), so did Max’s level of interest. He would share photos with Thea, and vice versa. One day, Thea requested nudes. Max obliged. That’s when things took a turn …
After receiving the content, Thea called Max. But it wasn’t the “Thea” who Max had come to visually familiarise himself with.
On the other end of the call was a man with a Filipino accent, demanding $5000 in a week to delete the footage. If he didn’t meet his demands, he threatened the contents would be distributed online, publicly identifying him.
This included individually approaching his friends and family – reinforced by showing Max Instagram profiles from his inner circle that would be sent the footage first.
The demands for the money continued, his time to respond was narrowing. Max frantically made contact with intellectual property experts, private investigators and the dark forums of Reddit.
In a panicked state one night, he even called me, “You studied law, what do I do?”
I told Max to call the police … radical, I know.
Max is a victim of sexual extortion, also coined “sextortion”.
It’s a form of image-based abuse that involves someone threatening to share intimate content of you online unless you comply with their demands.
An act with consequences that could potentially ruin your reputation (or build it … in some notorious cases). And he is not alone – 11 per cent of Australian adults have been targets of this abuse.
According to the Australian Federal Police-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE), there was a 60 per cent increase in reported cases of sextortion last December alone, with 90 per cent of victims being younger males.
Statistics that significantly underestimate what’s really happening; given they only represent the numbers of victims willing to seek police help.
AFP Acting Assistant Commissioner Hilda Sirec said: “We are seeing offshore criminal syndicates targeting a victim’s entire friend list.
“This type of financial sextortion involves victims being coerced into sending sexualised images or videos of themselves by online offenders, usually with the offender pretending to be another young person.
“The offender then threatens to on-share the content to others unless the victim pays.”
It is promising to see several countries around the world dealing with criminalising this activity, including Australia. This involves punishing criminals with jail time or fines.
Max sent a nude on Instagram and was then bribed. Picture / Supplied
But how do you trace and reprimand a criminal like the one behind the ‘Thea’ profile when they are not based in Australia? Especially when no global standard for dealing with it exists.
Australia’s eSafety Commission, the body charged with helping to safeguard all Australians from online harms, does provide some Global Support options, including utilising guidance from Facebook.
While I accept, I am not an international/criminal law expert; my concern still remains largely unanswered.
This international syndication of collecting nude images to blackmail for cash appears to dodge justice – at least, in a timely fashion. Of course, time is of the essence.
Once these images are circulated online it is borderline impossible to remove all copies or counteract the power of viral sharing. Something that would render most legal protections useless by the time it comes around.
Additionally, these situations come with some pretty serious ramifications, not just reputational damage. Sometimes, it can be fatal. There are countless reported stories of the victims of these attacks injuring themselves or even taking their own lives as a result.
Following police advice, he blocked and reported the blackmailer (without paying his ransom). He rationalised that a flaccid image of his manhood on the internet would just join the ranks of millions of others … and there was no guarantee that paying this person, thousands of kilometres away, would remove the image. Or stop further requests for cash.
As Max is still without closure, evidently, the stress from his lapse in better judgment was not worth it.
I’m not writing this to provide an A to Z of what to do if you find yourself in a similar situation. Nor am I binning existing institutions and their resources that guide victims of sextortion.
But let Max’s cautionary tale, as well as it being a global issue lacking a united approach to punishment and enforcement, be enough to make you want to never expose yourself in a message again.
Nor trust random profiles on social media – no matter how real or credible they appear to be.
