The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) received 80,524 online enticement reports in 2022, an 82% increase from 2021. This increase was heavily driven by the alarming rise in the financial sextortion of minors, where victims are threatened with exposure of intimate images if they don’t pay the perpetrator. While sextortion isn’t a new threat, financial sextortion marks a pivot in the abuse landscape, introducing organized offender groups driven primarily by financial gain and leveraging technology to scale their tactics. Threats start within moments of first contact in some cases, and sadly, several teens have died by suicide as a result of their experience.

This panel explores new research conducted by Thorn and NCMEC into the scale and trends relating to this abuse with perspectives from law enforcement seeing these harms firsthand and tech platforms seeking innovative approaches to combat this abuse on their platforms.