Snapchat research finds alarming number of young people are victims of online 'sextortion'
By Nikolina Koevska Kharoufeh |
Thousands of young adults and kids as young as 13 have revealed they or a friend they know have been a victim of ?catfishing or hacking across all platforms and devices.
The research completed by Snapchat, which reaches over 7.5 million Australians, found 69 per cent of the 6,000 young people surveyed across the world made the troubling admission.
Of these catfishing victims, close to half have been asked to share intimate imagery จC with a third regrettably going through with the request.
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The data, which was collated between April and March of 2023, has raised alarm bells for many parents who are fearful their child may fall victim to an online scam.
?Catfishing has been proven to impose a heavy emotional toll on teens and young adults.
Teens in the survey reported feeling depressed, anxious and suffering from diminished self-esteem as a result of the incident. Females were found to be impacted more than males.
In July last year, 17-year-old Gavin ?Guffey from South Carolina took his own life after falling victim to sexual extortion.
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The freshly-graduated high schooler was targeted by a scammer on Instagram ?who posed as a girl to get him to send photos over the messaging app, only to then demand money for them not to be released.?
It seems catfishing and hacking are becoming more and more common on social media platforms.
Snapchat's Global Head of Platform Safety, Jaqueline Beauchere, exclusively spoke to 9Honey Parenting about the dangers.
"With catfishing, the offender will either reach out to the target on a broadcast-style platform and then move over to another more private type of platform and try to extract imagery from them," she explains.
"It turns into a very different situation on the hacking side. That occurs when the offender gains unauthorized access to someone's social media accounts or devices and they want to steal intimate imagery or other private information that might be in that person's account or on their devices."
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Due to the frequency of these incidents Snapchat, as one of the biggest social media platforms across the world, is working hard to fight against the risk.
"We want to use signal based detection, computer vision, machine learning จC we want to get ahead of things and identify these kinds of accounts before they can actually do any harm or put any of our users or other users at risk.?"
Beauchere says ?there are proactive and preventive measures that parents should be using as well.
"Awareness raising and education for our primary audiences. Making sure that they have their critical thinking turned on and they're very attuned to what kind of risk they could be facing," she says.
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Beauchere explains that young males are usually primary targets for these scammers as they respond with impulse.
"They don't necessarily use clear thought right away. Then those demands start, and it turns away from a flirting situation where they think someone is interested in them."
However, some of the more positive feedback from those users between the age of 13 and 24 years old was that they are seeking help when they find themselves in these dangerous situations online.
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Sixty-five per cent per cent who were catfished responded by tightening their online security or closing their account completely, while 54 per cent reached out for help and close to half reported the incident. ?
"We can't have them responding to the perpetrator or the offender. They need to block them. They need to report them. They need to talk to someone," Beauchere explains.
"And then there will be a series of steps that they can go through, that includes reporting to local law enforcement."
The eSafety Commission advises users who believe they are being catfished to take screenshots of the profile as evidence and report it through the app or online platform.
"You can use in-app functions to mute, hide or unfollow the account. After you've reported it, you can also block it." their website reads.
If a user is being blackmailed and they are under the age of 18, they should report it to the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE).
Snapchat?, like Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, allows users to join and create an account from the age of 13.
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Earlier this year US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a public advisory warning that early teens is too young for kids to be joining social media.
"There are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents," he stated.
However, ?Beauchere says there are many things to consider when it comes to parents allowing their teens to join platforms such as Snapchat.
"I think we can all agree that young people all develop a bit differently and it's really up to parents and teens to decide together what they feel comfortable with and what's going to be appropriate for their family," she tells 9Honey Parenting.
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"I often tell folks nothing magical happens on a young person's 13th birthday. They're not vastly different from when they were 12 and 364 days. So we're hoping that parents will invest in talking to their kids well in advance."
The ?Global Head of Platform Safety also encouraging parents to use parental controls on the social media sites their children join.
Snapchat's ?Family Center provides carers with a suite of tools where they can monitor and keep an eye on who their teens are communicating with and interacting with.
"If the parent is concerned about a particular account their child follows, they can report it and then Snapchat will investigate that account and get back to the parent with some information."
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