Parents Urged to Monitor Children Amid Growing Sextortion Concerns
Published on September 6, 2024
Parents and guardians of young adults have been warned by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to closely monitor their children due to a concerning online trend where young victims are being coerced into producing extreme sexual and violent content. In a statement issued on Sept. 6, AFP said sadistic sextortion is a rising online crime targeting children as young as twelve years old on social media and messaging platforms. These groups “coerce them to self-produce explicit material to gain acceptance into extreme online communities.” The warning comes two days after the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) released data that revealed 560 reports of sextortion in the first six months of 2024....