PENNSYLVANIA, August 13 - WHEREAS, An estimated 17% of teen victims were 12 years of

age or younger when first sextorted; and

WHEREAS, Teenage boys, 13 to 17 years of age, are most

frequently targeted; and

WHEREAS, Victims as young as eight years of age have been

reported; and

WHEREAS, While boys comprise the majority of sextortion

victims, there has been a 2,600% increase in reports involving

girls; and

WHEREAS, The threat to children and teens is rapidly

expanding across all demographics; and

WHEREAS, Reports involving artificial intelligence (AI),

including deepfake images used for online abuse, grew by 1,325%

in 2024, with more than 67,000 incidents on record; and

WHEREAS, Predators increasingly use AI to impersonate victims

or to generate fake explicit images and fake job postings as

part of larger sextortion and trafficking schemes; and

WHEREAS, Affected children and teens may experience severe

psychological trauma; and

WHEREAS, Among young victims, one in seven reported self-harm

in response to sextortion attempts; and

WHEREAS, Approximately 81% of sextortion incidents occur

entirely online through social media and messaging platforms;

and

WHEREAS, Approximately 98% of sextortion incidents are never

reported to law enforcement; and

WHEREAS, While most platforms require users to be at least 13

years of age, nearly 40% of children 8 to 12 years of age are

already using social media; and

WHEREAS, Beyond this, 95% of teens 13 to 17 years of age are

20260SR0356PN1905 - 2 -

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.