Parents pay attention! "Adolescent boys are being targeted primarily on social media

Parents, pay attention! "Adolescent boys are being targeted primarily on social media giants Instagram® and Snapchat® as part of an ongoing sextortion crisis, an analysis of July Cybertip.ca data by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) shows. For the month of July 2022, Cybertip.ca has opened case files for 322 victims of sextortion: When the gender victim was known, 92 per cent of cases involved boys or young men; Sixty‑three per cent of victims reported they did not disclose the incident to trusted person; Fifty per cent of victims were under than 18 years of age, 37 were 18 years or older. In 13 per cent of cases, the victim’s age was unknown; When the platform used to facilitate the harm was disclosed, Instagram (42 per cent) and Snapchat (38 per cent) were by far the most frequently used social media environments where victims were targeted. Whatsapp® (5.6 per cent), Facebook® (3.6 per cent), and Apple’s iMessage® (1.2 per cent) were the next closest platforms in terms of frequency."

Read the full report here.