Children are reporting online sextortion attempts in record numbers in the UK.
The Report Remove service, which allows children to flag intimate images or videos of themselves that have appeared, or could appear, online, said it received 394 reports from under-18s last year of blackmail attempts after sending sexual images to predators.
The figure is 34% higher than in 2024.
The YouTube ad for PixVideo - AI Video Maker, seen in January, showed a "before" and "after" image of a young women, with red scribble overlaid on her midriff in the former, and parts of her bare skin exposed in the latter.
Text across the bottom of the picture stated: "Erase anything" followed by a heart-eyes emoji.
They tell young men how worthless they are.. then offer themselves up as the solution.
"They sell courses on how to increase your sexual market value (SMV) - basically a measurement of how attractive you are according to their scale."
The higher your SMV, he explains, the more likely you are to have sex with a woman. Looksmaxxing, to a certain degree, becomes a way to climb the attractiveness ladder. If a woman doesn't want you after all that then either you haven't done enough self-improvement or it's their fault, as the logic goes.
Ali told police he had first come into contact with a man called Abu Qatada, whom he believed to be an IS member fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, while playing online games such as Roblox.
Called Nearby Glasses, it is an Android app that scans Bluetooth signals to detect smart glasses and other recording devices nearby. It alerts users to potential surveillance technology.
Police said the teenager, who was 15 at the time he was arrested, was part of extreme right-wing online chat groups on platforms such as Telegram, Snapchat, TikTok and Wire.
Det Ch Supt James Dunkerley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: "This case provides a stark reminder around the dangers of extreme content online that is accessible to the public and how individuals can be drawn into serious offending."
Comments
make a comment