Children under pressure: Sextage on the Internet - how affected young people fight!

Children under pressure: Sextage on the Internet - how affected young people fight!

The alarming numbers for sex management, a form of blackmail with nude photos and videos, rise rapidly in Austria. The Rat association reported 327 consultations in 2024, which corresponds to an increase of 20 percent compared to the previous year. Young men who represent the victims in 72 percent of cases are particularly affected. But more and more girls are also affected, their share has increased to around 28 percent compared to the previous year. The biggest increase in consultations is recorded in the 11- to 14-year-old age group, who have increased by 178 percent, says Birgit Satke, head of the advice team from Rat on Wire.

The perpetrator's mesh remains the same: they contact their victims via social networks, often dressed as attractive people, and pretend to be erotic intentions. After the exchange of nude photos or videos, the young people are massively put under pressure to transfer money, otherwise their intimate recordings will be published. In the latest development, the perpetrators are increasingly relying on AI-generated pictures to disguise real identities or to blackmail the victims with manipulated content, as can be seen from the advice at the Rat on Wire. This means that those affected suffer from enormous psychological pressure, even if the recordings used do not represent them themselves, Satke describes.

new tools in the fight against sex location

To help the victims, there are now two new online tools: "Take It Down" for young people under the age of 18 and "Stop non-consensual intimate image sharing" for adults. These tools can prevent the picture from publishing intimate images on platforms such as Instagram or Tiktok by creating a digital fingerprint of the image to identify an upload. Here, too, Satke emphasizes the importance of canceling contact with the perpetrators and securing evidence instead of responding to the claims, since this only encourages the perpetrators. An early report to the police is also recommended because sex management is a criminal behavior.

The increasing tendency of sex management cases among young people shows how urgently preventive measures are required. Sensitization in sex education and media literacy could help protect the young target group better. The full reporting of these dramatic developments can be found on ots.at href = "https://www.krone.at/3070904"> krone.at .