Resources made available amid alarming rise in child sextortion in Nebraska, nationwide

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Nebraska law enforcement officials are voicing concern about a rise in child sextortion cases and want families to know what resources are available to them.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children saw a 300% increase in reports of online child enticement and sextortion from 2021-2023. This year, the center is set to surpass numbers from 2023.

Kathryn Rifenbark, the CyberTipline Director for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), said more children are being coerced into sending strangers nude images, only to find out they're not who they claimed to be.

This can lead to threats of blackmail if the child does not provide a large sum of money or more nude photographs or videos.

"The offenders are going to use tactics like 'I'm going to share this with your family and friends, your entire life is going to be ruined, everyone in your school is going to know what happened,'" said Rifenbark.

Rifenbark said offenders may also try to convince a child that they might be criminalized or get into trouble if they tell anyone what is happening.

"We also see situations where the offenders may post the child's identifying information online such as their name, their school, maybe their username, phone number, email address, which can put that child at risk in the personal safety arena, where they now have other offenders who have access to that information," told Rifenbark.

NCMEC has a free, anonymous tool to help kids if someone posts an explicit photo or video of them online. Take It Down launched in 2022 and has received more than 100,000 submissions.

"If they still have that explicit image or video on their phone or their computer that they sent to an offender, they can go to our website and that website will point to that picture or video on their phone or their computer. It will capture unique file information called a 'hash value', which then can be shared with companies, who can scan their platforms to locate that image or video, remove it, and report into the National Center," explained Rifenbark.

While the service is confidential, NCMEC encourages children to tell a trusted adult who can help them report the crime to law enforcement.

Lt. Monty Lovelace with the Nebraska State Patrol 's Technical Crimes Division said it's best to block the individual and cease communication. Then, the Nebraska Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force can investigate the case.

However, Lt. Lovelace said pursuing these criminals can be challenging for local or state authorities.

"Sometimes we can work a case, but unfortunately these cases are overseas and are in places where governments aren't quite cooperative with the state patrol. A lot of the ones we see are in Nigeria, so our federal partners will work those types of cases," said Lt. Lovelace.

The NSP received about 4,000 tips last year through NCMEC's CyberTipline. This year, Lt. Lovelace said they are on track to surpass that by 600-700 tips.

With the rise of artificial intelligence, Lt. Lovelace foresees a rise in cases in the future as well. "Unfortunately, with ever-changing electronic service platforms and applications that kids can use, it provides an environment for kids to be extorted in a number of different ways, so I don't know that we will see that going down," told Lt. Lovelace.

Lt. Lovelace also said NSP has seen more bad actors who aren't looking for money or sexual gratification, but who want to harm vulnerable groups of children.

"In many cases we see that the LGBTQ+ community of children are targeted for their vulnerabilities, and they are often a target of trying to get them to self-harm or to commit suicide. Others would include someone that is lower socio-economic status, maybe they have a lot of time of their hands – lower functioning," explained Lt. Lovelace.

Both organizations emphasize the need for parents to have open conversations with their kids and to utilize prevention tools.

"Make sure that we are auditing our children's phones, using privacy settings from the applications from the phones," said Lt. Lovelace.

"That your child knows if something does happen, if they are uncomfortable with what someone is asking them to do online or offline, that they have you to go to and you're going to allow them to share what's happened to them without judgement or punishment," added Rifenbark.

NCMEC has educational videos and a discussion guide on sextortion for parents, teachers, and kids on its website.

Similar to Take It Down, Stop Nonconsensual Intimate Image Abuse offers a service for adults who have had intimate images posted online without their consent.