Sextortion: what to do

Sextortion is a specific, common crime: someone threatens to share an intimate image or video of you unless you pay, send more content, or comply with another demand. It happens to people of every age and gender, often carried out by organized scammers rather than someone you know personally — the mechanics of the threat matter more than who's behind it.

What not to do

• Don't pay. Paying confirms to the scammer that the target is willing to pay, and the far more common pattern is escalating demands, not a resolution. There's no reliable way to guarantee a payment actually ends it.
• Don't send more content, even if threatened — it only gives the person more material to use.
• Don't panic-delete your accounts. It doesn't stop the person from following through, and it removes your ability to document what happened for a report.
• Don't engage in extended back-and-forth. A brief, clear "I am not paying and I am reporting this" is enough — prolonged negotiation tends to extend the situation rather than resolve it.

What actually helps

• Screenshot everything — the messages, the threats, the account/username involved, any content already shared with you — before blocking or reporting.
• Block the account after documenting, not before.
• Report to the platform the contact happened on, using their specific sextortion or extortion reporting category if one exists.
• Use StopNCII.org proactively if an image exists that could be shared, to help block it from being uploaded to participating platforms.
• Report to police. Extortion is a Criminal Code offence in Canada on its own, and when it involves an intimate image, it can also fall under non-consensual distribution provisions — see our full guide on that specific law. Many police services now have cybercrime units experienced with exactly this pattern.

Tell someone

Isolation is part of what makes this work as a tactic — scammers count on shame keeping the target from telling anyone or reporting it. Telling a trusted friend, family member, or contacting a support line breaks that isolation and generally leads to a clearer-headed response than trying to handle it entirely alone under pressure.