Victory! TAKE IT DOWN Act Unanimously Passes Senate — Again!
When Amanda (pseudonym) had nude images of her leaked online, it was only the beginning of a lifetime of trauma.
This is how she describes the continued impact of the experience
:
"PTSD and dropping out of college —
looking at my own face in the mirror is triggering, showering is triggering, changing clothes, even just trying to go to the bathroom.
When I'm not having flashbacks, I’m stuck with brain fog. I was left unable to comprehend my classes, which led to me dropping out.
Amanda is only one of countless victims of
image-based sexual abuse (IBSA).
IBSA is a rampant form of sexual violence which includes the non-consensual creation, distribution, or any use of sexual images. It wreaks havoc on the lives of survivors.
But this week, a beacon of hope has shone through.
A critical bill combatting image-based sexual abuse has taken a major step forward!
Read More
📣
ACTION: Urge the House to Pass the TAKE IT DOWN Act!
The Senate has spoken. Now it's the House's turn!
Take Action!
Sextortion: The Largest Blackmail Operation in Human History
At 12-years-old, despite her parents' objections, Chelsea (pseudonym) made an Instagram account, easily fudging her real birthday to meet Instagram’s age requirement. But things quickly went south.
Not long after downloading the app, a sexual predator found Chelsea and pretended to be romantically interested in her. He manipulated and groomed her to gain her trust, which he then leveraged to convince her to send sexually explicit images. After sending these images, the predator began requesting more and more, threatening her if she refused: he would kill her friends and family, he knew where she lived. He even forced her to turn over her password so he could use her account to lure other kids into his criminal web.
This is sextortion.
Sextortion is the use of sexual images to blackmail the person depicted in those images. It often encompasses a financial element as well, where predators demand money, threatening to publish explicit images of children if they do not comply.
While an extremely pervasive problem, tech companies are seldom doing enough to prevent it.
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Cash App is the #1 Payment Platform for Exploitation Activities
15-year-old Adrian (pseudonym)
met a teenage “girl” on Snapchat and began exchanging sexually explicit photos. His face appeared in every picture he sent. She never showed her face…
An hour into their messaging, he received a photo in his Instagram direct messages, threatening to send these photos around Adrian's community, to his friends, family, peers at school, unless he paid the scammer lots of money. Another message read: “Cash App me at [$Cashtag].” (A Cashtag unique identifier attached to each Cash App account).
Surpassing Venmo and PayPal, Cash App is the most popular digital payment app for teens. Tragically, this also makes it
the most popular payment method in cases of sextortion.
Sextortion occurs when cybercriminals manipulate children into sending them sexually explicit images and then use these images as leverage to get them to pay large amounts of money.
Cash App's design flaws, including defaulted public-facing profiles and lack of comprehensive age verification, have created the perfect environment to facilitate the crime of sextortion.
Learn More
📣
ACTION: Call on Cash App to Cut off Criminal Activity!
Despite improvements Cash App has made, including hiring an Anti-Human Exploitation Program Manager and signing a White House commitment to combat image-based sexual abuse, these changes are reactionary, not preventative. Cash App must take steps to protect users
before
harm is done to them.
Take Action!
Evie Magazine:
Gracie Abrams Condemns Porn and Says it's "Dangerous" for "Young People"
Singer and songwriter, Gracie Abrams, has joined the growing number of celebrities,
including Billie Eilish,
to condemn pornography and amplify discourse about its harms.
"Abrams’ point is that
porn is not sex education.
Yet, for many young people, it serves as their first exposure to it. A report from the
British Board of Film Classification found that children as young as seven
are now stumbling across explicit sexual content online.
The industry itself thrives on pushing boundaries. The most-watched categories on major sites often involve
coercion, humiliation, or outright abuse
– content that, if removed from a pornographic context, would be considered disturbing and damaging to women,
if not outright criminal.
"
Read More
📣
ACTION: Ask Your Legislators to Protect Children from Pornography!
Take Action!
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