This story discusses suicide. Should you or somebody is having ideas of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Disaster Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Tamia and Tim Woods’ actuality turned a “nightmare” Nov. 19, 2022, when their 17-year-old, all-American son died by suicide after changing into the sufferer of a sextortion scheme on Instagram.
That day, James turned one more younger sufferer of the social media crime development wherein customers are tricked — and infrequently coerced — into sending specific photographs to a scammer who’s posing as another person in an effort to blackmail the sufferer for cash or extra specific photographs. In lots of instances, the scammers are posing as teenage women concentrating on teenage boys.
“It is scary. … It was a nightmare, and we did not fairly know what is actually occurring or what occurred,” Tamia Woods instructed Fox Information Digital at CrimeCon, an annual true-crime conference hosted in Nashville over the weekend.
Tamia and Tim flew to the conference from their hometown of Streetsboro, Ohio, to coach others on the hazards of extortion, a comparatively new and quickly rising crime harming American youngsters and adults.
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“Plenty of instances it might probably finish with self-harming or [is] deadly in a number of instances, as effectively,” Tamia mentioned.
It was solely after their son’s dying that Tamia and Tim realized by police that their son had been a sufferer of a sextortion rip-off. Previous to that dialog, they’d by no means heard of sextortion.
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“It was extraordinarily new on the time. And [police] defined it was monetary sextortion,” Tamia mentioned. “And what we have been about to see was extraordinarily laborious to learn. We later discovered that James acquired 200 messages in 19½ hours. And we did not know who was subsequent. They have been screenshotting a number of Jim’s Instagram associates. That they had already began sending footage and threats to his associates, of James. And so we simply needed to act quick to guarantee that it did not occur to anybody else.”
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A Meta spokesperson mentioned the corporate has guidelines towards sharing or threatening to share another person’s intimate photographs. It additionally restricts adults over 18 from beginning non-public messages with teenagers they aren’t related with on Instagram and Messenger and defaults settings for teenagers below 16 to stricter messaging settings.
In April, Meta introduced new options to fight sextortion, together with Nudity Safety, which might be turned on by default for customers below 18, will blur nude pictures despatched by direct messages (DMs) on the app and can immediate customers with messages when the app detects nudity in a person’s DMs. Moreover, customers will get “ideas” once they ship or obtain nude pictures, reminding them of the potential dangers of sending such pictures.
Additionally they partnered with the Nationwide Middle for Lacking and Exploited Kids to create a free service known as “Take it Down,” which is supposed to assist victims of sextortion erase specific pictures of victims or get dangerous actors to cease sharing them on-line. The device could be accessed at https://takeitdown.ncmec.org.
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The FBI describes sextortion as a felony act wherein an offender contacts a sufferer on-line and coerces the sufferer to ship specific pictures or movies in alternate for both extra specific materials or cash. The FBI acquired greater than 13,000 reviews of on-line monetary sextortion involving at the least 12,600 victims between October 2021 and March 2023.
The Woods say their son was a cheerful and proficient teenager enthusiastic about his school prospects.
“He was pleasant, and he had charisma. He was an athlete,” Tim Woods mentioned. “He liked video games, interval. He liked individuals, interval. He simply was enjoyable to like. He preferred to assist individuals on a regular basis. He was actually thoughtful and compassionate.”
Since their son’s dying, the Woods have began the James Woods Basis, which goals to guard youngsters not solely from sextortion but in addition “rape, molestation, harassment, cyberbullying and suicide,” Tamia mentioned.
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“We have come to seek out out that our youth are in a dire want of constructing certain that we assist elevate them up. Plenty of instances, they do not perceive that … we would like them to be held accountable for his or her errors, however by no means dying — by no means one thing so excessive,” Tamia defined.
“And we additionally train the youngsters find out how to acknowledge that they’re victims. We encourage them to talk up. And despite the fact that we have solely been doing this for a yr and a half, we have helped affect the youngsters to talk up, which led to 2 captures of two pedophiles. We have truly stopped quite a few suicides and in addition helped youngsters all through sextortion, who have been actively being sextorted, as effectively.”
On the convention, the Woods spoke alongside South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey, who misplaced his 17-year-old son to suicide after a sextortion rip-off on Instagram in July 2022.
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Guffey sued Meta earlier this yr after his son met a sextortionist posing as a lady on the photo-sharing app.
“Throughout the first 4 months of me taking workplace, we handed Gavin’s Legislation. And Gavin’s Legislation … fees as much as 15 years in jail if you happen to goal a minor. And it is a further 15 years if nice bodily hurt happens or dying ends in it,” Guffey instructed Fox Information Digital at CrimeCon.
“Along with that, we mandated that Gavin’s Legislation and sextortion be taught in all faculties all through South Carolina. That was step one.”
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Guffey additionally mentioned he needs youngsters to personal their “title, picture and likeness” in the identical approach athletes accomplish that strangers cannot use their pictures towards them in extortion schemes, synthetic intelligence-generated pornography or different crimes on social media.
“And if we simply return and take a look at huge tobacco. … Step one was simply warning labels on the containers. But Apple and Google have been permitting 13-year-olds to enter into these contracts to obtain apps and not using a huge warning on the highest of it,” Guffey defined.
“I do not see how that is authorized, initially. However as soon as these apps are there, then they’re permitting the kid intercourse abuse materials to switch by different apps comparable to Snap and Instagram. I’ve heard about stuff on Discord and even gaming platforms.”
Guffey and the Woods have many frequent targets, however a very powerful proper now’s to unfold consciousness concerning the existence and proliferation of sextortion schemes on social media.
“I can not let you know what number of youngsters which have known as or mother and father which have known as simply because they heard me communicate or went and talked with their youngsters and discovered it was occurring,” Guffey mentioned. “And that is what makes me maintain going. That is the gasoline to know that I am truly reaching individuals.”
