How would you approach this with your teens? Online blackmail and suicide

[Koulibiak]

I was very sad to read this news story today https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/26/golden-boy-16-killed-himself-after-being-blackmailed-over-nude-photos

Partly it’s because we have friends at the school, live in the same area, and have kids the same age.

DCs have had countless online safety talks from school and from us, so they know what not to do. But mistakes happen … I’d like to also tell them that nudes are not the end of the world ; that if they make a mistake, no matter how awful (excluding criminality), we will be there to support them and get them through it - that they don’t need to commit the unthinkable because of (perceived or actual) shame for them or us.

That’s a hard conversation to have with teens. Has anyone got any advice? Thank you x

I was horrified when I saw this poor lad died.

I have 2 teens and approached it absolutely head on and bluntly. I’ve told them that everyone has boobs/vag/dick/arse and that if anyone was to get hold of a naked picture of them somehow and distribute it, then nobody would really give a shit about seeing it. And that distributing naked pictures of minors is illegal anyway. That if they received any blackmail stuff, to show it to me and not reply. And I will deal with it, most likely by ignoring it. Even if someone released (or threatened to release) a video of them shitting or wanking or anything - really not to give any shits about it and to ignore. I was totally blunt. I told them always to tell me if there is any problem and I will deal with it.

At their school, one kid catfished another kid and got some naked pictures which they then distributed round most of the year group. Everyone saw the dick of this particular kid - but the prevailing view amongst the kids was that the kid who distributed it was a monster. As I said, nobody really cared about actually seeing the other poor kid’s dick - that poor kid was horribly mortified though.

Oh and I followed up with do not under any circumstances kill yourself. Bluntly. Very very blunt. A boy in my uni accommodation killed himslef aged 18 so I told the kids about him as well.

This happened to the much younger child of a friend. At about age 11 he had sent a photo to 'a girl', who turned out to be a boy in his school.

My friend got the police involved, and reassured her child it would all be OK.
And it was.

At the end of the day with all the deep fake photos I would say we can never now know if a photo is real or not. So, if anyone released a nude photo of me I'd just deny it was me!

(and in reality it would not be me! If that makes sense) but even if it were, I'd just deny and ignore. But then I am fifty something, not a teen.

Heartbreaking this young lad lost his life for such a terrible thing, there is help out there.

"Threatening to share a nude or intimate image or video without the consent of the person shown is illegal. If this happens to you, you can report it and get help."

here

I know it's tough to navigate these conversations with teens. It's all about letting them know they can come to us no matter what, right? Reminding them that mistakes happen and we're here to help them through it, no judgment. Besides, nides are something that is no longer shocking for society. A lot of people are doing that now.

And yeah, dealing with online blackmail is no joke. I stumbled upon some useful tips at https://digitalinvestigation.com/blog/blackmail/how-to-deal-with-blackmail-online/ that might come in handy if they ever find themselves in a sticky situation. It's all about arming them with the tools they need to stay safe in this crazy digital world.