This section is for you. Not your parents.

Someone, often posing as a peer your age, builds trust fast (sometimes in a single conversation) and gets you to send an image, or fakes one with AI using a photo you already posted. Then they threaten to send it to your friends, family, or followers unless you pay or send more. It can go from a completely normal conversation to active threats within an hour, and the pressure is designed to make you panic and act alone.

Here's what actually helps:

• Stop responding. Don't pay, don't send anything else, and don't try to negotiate. Paying almost never makes it stop; it usually signals you'll pay again
• Screenshot everything first: the messages, the profile, any payment request, before you block. That's your evidence
• Block the account, then report it through the platform
• Tell one trusted adult. This is the hardest step and the one that actually ends it faster
• NCMEC's CyberTipline (report.cybertip.org) takes reports directly from teens, no parent required to start

If you're also feeling panicked, overwhelmed, or thinking about hurting yourself over this, find the crisis line for your country on our contact list and call or text it. That's separate from and just as important as reporting the account.

An ordinary photo from your Instagram, a school page, or a group chat is all it takes to generate a fake explicit image with an AI "nudify" app. You don't need to have sent anything explicit, or even know the person doing it, for this to happen to you. It's becoming common enough at some schools that it's worth knowing the response before you need it.

• It happened to you, not because of anything you did. That's true even if the original photo was something you posted yourself
• Don't confront whoever made or shared it yourself; that can escalate things and make evidence harder to collect
• Save proof (screenshots, links, usernames) without re-sharing the image further
• Report and request removal at NCMEC's Take It Down (takeitdown.ncmec.org). Under the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, platforms have to remove a valid report within 48 hours
• Tell a trusted adult, especially if it's circulating at your school, since they may be able to get the school involved too

A profile that moves fast, avoids video calls, and always has a convenient excuse is worth being suspicious of, even if the conversation genuinely feels good. Romance scammers are patient, and the emotional connection can feel completely real while still being fake.

• Strong feelings declared unusually early is a pattern, not a coincidence
• A consistent excuse for never meeting or video calling (bad camera, deployed overseas, "shy") is one of the most reliable tells
• If money, gift cards, or crypto come up at any point, even framed as an emergency, that's the actual goal revealing itself
• Reverse image search their profile photo. Stolen photos of real people are the most common setup
• It's okay to just stop responding. You don't owe a stranger online an explanation for going quiet

Colleges and employers do look, usually briefly, but they look. Old posts, tagged photos, and public location tags quietly add up into a version of you that you didn't choose to show anyone. None of this needs to be dramatic to fix.

• Set old and current accounts to private, and untag yourself from anything you don't want surfacing later
• Turn off precise location sharing on photos and stories going forward
• Google yourself occasionally. It's the fastest way to see what a stranger, or an admissions officer, actually finds
• Keep school names, addresses, and daily routines out of anything public, not because something bad is guaranteed to happen, but because there's no upside to it being findable
• This isn't about erasing your personality online, it's about deciding who gets to see what, instead of it being decided for you