Tech Coalition Multi-Stakeholder Forum 

Deadline to share feedback has been extended to EOD Thursday June 1.  

BACKGROUND 

There is an increasing global alarm concerning the rapid growth of online sextortion of children. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports of sextortion have seen a steady increase. From 2019 to 2020 the United Kingdom’s Revenge Porn Helpline saw a 234% increase in sextortion reports from minors. In 2022, the FBI reported a 1000% increase in incidents of financial sextortion involving a minor, leading to a National Public Safety Alert in the United States. In 2023, the Tech Coalition will convene a Multi-Stakeholder Forum, June 21 and 22, in Washington, D.C. The Forum will mark the third year since the launch of Project Protect’s five-part strategic framework for combating child sexual exploitation and abuse online, with multi-stakeholder efforts driven under the Collective Action pillar. 

This forum aims to unite all sectors in their efforts to prevent, detect, and protect children from financially motivated sextortion by establishing a shared understanding of the challenges and driving both sector specific and collaborative solutions. 

PURPOSE 

Ahead of the Multi-Stakeholder Forum, the Tech Coalition in collaboration with the Safe Online Initiative of End Violence Partnership, aims to gain an understanding of current interventions, tools and resources available to combat online financial sextortion of children. The objective of this survey is to collate and increase understanding of current interventions for combatting online financial sextortion with the online CSEA community and to enable the most productive discussion at the Multi-Stakeholder Forum in June. We encourage you to share as much detail as you can, as responses may inform the design and goals of the Forum and there is an opportunity to highlight some interventions in the Forum itself through speaking opportunities and follow up reporting to this community.

SCOPE 

Online sextortion can manifest in many different ways. Sextortion occurs when sexual images or videos taken or obtained either with consent or without consent through coercion, pressure, deception or stealth are used to extort the individual in the image. Sometimes an individual is blackmailed into providing more sexual content under threat that the perpetrator will share their sexual content. Financial sextortion occurs when a perpetrator demands money or gift cards in exchange for keeping sexual content private. For this survey, we are focused on the financial motive only. 

The Tech Coalition is seeking to understand promising interventions, resources, and tools that are available to combat online financial sextortion of children. This may include, but is not limited to:

• Prevention and deterrence interventions
• Interventions that encourage reporting
• Victim support resources 
• Education initiatives 

Interventions that can be applied during any stage in the life cycle of this abuse are relevant (e.g., prevention, commision, detection, reporting, investigation, prosecution). Interventions that are implemented, in development, or in an ideation phase are also welcome.

We are grateful for your time and input to this survey. This survey has three parts:

1. About your organisation
2. What are existing interventions?
3. What are tools and resources available?

There are 10 questions in the survey and it should take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. Please do not hesitate to reach out with further information and please share with your network of partners who have relevant inputs.

If you have any questions or additional comments please reach out to natalie.shoup@end-violence.org or kay@technologycoalition.org.

We are grateful for your time and input to this survey. This survey has three parts:

1. About your organisation
2. What are existing interventions?
3. What are tools and resources available?

There are 10 questions in the survey and it should take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. Please do not hesitate to reach out with further information and please share with your network of partners who have relevant inputs.

If you have any questions or additional comments please reach out to natalie.shoup@end-violence.org or kay@technologycoalition.org.

Please complete this section - questions 1-8 - for each intervention you have details on, only entering one intervention at a time. After question 8 there is an option to add another intervention and if you select "Yes" you will be shown questions 1-8 again. You may enter details on up to 3 interventions.

We encourage you to enter interventions in as much detail as you can, as this will not only inform increased understanding of current interventions for combatting online financial sextortion with the online CSEA community and enable the most productive discussion at the Multi-Stakeholder Forum in June. We encourage you to share as much detail as you can, as responses may inform the design and goals of the Forum and there is an opportunity to highlight some interventions in the Forum itself through speaking opportunities and follow up reporting to this community. Please refer to page 1 of the survey for more detail on what is in scope for what constitutes an intervention to combat online financial sextortion of children. 

Tools and resources are materials such as informational webpages, articles, guides or toolkits that would not fall under interventions but could provide useful knowledge or references to various stakeholders including children, victims, survivors, parents, industry, law enforcement, governments, direct service providers, etc.

We encourage you to enter as many tools or resources that you have developed or are aware of in as much detail as you can, as this will not only inform the design and goals of the Forum but there is an opportunity to highlight some resources in the Forum itself through speaking opportunities and follow up reporting to this community.