Fake nudes and sextortion

A message from someone you've never met: a picture of you, naked. Except you never took it. Someone used an app to "undress" a photo from your Instagram. Or a new online friend you've been chatting with for weeks, who asked for a photo, now says: "Send money, or everyone you know sees this." If this happens to you, or to your child, what do you do?

Two kinds of image abuse

Fake nudes ("deepfake nudes"). AI apps and websites can now take an ordinary photo, such as a school picture or a holiday selfie, and turn it into a realistic fake nude in seconds. The person in the picture never posed for it, and often doesn't even know it exists until it's spread around a class or a group chat.

Sextortion. Someone gets hold of a sexual image, real or fake, and uses it to threaten you: send more pictures, send money, or they'll share it with your friends, family or school. Often the person is a stranger pretending to be a teenager, who builds trust over days or weeks. Increasingly, the goal is money, and many of the targets are teenage boys.

How common is it?

In 2025, the US organisation Thorn surveyed 1,200 young people aged 13 to 20. About 1 in 8 knew someone who had been targeted with fake nudes, and 1 in 17 said it had happened to them. Worryingly, 1 in 5 teenagers thought it was legal to make fake nudes of someone else, even of another minor.

In a second survey that year, about 1 in 4 young people said they had been sexually extorted before the age of 18, in a broad sense that includes threats from people they knew. Most (61%) knew the person only online. And 1 in 7 victims said they had harmed themselves because of it. That's why this topic isn't only about technology. It can become a matter of life and safety.

Is it legal?

No, and young people need to hear this clearly. Sexual images of anyone under 18 are illegal in the EU, and EU law already counts realistic images, not only real photos. In Greece, sharing someone's intimate images without consent ("revenge porn") is a crime with serious penalties. And by June 2027, every EU country has to make it a crime to create and share manipulated sexual images of a person without consent, which is exactly what fake nudes are. Making a fake nude of a classmate "as a joke" can mean a criminal case.

If it happens to you

It is not your fault. Whether the image is fake or real, the person doing wrong is the one making threats or spreading it, not you.

Don't pay and don't send more. Paying almost never ends it. It usually leads to more demands.

Save the evidence. Take screenshots of the messages, the profile and the username before you block or report. Don't delete the conversation yet.

Block and report. Report the account to the app (Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and others all have reporting for this), then block it.

Tell someone. A parent, a teacher, an older sibling or a helpline. People who are threatened often feel they have to deal with it alone, and that's exactly what the person threatening them wants.

Get the image taken down. If the image shows you under 18, Take It Down (takeitdown.ncmec.org) creates a digital fingerprint of the image on your own phone, without uploading it, so that participating platforms can find and remove copies. For adults, StopNCII.org works the same way.

For parents

The single most protective thing you can do is to say, before anything happens: "If someone ever threatens you with a picture, real or fake, come to me. You won't be in trouble. We'll fix it together." Children often stay silent because they fear punishment or losing their phone.

If your child does come to you, stay calm, thank them for telling you, and follow the steps above with them. Don't confiscate the phone before the evidence is saved, and don't contact the person yourself. Report it to the police.

It also helps to talk about the other side: that making, asking for or forwarding a sexual image of someone, real or fake, hurts a real person and is a crime.

The bottom line

Fake nudes and sextortion are new, fast-growing forms of abuse, and they can happen to anyone with a photo online. Those affected are never to blame. Help exists, images can often be removed, and the law is on the side of the person targeted. What protects young people most is knowing three things in advance: don't pay, save the evidence, and tell someone.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, ashamed or thinking about harming yourself because of an image or a threat, please tell someone now. Call 1056 or 116111, or 112 in an emergency. This can be fixed, and you don't have to face it alone.

Educational guidance, not diagnosis or medical care.