Last week I said it would only be a matter of time until another kid died from the financial sextortion scam. Well, two more kids are dead, and it was entirely preventable.

This is NOT a parenting issue. This is a platform issue and this is a law enforcement issue. Financial sextortion is up over 7200% in the past ~18 months according to NCMEC. Here are the root causes:

- Almost all of the financial sextortion targeting minors is coming from one criminal group in one country.

- Almost all of the financial sextortion targeting minors starts on 1 of 3 apps. That is intentional, due to these apps' designs and defects being hospitable to criminals, paired with the platforms' inability to eradicate these criminals.

We fix these root causes, and this crime goes away.

If we don't fix these root causes, the following will continue to happen on a DAILY basis:

- Hundreds of thousands of fake friend requests will target kids across social media platforms
- Tens of thousands of kids will engage with a sextortion scammer
- Thousands of kids will be coerced into sending an explicit photo and will be blackmailed
- Hundreds will pay the criminals and get hooked into a long-term extortion situation
- Dozens will consider suicide as the only way out