In a worrying trend spotlighted by the eSafety Commission’s third transparency report, young men and boys are being pressured into sharing intimate media on social networking sites, only to face blackmail that extracts thousands of dollars from them.
Speaking to ABC radio on Tuesday, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant emphasized the gravity of the situation, stating, “Sexual extortion has reached catastrophic proportions. We’re witnessing organized criminal networks target victims with brutal efficiency every day.”
Unveiled on Tuesday, the transparency report highlights a concerning statistic: from July to December 2025, 85% of the 2,206 sexual extortion complaints involved male victims, predominantly aged 18 to 39.
Inman Grant expressed further concern, noting, “We’re seeing much younger kids coming forward now, including those as young as 15, 16, and 17 years old.”
Inman Grant also addressed the broader issue of image-based abuse, stating, “Last year alone, we received 8,000 reports of non-consensual sharing of intimate images and videos. In the initial eight years of reporting, the victims were usually women and girls. However, the landscape is changing.”
“Fifty per cent of these reports are now financial sexual extortion targeting young men.”
‘Hey bro. Pay me’
In one story shared by the eSafety Commission, 16-year-old Sam was targeted on Instagram after he liked a photo posted by a woman online who regularly posted flirty content.
‘Jessica’ direct-messaged Sam almost immediately, asking if he wanted to “have a bit of fun”.
After a few messages back and forth, Sam shared a nude photo of himself.
‘Jessica’s’ tone immediately changed, replying: “Hey bro. Pay me. Fast payment.”
The teenager was pressured to steal an Apple gift card from his family, or else the blackmailer would share the photo with his friends and family.
Sam’s story is indicative of the rising trend of sexual extortion, and child sexual extortion and abuse, using Meta’s Instagram, which the eSafety Commission said was the subject of 695 reports.
Extortion often started on one platform, like Instagram or dating app Tinder, before moving to chat-based platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram.
Inman Grant said criminals were using sophisticated methods to target young men, including “using generative AI to create very attractive personas”, face-swapping technologies, and voice cloning.
“They’ve really honed their craft in terms of targeting young men,” she said.
“It is a horrendous crime that, in the worst-case scenario, leads to extreme mental distress and sometimes suicide.”
Is the social media ban working?
Based on complaints received by the commission, TikTok was the most common platform for child sexual exploitation.
In 2025, a study from the Australian Institute of Criminology found one in 10 Australian adolescents surveyed had experienced sexual extortion, with more than half first experiencing it before the age of 16.
However, just over six months since Australia’s world-first youth social media ban, Inman Inman Grant reported only a modest impact.
According to the eSafety Commission, there had been only a 37 per cent reduction in the number of young people holding social media accounts.
“The social media companies are not complying,” Inman Grant said.
The ban requires platforms like Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and WhatsApp, take “reasonable steps” to ensure young people under the age of 16 do not hold accounts.
Last year, a team of researchers tested the age-assurance software deployed after the social media ban. They found that when users listed their age as 16, nine out of 10 platforms did not ask for further proof of age.
The findings showed a grey area regarding age verification.
“We’re calling them out on their poor practices,” Inman Grant said.
The report comes as the United Kingdom outlined strict bans on young people accessing social media, set to come into force in spring 2027.