The Australian eSafety Commissioner recently launched a new campaign to raise awareness of sexual extortion, or “sextortion”. Targeted primarily at men, the campaign features AI-generated videos of attractive women attempting to lure men into financial scams.

It’s responding to a growing problem – this form of image-based abuse is being reported more and more all over the world.

We recently surveyed more than 16,000 respondents across ten countries. We found one in seven (14.5%) adults have experienced sextortion, while 4.8% admitted to being a perpetrator.

Sextortion is a form of image-based abuse. It involves making threats to share nude or sexual images to coerce the victim into complying with certain behavioural or financial demands. These can include paying a ransom, sharing intimate images or engaging in unwanted acts.

Around the world, law enforcement and online safety agencies have noted significant increases in sextortion reports, particularly from young men. In 2025, the Australian eSafety Commissioner received more than 3,300 reports of sextortion through its image-based abuse scheme.

Of these reports, 86% were from males of all ages, and 42% were from young men aged 18 to 24 years.

Most of the sextortion reports eSafety receives are for financial forms of sextortion. This is where scammers trick people (typically, but not exclusively, young men) into sharing their intimate images, or lead them to believe they have evidence of the victim visiting pornographic sites. The sextortionists then threaten to share the intimate images if they don’t comply with their........

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