Cyberbullying
This can include:
- Spreading malicious and abusive rumours and gossiping
- Emailing or texting you with threatening or intimidating remarks
- Mobbing (being targeted by a group or gang)
- Harassing you repeatedly
- Intimidation and blackmail
- Stalking you online and continually harassing you
- Posting embarrassing or humiliating images or videos without your consent
- Posting your private details on-line without consent
- Enticing or goading you online to self-harm or commit a crime
- Setting up a false profile with your details, identity fraud or identity theft
- Using gaming sites to attack or bully you
The National Bullying Helpline have further information and advice on their website.
Cyberflashing
Cyberflashing is when someone sends you a photo of genitals without your permission. It is sometimes called 'dick pics' and is illegal. Examples include:
- a picture or video sent over a social media site or a dating app
- a picture or video sent through Bluetooth that allows someone to send files to you close by
- a picture or video placed somewhere for you to see it, such as on your desk or on someone's phone on public transport
It doesn't matter if the photo shows a person's real genitals, or if the photo has been computer generated to look like someone's genitals.
The Police have further information and advice on their website.
Revenge Porn
Non-consensual intimate image abuse, or revenge porn, is when someone:
- shares, or threatens to share, intimate photos or videos of you without your permission. This could be by text, social media, email or a messaging app (such as WhatsApp).
- creates, or asks someone else to create, a fake intimate image or video of you that appears real, without your permission.
- posts intimate images or videos of you online
- shows someone a physical or electronic intimate image of you
- shares edited or fake images or videos of you, like deepfakes, that appear real
- helps or encourages someone to create a fake intimate image or video of you
The Police have further information and advice on their website.
Sextortion
Sextortion, also known as ‘webcam blackmail’, is when intimate images and videos are recorded and used for financial exploitation and coercion.
The majority of cases involve individuals meeting via social media or dating websites and forming a relationship through conversation. The blackmailer often assumes the identity of a stereotypically attractive man or woman who, after gaining the victim's trust, will quickly persuade them into sending intimate images or videos or will record sexual content without the victim’s knowledge or consent. The images and videos will then be used to blackmail them for money or further sexual content. Sextortion can be committed by an individual or by organised criminal gangs overseas.
The Police have further information and advice on their website.