Actress
Shay Mitchell Lends Her Voice
to Sextortion
Video to Help Get Conversation Started
Los
Angeles, Calif. (October 3, 2017) – Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children, a nonprofit organization
dedicated to building technology to defend children from sexual abuse, today
launched a social campaign
and educational video, narrated by actress Shay Mitchell, to spark
conversations about the pervasive issue of sextortion. Sextortion is a cybercrime
that relies on victims feeling too ashamed to ask for help when an abuser
threatens to distribute their intimate images. Often the abuser is
looking for the victim to create more images, or for a sexual encounter.
Sextortion can spark life-altering crises in the lives of young people.
“Too
many sextortion victims stay quiet because of shame. We have to spread the word
that we have each other’s backs,” said actress Shay Mitchell. “Sextortion is a criminal act and the blame
belongs with one person only – the perpetrator. I want to help victims talk
more openly, find resources, find hope and get support.”
As
part of Thorn’s focused research on emerging forms of child abuse, they
partnered with the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children
Research Center to study this crime. Over 1,600 young people participated in
this study and 1 in 3 of them had never told anyone about their abuse prior to
this research. Shame, embarrassment, and self-blame kept many respondents from
seeking help. That is specifically what this campaign aims to change – minimize
the shame that keeps victims trapped, by talking about sextortion before it
happens.
“At
Thorn, we work at the intersection of technology and child sexual abuse and
we’ve been studying the growing toll sextortion is taking on children.
This crime isn’t discussed enough because it comes with a lot of shame
and fear for the victims,” said Ashton Kutcher, co-founder of Thorn. “This
crime has devastating consequences – including teen suicide. The goal of our
campaign is to remove shame, open up a dialogue and educate people.”
Thorn's campaign
includes a video (http://bit.ly/2hIBwxK), narrated by
actress Shay Mitchell, that explores how sextortion happens. Sharing this video
is designed to inspire conversations about the issue before it occurs. Visit www.stopsextortion.com for additional
resources on how to navigate this issue and information for parents, friends,
policymakers and tech companies. In addition, Thorn has partnered with Crisis
Text Hotline to provide anonymous crisis support. For help, text THORN to
741741.
To create this campaign, Thorn collaborated
with over 40 partners to incorporate their insights and their knowledge into
the resources provided. Unique insights were shared by survivors, law enforcement,
and organizations such as Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Kik, After School, Futures Without Violence, NCMEC,
Common Sense Media, Family Online
Safety Institute and Love146.
About Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children
Thorn, co-founded
by Ashton Kutcher, builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse.
Thorn partners with nonprofits and academic institutions to gather new insights
into the role technology plays in child sex trafficking, the creation and
proliferation of child pornography, and the normalization of child sexual
exploitation. Thorn then goes beyond insight to action to develop the tools,
systems and approaches to help
address these issues. Thorn has also created a Technology Task Force — a group
of more than 25 technology companies that collaborate on technology initiatives
to fight child sexual exploitation. Participating companies include Google,
Facebook, Salesforce, Microsoft, Intel, Memsql, Cloudera, SV Angel, Twitter,
Expedia, Connotate, Irdeto, Digital Reasoning, Pinterest, Amazon Web Services
(AWS) and others. For more information on Thorn, please visit
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