Straight answers, no lecture.
This page is not going to tell you to get off your phone. It tells you what actually goes wrong online, how to spot it early, and what to do if it has already happened. Read the bit you need and ignore the rest.
Read this first
If something has already gone wrong, you are not in trouble and you have not ruined your life. Nearly everything on this page is fixable, and it gets easier to fix the sooner you tell someone. The people who want you to stay silent are the ones causing the problem.
When someone new is a bit too interested
Most people who message you are fine. A small number are not, and they behave in a way you can learn to recognise. It usually feels good at first. That is the point of it.
Watch for someone who moves fast. They compliment you a lot, early. They want to know your age, your school, what your parents are like, whether you are alone. Within days they want to move off the app you met on and into a private chat, a game voice channel, or somewhere messages disappear. They say you are mature, or different, or that nobody else understands you like they do.
Then comes a secret. Something small you keep between the two of you. That secret is the tool. Once you are keeping one thing from everyone else, keeping the next thing is easier.
The clearest single sign
An adult who wants a private, secret friendship with someone your age is doing something wrong, no matter how kind they seem or what reason they give. That is true even if they are funny, even if they help you with things, and even if you like them. Especially then.
What to do
- You never have to reply. Not answering is a complete answer, and you do not owe anyone an explanation.
- Block, then report inside the app. Reporting is anonymous to the person you report.
- Screenshot the conversation before you block, if you can. It is easier to explain later with the messages in front of you.
- Tell one adult. Not the whole world, just one person you trust.
If someone is using a photo against you
This happens to a lot of people, including people who are careful. Someone gets hold of a nude or a private photo and then threatens to send it to your friends, your family or your school unless you send more, or pay them. It is called sextortion. It is a crime, and the crime is being committed against you.
The threats are designed to make you panic and act alone. Almost always, the person is running the same script on many people at once and will move on once it stops working.
Do this, in this order
- Stop replying. Every reply tells them it is working.
- Do not pay and do not send more. People who pay get asked again. It does not end it.
- Do not delete the messages. Screenshot everything first, including their profile and username. That is the evidence.
- Tell an adult you trust, today. A parent, a teacher, an older sibling, a school counsellor. If you truly cannot face telling someone you know, use a helpline on the get help page instead.
- Block and report the account on the app.
You can get images taken down
If a nude or sexual image of you exists and you were under 18 when it was taken, a free service called Take It Down can help stop it being shared. It never sees or uploads your picture. Your device works out a kind of digital fingerprint from the image, and only that fingerprint is sent, so participating platforms can find and remove matching copies. It is free and you stay anonymous.
About getting in trouble
Young people often stay quiet because they think they will be blamed, or lose their phone, or get someone arrested. Adults who work in child protection are not there to punish you, and they have seen this many times before. Being tricked is not a crime and it is not a failure. Staying silent is what lets it continue.
Nothing in a chat is really private
Anything you send can be screenshotted, and disappearing messages disappear from your screen, not from the world. Someone can photograph your screen with another phone and no app on earth can stop that. This is not a reason to be paranoid. It is a reason to assume that whatever you send could be seen by someone you did not send it to, and to decide what you send with that in mind.
The same goes the other way. If someone forwards you a private photo of another person, sending it on makes you part of what is happening to them. Deleting it and saying no is a small thing that costs you almost nothing and can matter enormously to them.
If a group turns on someone
Bullying in a group chat works because everyone assumes somebody else will say something. Usually nobody does. You do not have to make a speech. Leaving the chat, messaging the person privately to check they are alright, or simply not joining in all break the pattern. Screenshot it and show an adult if it does not stop.
How to start the conversation
The hardest part is the first sentence. You do not have to explain the whole thing at once, and you do not have to have it worked out before you speak. Any of these is enough to begin:
- “Something happened online and I need help with it. Please do not be angry.”
- “Can I show you a message someone sent me? It made me uncomfortable.”
- “I need to tell you something and I need you to just listen first.”
If the first adult you tell does not react well, that is about them, not about you. Tell another one. Keep going until someone helps.