Teens are being blackmailed into silence. Some have taken their own lives. This must stop — and we can stop it.

Every day, predators use fake accounts to contact teenagers online. They pose as peers, trick victims into sharing explicit images, and then demand money or more content — threatening to expose them to family and friends, or report them to the authorities for sharing nudes.

This is called sextortion, and it’s a growing national crisis.

Social media companies have the tools to stop this. What they lack is the will.

We’re calling on major platforms and lawmakers to take immediate action to protect kids online by implementing proven, practical safeguards that could save lives.

We Demand the Following:
Mandatory age verification for all social media users, using secure facial recognition or government ID to prevent fake accounts and underage impersonation.
Image scanning technology to detect and block explicit images involving minors before they are shared or stored.
Private messaging restrictions by default — strangers should not be able to message minors unless they are mutual connections (e.g., both users add or follow each other first).
Automated and human-powered takedowns of accounts engaged in impersonation, blackmail, or suspicious grooming behavior.
Quarterly transparency reports from social media companies showing how many sextortion attempts were reported and stopped.
24/7 trained crisis teams at every major platform to respond to urgent cases and contact law enforcement.
Federal regulation and penalties for platforms that fail to act on repeated reports of abuse or delay intervention.
These are reasonable, doable, and necessary measures.

If platforms can detect copyright violations within seconds, they can detect this. If they can ban accounts for misinformation, they can ban predators.

Lives depend on it.

Sign this petition to demand that tech companies stop enabling the trauma, exploitation, and suicide of vulnerable teens. No more excuses. No more tragedy.