Balanced News: FBI issues alert on ‘explosion’ in child ‘sextortion’ schemes

With the holiday season on the horizon and many children set to spend more time at home browsing the internet, U.S. law enforcement on Monday issued a national public safety alert about what they describe as an “explosion” in cases of children and teens being extorted to send sexually explicit photos and videos online. In just the past year, law enforcement received over 7,000 reports of online financial “sextortion” attempts, resulting in at least 3,000 victims, the alert says. Through deception, predators convince a young person to produce an explicit video or photo, according to the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).