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Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
The father of a teen who took his own life after being blackmailed with AI nudes has issued a critical message to parents.
Elijah Heacock ‘wasn’t depressed, he wasn’t sad, he wasn’t angry’, as his father, John Burnett, recalled while speaking to CBS Saturday Morning.
However, things took a turn when the teenager received a text with an AI generated nude image of himself which demanded that he pay up $3,000 to stop it from being sent to his friends and family.
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Shortly after receiving the message, Elijah died by suicide, with his parents not knowing what had happened until the messages were discovered on his phone.
Elijah had been the victim of a sextortion scam, which is a type of phishing attack where people are coerced to pay a ransom because they have been threatened with sharing intimate images or videos of themselves.
Burnett went on to say: “The people that are after our children are well organized, they are well financed, and they are relentless.They don’t need the photos to be real, they can generate whatever they want, and then they use it to blackmail the child.”
Now, Elijah’s family are fighting for change in the hopes that other families won’t have to suffer like they have and they hope the new ‘Take It Down’ Act will be effective.
The act was recently passed and signed into law by President Donald Trump, and will make it a federal crime to post any sexually explicit images - whether real or fake - online without the person’s permission.
The new law will also require that social media platforms take down images maliciously posted within 48 hours of a victim’s request.
Burnett added: “It’s kind of like a bullet in a war. It’s not going to win the war. No war is ever won by one bullet. You got to win battles. You got to win fights. And we’re in it.”
Speaking to CBS News Dr Rebecca Portnoff, who is the head of data science at Thorn, a non-profit focused on preventing child exploitation online, said: “You don’t actually need any technical skills at this point to create this kind of illegal and harmful material.
“Just looking up how to make a nude image of someone will bring up search results for apps, websites and other resources.”
She added: “There are real, tangible solutions that do exist that are being deployed today that can help to prevent this kind of misuse.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in a mental health crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.
