What is sextortion? 6 Series and movies that explore the dark side of the internet

There are many benefits of the Internet, but it also has its dark side, and anyone can be a victim of harassment, blackmail, and a modality known as Sextortion. Here are some series and movies that explore the subject.
A few months ago, Pam & Tommy premiered on Disney +, a series based on real events in which Pamela Anderson and her then-husband, Tommy Lee, were victims of sextortion in 1995 when a homemade porn movie was broadcast without their consent where both appeared. The film had been stolen from her house to later be sold and broadcast on the internet. Today cybercriminals do not have to enter any house, they use social networks and computer viruses to obtain this type of content with which to blackmail their victims, who would have liked to have Panda security installed that could have protected them from cyberattack .

But what is sextortion ? This term is known when the victim is threatened with spreading and making public its sexual content. This crime can respond to economic interests or as a reason for the well-known “revenge porn” .

In Spain this crime affects 6,000 people and only three out of ten report it to the authorities. The Facebook platform reported up to 54,000 cases of revenge porn in a single month. The social network has been one of the main platforms to deploy an active fight to monitor these types of cases and deactivated up to a total of 14,000 accounts related to sexual abuse content and dozens of cases in which minors were involved.

This type of sexual blackmail has been approached by cinema and television, and here are some recommendations that you can see

Pam & Tommy (2022)

Premiering in February 2022, on Disney+ under the Star+ brand. The series tells the true story of Pamela Anderson (Baywatch) and her then-husband, Motley Crue bassist and drummer Tommy Lee. In 1995, shortly after the couple got married, a VHS tape was stolen from them, which contained a homemade porn movie of theirs, which was sold and broadcast on the Internet.

The series is created by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, written by Robert D. Siegel and directed by Craig Gillespie; and starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan.

Caught in His Web (2022)

Inspired by real cases, specifically in one of the first cases of Sextortion in the United States. The film tells the story of three girls, who are constantly tormented by a stalker named Blake, who hacks into his digital devices to exert dominance over them.

Later, the paths of the three protagonists cross and they join forces to hunt down their executioner. At the same time, they will have the support of a detective who will gather her police experience to put this criminal behind bars.

The tape broadcast on the Lifetime streaming platform, is directed by Hannah Cheesman and stars Alison Thornton (Dare Me), Malia Baker (The Baby-Sitters Club), Emma Tremblay (Supergirl) and Garcelle Beauvais (Spider-Man: Homecoming) .

The Social Media Dilemma (2020)

The masters of technology have devised a new form of capitalism, and humanity is now the raw material that machines feed on. Hidden, the powerful artificial intelligence that is tasked with capturing our attention is destroying imposed social norms, putting truth and democracy at risk, and putting civilization on a programmed path that leads directly to our own destruction.

Premiering on Netflix in 2020, this dramatized documentary follows the story of a family and the strategies designed to manipulate our emotions and behaviors, trying to keep us always connected and receptive to the “orders” of the internet masters; analyzing the dangerous influence of social networks, with experts who warn of the dangers of the tools created by themselves.

The series is directed by Jeff Orlowski and written by Orlowski, Davis Coombe, and Vickie Curtis. Starring Skyler Gisondo (Licorice Pizza), Kara Hayward (Moonrise Kingdom), and Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men).

Naked (2019)

Sexting, sextortion, harassment and intimacy are the topics addressed in this shocking ten-episode drama from Sundance TV, which tells, through the stories of three teenagers, the importance of preserving intimacy in the age of social networks, and in the personal and legal consequences of sharing a nude on the Internet.

Sofia, Ida and Viktor are three teenagers who live in different parts of Norway, but their lives have something in common: they have been changed forever by a viral nude photo on social media. Their mission will be to regain control of the situation and their own lives.

Only the Beasts (2019)

A woman disappears. After a snowstorm, her car is discovered on a highway heading for a remote town. While the police don’t know where to begin to investigate, five people appear to be linked to the disappearance. And each of these people has their own secret to hide.

A film adaptation of Colin Niel’s novel, the film is directed by Dominik Moll, and stars Denis Menochet, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Laure Calamy, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Damien Bonnard, Bastien Bouillon and Guy Roger ‘Bibisse’ N’Drin among others.

Black Mirror: Shut Up and Dance (2016)

Black Mirror is a series that has become a classic dealing with the consequences and dangers of the internet, and how not the sextortion between them. In Shut up and dance , third chapter of the third season of the Netflix series.

The story follows Kenny. A teenager who is blackmailed into committing bizarre and criminal acts by a mysterious hacker who possesses a video of him masturbating. The boy is joined by a middle-aged man Hector, who is being blackmailed by the same hacker for infidelity.

Directed by James Watkins, the screenplay was written by series creator Charlie Brooker and William Bridges. Starring Alexander Lawther, Jerome Flynn, Susannah Doyle, Hannah Steele, Camilla Power, Ivanno Jeremiah, Natasha Little, Paul Bazely, and Leanne Best.

Sextortion is a real danger, and therefore we must be careful with what we share and with whom we talk on social networks, and of course, having good parental control with the little ones, teaching them about its dangers and a good antivirus that makes us a firewall.

Have you ever faced this situation?