Why Did Facebook Let the Sextortion Email Return?

Around 11 p.m., a dad in the living room heard a loud noise and ran to the bathroom. The son had shot himself after being sextorted. Mariana van Zeller said the boy is not the only one, and dozens of American kids have had it happen too.

The family had an email address from the person contacting the son on Facebook. Facebook took down the fake girl's profile. A few weeks later, just after the family buried the son, family members were contacted by somebody who said they had the photos and would release them unless they were paid. The profile was different, but the email address was the same. Facebook had taken down one profile and still allowed the same email address to create other profiles.

A representative became deeply involved in writing laws and a voice for regulating the platforms. Mariana van Zeller said one law might be called Take It Down and just passed recently, while a bill called the Safe Platforms Act is an effort to make reports easier, get ads and fake profiles taken down, and hold the platforms accountable if someone loses money or a kid dies, because platforms making money from the harm should be held responsible. Left unaccountable, the platforms profit while giving an illusion of protecting consumers. If they think someone is a scammer, they charge more and call the higher charge a deterrent. The estimated projection for the year was 10%, and profits off scammers were projected at $16 billion, covering scammers, scams, and banned goods.