If someone is threatening to post photos of you online, stop responding to them, save every message as evidence, secure your accounts, and report the threat to your local police and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. The threat itself is already a federal crime, so you are not asking law enforcement to stretch the law to help you. Act quickly. The faster you move, the more options you keep open.
Stop Responding, and Don’t Pay
Cut off all contact with the person making the threat. Don’t reply, don’t answer calls, don’t try to reason with them, and don’t try to negotiate. Every response teaches them that the pressure is working. The urge to argue, apologize, or bargain is natural, and acting on it almost always makes things worse.
Do not send money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or more photos. Paying does not end the demands. In the overwhelming majority of these cases, paying leads to more demands at higher amounts. Sending additional images only hands the person more leverage. The only approach that actually works is cutting them off and bringing in law enforcement.
Save Every Piece of Evidence
Before you block anyone or delete anything, preserve what you have. Take screenshots of every threatening message, email, DM, and comment. Make sure each screenshot captures the sender’s username or phone number along with the date and time. Save voicemails. If the threats are coming through a platform with disappearing messages, screenshot before the content vanishes.
Back everything up in more than one place. Email the screenshots to yourself, upload them to a cloud account, and keep a copy on a device the other person has never had access to. Write a simple timeline as you go: when the first contact happened, when the threats began, what was demanded, and what you did in response. That timeline will matter when you talk to police.
Lock Down Your Accounts
Change the passwords on your email, social media, and cloud storage, and use a different password for each one. Turn on two-factor authentication, which requires a confirmation code at login and makes it much harder for anyone to break in. On Instagram, Facebook, Google, and similar services, open your security settings and review active login sessions; log out of any device you don’t recognize.
If the person ever had access to your phone, laptop, or accounts, assume they may have pulled down additional content you don’t know about. Tell the police that when you report, because it changes what they’re looking for.
Report the Threat
File a report with your local police department. You can call the non-emergency line or go in person. Bring printed copies of your screenshots, your timeline, and anything you know about the person: usernames, phone numbers, email addresses, and any payment accounts they’ve given you. Ask for a case number before you leave. You will need it when you contact platforms about removing content or go to court for a protective order.
If the threats came through the internet or the person appears to be outside the country, also file with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. IC3 takes reports from anyone affected by cyber-enabled crime and routes them to federal, state, local, or international agencies as appropriate.1Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Frequently Asked Questions Many sextortion schemes originate overseas, and IC3 is set up to handle cross-border cases that local departments cannot easily pursue on their own.
The Threat Itself Is Already a Crime
You do not have to wait for images to be posted before the law is on your side. Under 18 U.S.C. 875, threatening to injure someone’s reputation across state or national lines with the intent to extort is a federal crime, punishable by a fine, up to two years in prison, or both.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 875 – Interstate Communications If the threats form a pattern of harassment, they can also be charged as federal stalking under 18 U.S.C. 2261A, which covers electronic communications intended to harass or intimidate in a way that causes substantial emotional distress.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2261A – Stalking Federal stalking carries up to five years in prison, and more if the victim suffers serious bodily injury.4GovInfo. 18 USC 2261 – Interstate Domestic Violence
Every state also now has a law criminalizing the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, and many of those laws cover threats to distribute, not just actual distribution. If the person threatening you is in your state, local prosecutors can often move faster on state charges than federal agencies can on federal ones.
Get Ahead of a Possible Post
You can take steps now in case the person follows through. StopNCII.org, operated by the UK’s Revenge Porn Helpline, lets you create a digital fingerprint, called a hash, of intimate images on your own device. That hash is shared with participating platforms, which use it to automatically detect and block the image if someone tries to upload it. Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, OnlyFans, and Microsoft Bing are among the participants.5Meta. Strengthening Our Efforts Against the Spread of Non-Consensual Intimate Images The actual image never leaves your device.
Google runs a separate removal process for nonconsensual sexual content in search results, including AI-generated deepfakes and web pages that wrongly associate your name with sexual content.6Google Help. Remove Personal Sexual Content From Google Search A police report number is not required to submit, but it can strengthen the request.
If images do get posted, report them directly to the platform in addition to the police. Every major social network prohibits nonconsensual intimate imagery and has a reporting path for it. Look for “Report” near the post or on the user’s profile, pick the option closest to nonconsensual intimate image or harassment, and describe the situation plainly.
Court Orders and Lawsuits
You can ask a court for a restraining order or protective order that legally bars the person from contacting you, harassing you, or posting images of you. Courts can often issue a temporary order the same day you file, with a hearing scheduled on a longer-term order. Violating the order is grounds for arrest, and under federal law, stalking in violation of a restraining order carries a mandatory minimum of one year in prison.4GovInfo. 18 USC 2261 – Interstate Domestic Violence Filing fees vary, and many courts waive them in harassment cases. Court self-help centers can walk you through the paperwork.
Federal law also allows a civil lawsuit for damages, but only once intimate images have actually been disclosed. Under 15 U.S.C. 6851, a victim can recover actual damages or $150,000 in statutory damages, plus attorney’s fees and costs.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 6851 – Civil Action Relating to Disclosure of Intimate Images If you are still at the threat stage with no images posted, that statute has not yet been triggered, though a lawyer may still pursue claims like intentional infliction of emotional distress based on the threats alone. Most states also recognize civil claims for invasion of privacy and public disclosure of private facts, and those can proceed alongside any criminal case.
If you are worried that filing in court will put the very images you’re trying to protect into the public record, there are protections. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2 requires sensitive personal information to be redacted from filings, and courts can order further redactions or seal filings for good cause.8Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. Rule 5.2 Privacy Protection for Filings Made With the Court Courts also frequently allow victims in cases like these to file under a pseudonym such as Jane Doe or John Doe.
If You or Your Child Is Under 18
When the person being threatened is a minor, this is a different and more serious legal situation. Intimate images of anyone under 18 are child sexual abuse material under federal law, no matter how the images were originally made, and the penalties for distributing or threatening to distribute them are far steeper than for adult cases, with mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years or more for distribution.
Report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org.9CyberTipline. Report Child Sexual Exploitation The form only takes a few minutes, and many fields are optional. Also report to local police and IC3. NCMEC operates a tool called Take It Down for people whose intimate images were taken when they were under 18. It works like StopNCII: a hash of the content is shared with participating platforms, which block uploads, while the image itself never leaves your device.
Where to Get Help Right Now
The legal steps matter, and so does what this is doing to you. The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative runs a free, 24/7 crisis helpline for image-based abuse at 844-878-2274. Advocates there can help you understand your options, build a safety plan, and connect you with lawyers. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is also available any time at 800-656-4673, by chat at rainn.org, or by texting HOPE to 64673. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.