98% of sextortion cases from dating apps go unreported to law enforcement

When dating app users exchange intimate photos and are subsequently blackmailed, approximately 98% never report it to law enforcement or platform administrators. In a 2025 study, 62.7% of surveyed dating app users had been sextorted by another user, and 25.5% experienced failed attempts. Men are the overwhelming majority of victims (roughly 9:1 ratio over women in one study), yet male sextortion is almost never discussed in dating safety campaigns. One in seven victims are driven to self-harm. The average financial loss is $2,400, but payments never stop the threats. This matters because the near-total lack of reporting means platforms and law enforcement have no data to build detection systems, and victims suffer alone. The structural reason is shame: victims feel responsible for having shared intimate images, the social stigma of being extorted is severe, and there is no anonymous, standardized reporting mechanism built into dating apps that separates sextortion reports from general abuse reports.