Reality Check · Online contact
What do you do about threats, sexual messages or blackmail online?
Tell a trusted adult today, and report it in the app. Do not reply, do not pay, and do not delete the evidence. None of this is your fault, including anything you already sent. Handling it alone is what the other person is counting on, and the same is true of harassment.
What the book says
Word for word from printed page 51. Nothing is cut, and this is the only part of the page written by the author.
Reality Check
If online use is affecting sleep, eating, school, relationships, or your ability to stop, tell a trusted adult. Harassment, threats, sexual messages, or blackmail should be reported immediately; do not handle them alone.
Why this happens
Blackmail works on silence, and it manufactures the silence itself: the threat is always that telling someone would be worse than paying. It is not. Telling someone is the step that starts ending it.
Paying or complying does not stop it either — it confirms that the pressure works.
Adults who work with teenagers — teachers, safeguarding leads, the police — have seen this before and have a routine for it. You will not be the first person they have helped with it.
What to do instead
If this is about your phone rather than a person, that is the ordinary version and it is what the build is for: turn off non-human notifications for 24 hours and take one 30-minute offline block.
If someone is threatening you, pressuring you for images, or demanding money: screenshot what you have, block the account, and use the platform's own reporting tool. Keep the evidence even though you want it gone.
Then tell one adult the same day — a parent or guardian, a teacher, or your school's safeguarding lead. If the first one does not act, tell a second. That is allowed, and it is not going behind anyone's back.
Who to talk to
A parent or guardian, a teacher, or your school's safeguarding lead.
The police, or your local emergency number, if you have been threatened or you are frightened for your safety.
The platform, through its report function, as well as — never instead of — a person.
If none of those is available, an adult here also counts:
- A parent or guardian
- A teacher, or a school counselor
- A coach or club leader
- A librarian
- A youth worker
- A brother or sister over 18
Going around the gate is the failure, not the clever move. And if the adult you ask says no, that is information about timing — not about you. There is more on how that conversation tends to go on Race Control, for parents.
No secrecy around money, meetings, identity documents, or pressure. A legitimate opportunity can survive an adult review and a night of sleep.