Matt Parker

Right.

But they're lured into a relationship under false pretense.

And eventually that could lead to something like sextortion, which is on the rise here in the United States.

Sextortion.

Yeah.

So extortion, you know, when we talk about human trafficking, and this is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, so I appreciate you having me on to talk about this issue in particular.

You know, we have 50 million modern-day slaves today.

It's an overwhelming number.

And that's an estimated number based on data, the data we can collect.

But human trafficking in general...

is a difficult crime to measure because victims of human trafficking aren't always raising their hand, like, please count me in the census.

And so we have law enforcement data from arrests and interdiction that takes place, and we have these estimates and algorithms that kind of say, hey, we think there's an estimate of 50 million.

Wow.

But sextortion touches human trafficking in that

We have, especially in the United States, young people online, you know, playing Fortnite, living their life.

And they're engaging with people in chat rooms or forums and...

What happens often is those relationships are perpetrated by someone who's trying to get money or nudes from children.

And it starts off quite innocently.

Oftentimes the relationship will say, hey, if you send me a photo of yourself, I'll give you some diamonds or some currency that was within the game.

And it starts off not necessarily as a nude, but just a photograph, but it progresses.