Identity · guide

How to get rid of blackmailers, and what actually removes the images

By Alberto Gulotta · Updated · 21 min read

If someone is threatening to share your pictures, the answer to how to get rid of blackmailers is: do not pay, screenshot everything before you block, and report it. Then start the free takedown — and in the United States the platform has 48 hours to remove the image once you ask.

Everything below is from the agencies and non-profits that handle this, with the date each page was read. There is no product in this page and no company to call. The thing worth knowing before you read another word is that the routes that work are free, and that the ones charging money for them are the subject of a warning from the FBI, quoted further down.

The four things the FTC says to do when someone threatens to share an intimate image The Federal Trade Commission’s page on image-based abuse lists four actions for somebody being blackmailed: report it to criminal law enforcement, ignore the demands and do not pay, cut off all contact and block the person, and speak with someone you trust. The figure shows them as four numbered steps, with the note that the order is not a ranking: the first three can be done in the same ten minutes. THE FIRST HOUR, IN THE FTC’S OWN ORDER 1 Report it local police, and tips.fbi.gov 2 Do not pay no money, no images, no account access 3 Cut off contact block, and stop replying entirely 4 Tell someone a friend, a relative, a counsellor Save the messages before you block Blocking is step three and evidence is what step one needs, so the screenshots come first: profile names, the messages, the payment demand. The four are not a queue; the first three fit in one hour. AI Tools Primer · figure
The order is the FTC’s, from its page on image-based abuse, read on 10 September 2026. Figure drawn by AI Tools Primer.

Do not pay, and the reason is not moral

Every official source on this says the same thing in the same order, and the reason they give is practical rather than principled. The FTC’s instruction is four words long: “Ignore their demands. Don’t pay them.” It continues: “Don’t give them access to your financial accounts. Don’t send them any images. Don’t give them access to your devices.”

The reason is that paying answers a question the person on the other end has been trying to settle: whether there is money here. Nothing about a payment removes an image, and nothing about it ends the account that holds it. It moves you from a list of people who might pay to a list of people who did.

Take the screenshots before you block. This is the one place where the order matters and where people get it wrong under pressure, because blocking is the thing you most want to do. The FTC lists reporting first and cutting off contact third, and reporting needs the material that blocking hides: the profile, the messages, the account names, the payment demand. Two minutes of screenshots, then block.

Do not delete the conversation. It is evidence, it is not visible to anyone unless you show it, and there is no version of this where deleting it improves anything.

One more line, because it is in the source rather than in this page’s opinion. Instagram, in its own help text, says: “If this is happening, it isn’t your fault, and you can take steps to protect yourself.”

The 48 hours you are owed, and where that comes from

This is the part that is missing from the search results above this page, and it is the part with a clock on it. In the United States, the TAKE IT DOWN Act obliges covered platforms — social media, messaging, image and video sharing services — to give you a way to ask for an intimate image to be removed, and then to act within a fixed window. The FTC, which enforces it, writes: “Platforms must remove the intimate photos or videos, and known identical copies, within 48 hours of your request.”

Two details in that sentence do a lot of work. Known identical copies means the request is not a whack-a-mole against every repost the platform can find. And the law, in the FTC’s words, “applies to real images, digitally altered images, and deepfakes created with artificial intelligence” — so an image that was never real is covered on the same terms as one that was.

What to do if nothing happens. The FTC gives an address for exactly that case: “If a covered platform violates the TAKE IT DOWN Act, tell the FTC at TakeItDown.ftc.gov.” It spells out the three situations worth reporting — the platform did not remove the image within 48 hours of your request, you could not find its removal process, or the process is broken.

One limit, stated by the FTC itself and worth knowing before you spend an evening on this: “Only platforms can take down intimate photos and videos shared without your consent.” No agency, and no company you pay, can reach into a service and delete a file. What the law does is put a deadline on the only party that can.

This is United States law. If you are somewhere else, the deadline in this section is not yours — the removal services below are, because they work with participating platforms wherever you are, and your own country will have a regulator or a police route that this page is not the right place to guess at.

The free routes, what each one is for, and who says so. Read on 10 September 2026. The 48-hour rule is United States law and applies to platforms covered by it; the two hashing services work with participating platforms anywhere.
RouteWhat it is forWhat it costsWho states it
Ask the platform Removal of the image and known identical copies Nothing, and there is a deadline: 48 hours FTC, on the Take It Down Act
TakeItDown.ftc.gov Reporting a platform that missed the 48 hours, or has no removal process Nothing FTC
Take It Down Images taken when you were under 18 Nothing, and you can stay anonymous NCMEC
StopNCII.org Images taken when you were 18 or over Nothing Revenge Porn Helpline / SWGfL
tips.fbi.gov, 1-800-CALL-FBI Reporting the person doing it Nothing FTC and FBI
NCMEC CyberTipline Reporting when a minor is involved Nothing FTC
Which free removal service applies, decided by your age when the image was taken Two free services split by one question: how old you were when the image was taken. Under eighteen at the time, the service is Take It Down, run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Eighteen or over at the time and now, the service is StopNCII.org, run by the Revenge Porn Helpline. Both work by creating a hash, a digital fingerprint, on your own device, so the image itself never leaves it. Separately from both, a United States platform has 48 hours to remove the image once you ask. ONE QUESTION DECIDES WHICH FREE SERVICE IS YOURS How old were you when the image was taken? Under 18 at the time Take It Down — NCMEC free, and you can stay anonymous takeitdown.ncmec.org 18 or over at the time StopNCII.org — Revenge Porn Helpline free, and you must still have the image on your device Neither service asks you to send the picture: both make a hash on your own device and send only that. AI Tools Primer · figure
The split is the one both organisations describe: Take It Down names StopNCII for adults, and StopNCII lists being over 18 at the time as a condition. Figure drawn by AI Tools Primer.

Getting the image taken down, free, and the one question that decides how

This is the part that answers what to do if someone threatens to leak pictures and then starts. There are two free services for it, they do the same thing in the same way, and which one is yours depends on a single fact: how old you were when the image was taken.

Under 18 at the time: Take It Down. It is run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and describes itself as “a free service that can help you remove or stop the online sharing of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit images or videos taken of you when you were under 18 years old”. Two things about it surprise people. The first: “You can remain anonymous while using the service and you won’t have to send your images or videos to anyone.” The second is how that is possible — the service turns the picture into a hash, a kind of fingerprint, and NCMEC states that “this all happens without the image or video ever leaving your device or anyone viewing it. Only the hash value will be provided to NCMEC.”

18 or over at the time: StopNCII.org. Take It Down sends adults there itself: “If there is an explicit image of you from when you were 18 or older, you can get help at stopncii.org”. StopNCII calls itself “a free tool designed to support victims of Non-Consensual Intimate Image (NCII) abuse” and works the same way — “The tool works by creating hashes (digital fingerprints) of your selected images directly on your device”, and “StopNCII.org does not download the images from your device and collects the minimum amount of data to run the service”.

Its conditions are worth reading before you start, because the last of them is the one that closes the route: you have to be the person in the image, you have to have been 18 or over when it was taken and be over 18 now, and you have to be “Still in possession of the image or video”. If you no longer have the file, the hashing route is closed and the platform request is the one that is left.

Neither service is a search engine for your face and neither promises a clean internet afterwards. What they do is give participating platforms a fingerprint to match, so that the next upload is stopped by the platform rather than found by you.

The seven signs the FBI lists for a paid sextortion “assistance” company The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center public service announcement I-040723 lists indicators that an offer of help is itself a scheme: the company contacts you first, it advertises assistance for fees, it asks you to pay before doing anything, it makes you sign a contract, it discourages you from contacting law enforcement, it uses pressure or scare tactics, or it claims to be connected to government or law enforcement officials. WHEN THE OFFER OF HELP IS THE SECOND ATTACK The FBI’s seven indicators Alert I-040723, 7 April 2023. Any one of them is enough to stop and call the police instead. 1. They contacted you, not the other way round 2. They advertise this help in exchange for fees 3. They want paying before anything is done 4. They require you to sign a contract The first four are about money and paperwork. 5. They discourage you from calling the police 6. They use high-pressure or scare tactics 7. They claim a government or police link These three are the ones that should end the call. AI Tools Primer · figure
The seven are quoted in substance from the FBI’s own alert, which also states that some of these companies are involved in the blackmail itself. Figure drawn by AI Tools Primer.

Reporting it where it is happening

Most of these threats arrive inside one app, and the platform’s own route is worth using alongside the police report rather than instead of it. Instagram has a page for exactly this, and it opens with a sentence worth reading twice: “Your private content is your own. Instagram wants you to know that it’s wrong and against our rules for someone to share or threaten to share your intimate images, videos or messages without your consent.” Its instruction is to report the profile, and it adds one line that people skip: “Also, contact your local law enforcement.”

On its separate page for an image that has already been posted, Instagram describes what happens next: “After reporting a post, specially trained representatives from our Community Operations team will then review the image and remove it if it goes against our Community Standards. We then use photo-matching technology to help stop future attempts to share the image on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.”

And it names the trap in blocking too early, which is the same trap as deleting the messages: “Keep in mind that these options may keep you from seeing the post, but the person who posted it and other people on Instagram may still be able to see the post unless it’s removed.” Blocking protects your feed, not the internet.

One thing Instagram’s blackmail page does not do is name the hashing services: it points to Thorn in the United States and Safernet in Brazil. Take It Down and StopNCII come from the organisations that run them and from the FTC, which is why they are cited here from those sources rather than from Meta.

If the account being used against you is your own — if somebody took it over and is threatening from inside it — that is a different first move, and it is recovering a hacked Instagram account, done before anything else here.

If you only do four things tonight

How to get out of blackmail is not a negotiation. It is this order, and the first three take about an hour between them.

Screenshot everything, then block Profile, username, every message, the payment demand. Blocking first hides the evidence that the report needs.
Report the person Local police, and in the United States tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI. If anyone in the images was under 18, NCMEC’s CyberTipline as well.
Start the free takedown Take It Down if you were under 18 when the image was taken, StopNCII.org if you were 18 or over. Neither asks for the picture.
Tell one person The FTC lists this as one of its four steps, in the same list as reporting and blocking: a friend, a relative, a counsellor.

If a minor is involved, in the images or as the person being threatened. Two things change. The FTC directs these reports to NCMEC’s CyberTipline as well as to the police, and notes that NCMEC “has trained analysts that will process the report and make it available to the appropriate law enforcement agency”. And the removal service is Take It Down rather than StopNCII, regardless of how old the person is now: the question the services ask is how old you were when the image was taken. NCMEC can be reached on 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).

Where this sits in the rest of it. If the threat arrived because somebody is inside one of your accounts, close that door first: an account taken over is a recovery problem before it is anything else, and the usual way in is a password that leaked somewhere else. If the message that started this was pretending to be a company or a person you know, that is phishing, and the same screenshots matter. If what is being threatened is exposure of things that are already public about you rather than private images, the useful page is what is already visible.

Where to start

Four ways into this page, depending on which sentence you are stuck on.

“Should I just pay them?”
The answer, and the reason — do not pay
“How do I get it taken down?”
The two free services — getting it removed
“The platform is ignoring me.”
The 48-hour rule — the 48 hours
“A company offered to help.”
What the FBI says about that — paid help

The account underneath it

Most of these threats arrive through an account, and closing that door is a separate job with its own route.

Recovering a hacked Instagram accountThe official route, and the paid “recovery” offers the FBI has an alert about.Open this guide → Instagram password resetThe reset itself, including what happens when the email address on the account was changed.Open this guide → Facebook password resetThe same job on the other Meta account, which is often the one that gets there first.Open this guide →

How they got in, and what else is exposed

Blackmail is usually the second event. These are the first ones.

PhishingThe message that was not from who it said, and the tells that survive a good copy.Open this guide → A data breachThe email that says your details leaked, and what is actually worth doing about it.Open this guide → Your digital footprintWhat is already public about you, and the parts of it that can be taken back.Open this guide → Locking down a Facebook profileThe single switch, for when narrowing the audience one setting at a time is too slow.Open this guide →

Questions people also ask

What should I do first if someone threatens to leak my pictures?

Screenshot the messages and the profile, then block, then report. The FTC’s order is: report it to criminal law enforcement, ignore the demands, cut off all contact, and speak with someone you trust. Screenshots come before blocking because the report needs them.

Should I pay a blackmailer to make it stop?

No, and the FTC says so plainly: “Ignore their demands. Don’t pay them.” A payment removes nothing and closes no account. It answers the only question the other side has, which is whether there is money here.

How do I get the images taken down for free?

Two free services, split by your age when the image was taken. Under 18: Take It Down, from NCMEC. 18 or over: StopNCII.org. Both create a fingerprint of the picture on your own device and send only that, so the image never leaves your phone.

How long does a platform have to remove an intimate image?

In the United States, 48 hours. The FTC states that under the TAKE IT DOWN Act platforms “must remove the intimate photos or videos, and known identical copies, within 48 hours of your request”, and that it covers real images, altered ones and AI deepfakes.

What if the platform ignores my removal request?

Report the platform itself. The FTC’s instruction is: “If a covered platform violates the TAKE IT DOWN Act, tell the FTC at TakeItDown.ftc.gov.” You can also report a platform whose removal process you cannot find or that does not work.

Are the companies that offer to make it go away worth paying?

The FBI warns against them. Its alert I-040723 says they “charge exorbitant fees, whereas law enforcement and non-profit agencies will provide assistance at no charge to victims”, that some discourage victims from going to the police, and that limited reporting indicates some are involved in the blackmail itself.

Not covered here. It does not name a lawyer, a takedown company or a reputation service, and that is a decision rather than an omission: the FBI’s alert on paid assistance is quoted above, and it is the reason.

It does not cover the criminal law of any country. Whether a specific threat is an offence, and which one, is a question for the police force taking the report and for a lawyer — the 48-hour removal rule described above is United States law and is about platforms, not about the person doing it.

And it does not deal with the case where the person threatening you lives in your house or has physical access to your devices. That is a different problem with a different first step, and a page that treats it as a technical one would be doing harm. What holds instead is simple: the four first steps and the 48-hour removal rule are quoted from the FTC, the warning about paid “assistance” companies is quoted from the FBI’s own alert with its date, the two free takedown services are described in the words of the organisations that run them, and no company, product or paid service is named or linked anywhere on the page.

Sources

  1. Federal Trade Commission — Image-Based Abuse: What To Know and Do: the four steps for somebody being blackmailed, the statement that only platforms can take an image down, the 48-hour removal requirement under the Take It Down Act, the split between StopNCII.org for adults and NCMEC’s Take It Down and CyberTipline for minors, and the reporting routes to the FBI — consumer.ftc.gov, read 10 September 2026.
  2. Federal Trade Commission — What will the FTC’s enforcement of the TAKE IT DOWN Act mean for you? (19 May 2026): the 48 hours, the coverage of real, altered and AI-generated images, and the address for reporting a platform that does not comply — consumer.ftc.gov, read 10 September 2026.
  3. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center — Alert I-040723, For-Profit Companies Charging Sextortion Victims for Assistance and Using Deceptive Tactics to Elicit Payments (7 April 2023): the exorbitant fees against free help from law enforcement and non-profits, the seven indicators, the three case examples, and the finding that limited reporting indicates some of these companies are involved in the activity itself — www.ic3.gov, read 10 September 2026.
  4. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children — Take It Down: what the service is for, that it is free and can be used anonymously, that the image never leaves the device because only a hash value is sent, and the referral of adults to StopNCII.org — takeitdown.ncmec.org, read 10 September 2026.
  5. StopNCII.org, operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline (SWGfL) — what the tool is, that the hashes are created on your own device, that the images are not downloaded, and the conditions for using it including being 18 or over when the image was taken and still having a copy — stopncii.org, read 10 September 2026.
  6. Instagram Help Centre — Dealing with blackmail on Instagram: the statement that private content is your own and that threatening to share it is against Instagram’s rules, that it is not your fault, the instruction to report the profile, and the instruction to contact local law enforcement as well — help.instagram.com, read 10 September 2026.
  7. Instagram Help Centre — If someone shares an intimate photo of you on Instagram: what the Community Operations team does with a report, the photo-matching technology used across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger, and the warning that blocking hides the post from you but not from everyone else — help.instagram.com, read 10 September 2026.

Written by Alberto Gulotta

Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.

Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.

Written on 10 September 2026.

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