April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, but how do parents protect their children from online predators in the digital age?
An online Nihilistic Violent Extremist network group known as 764 has been discovered as one that targets children and teens on popular gaming sites, like Roblox, to begin grooming them. Predators often lie about their identity and age to form a relationship with potential victims. Then, they coerce children and teens into making explicit sexual content or violent videos where they harm themselves for the enjoyment of the 764 network.
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Children are often threatened to continue making content for the group if they do not want the videos leaked or their family hurt.
The name 764 comes from the first three digits in a Texas zipcode, where the group originated. Even though one of the group’s leaders pleaded guilty in 2025 to child exploitation charges, 764 and other NVE groups are still targeting vulnerable people, like children, teens and the elderly.
What is sextortion?
In an email interview with The Alabama Baptist, Shane Plyler, executive director of COMPACT and a lieutenant with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, defined sextortion as “the act of collecting explicit photos or videos of a victim, and then exploiting the victim for money, more explicit material or other heinous acts.”
Plyler shared that COMPACT is a law enforcement-based task force encouraging digital safety, addressing mental wellness and working to prevent youth substance misuse. The organization disseminates information and resources to Shelby County schools and parents to educate them on the threat of sextortion.
“A common tactic is for the predator to send a nude image first (often of a young attractive person of the opposite gender of the victim) and then request one in return,” Plyler wrote. “Once the return image is sent, the sextortion and threats begin.”
Victims are shamed and threatened into creating more explicit content, which Plyler explained can lead victims to harm themselves or commit suicide. Creating, sharing or possessing explicit images of a minor is a felony in Alabama, he added. Once this content is created and shared, Plyler said it could end up anywhere.
“Parents need to also tell their children to come forward if they are victims of sextortion and that the parents will be there to help,” Plyler wrote. “It is often the shame and embarrassment of people finding out that lead to a victim’s self-harm or suicide following sextortion.”
Digital extremism
Amy Cooter, deputy director and co-founder of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, said an increase of digital extremism in recent years has led to offline violence.
“We work closely with some of the major tech companies to identify this activity on their spaces, to intervene with the networks and actors who are doing these harms,” Cooter said. “We coordinate with law enforcement all across the globe for similar reasons and also do threat assessments when we see particular bad actors popping up that we think maybe don’t have eyes on them yet.”
Rick Klepper, co-founder and managing member of Counter Threat Group, said the safety security consulting firm conducts threat assessments for places like churches, hospitals and schools. The goal of the group is to counter threats through information sharing with groups like the FBI.
Because these types of online threats are constantly evolving, law enforcement and parents often have a hard time understanding the complexity of digital extremism. Klepper said his organization works to share information with parents and guardians about new threats.
“We want to get that information out to as many people that we can through the different outlets we have,” Klepper said.
External violence
Cooter said networks like 764 can even lead children and teens to commit external acts of violence. This includes school shootings.
“What’s potentially most disturbing about this is the way these groups are structured where there’s a kind of internal clout or status that’s developed from successful grooming,” Cooter said. “Many of the perpetrators that we see in this space are also children, minors, as opposed to some of the more traditional versions of extremism we’ve seen where youth have been led by adults.”
According to Cooter, the typical target age range for groups like 764 is 12–17 years old, although she has seen cases with victims who were as young as 8 years old. While boys and girls are targeted, the 764 network tends to favor girls, she said.
Klepper has seen cases with children as young as 7 years old being involved in sextortion and child exploitation. He said some of these children come from broken homes and have been exposed to violent or pornographic material so they are already desensitized to this type of content as they engage with online predators.
Targeted children
“There’s not just one profile,” Cooter added. “We’ve seen really well off, really privileged children being targeted for this as well as kids who are having difficulties at home and some of the more stereotypical challenges.”
Cooter said perpetrators often connect with children on online gaming platforms made for kids and begin putting feelers out to see how comfortable a child is with seeing violent or sexualized material. Predators then lure children to private chatrooms off the original gaming platform to start pressuring them into making this kind of explicit or violent content, including carving the group’s name into their skin or using their own blood to write the group’s name on a wall.
“What they typically do is require these actions to be videoed; they’re either streamed or uploaded,” Cooter said. “Those videos are used to basically blackmail those kids into doing other things.”
Blackmailing victims
Victims are often told the videos will not be leaked if they keep creating similar types of content. Cooter said many children become scared they have made such a huge mistake that they feel like they have no one else to turn to except the predator for a sense of belonging or acceptance.
“(They determine) no one’s going to accept them,” Cooter said. “So, they double and triple down on the actions they are willing to do to maintain acceptance in these groups.”
The best way to protect children and prevent them from falling for these online attacks is having uncomfortable conversations with them about bad people online, even other kids, Cooter said.
“They should encourage their kids to watch out for signs that somebody’s trying to lure them to a different platform,” Cooter said. “Just making sure there’s open dialogue between parents and kids in terms of a variety of danger signs is important.”
Plyler encourages adults to report these situations to law enforcement. Oftentimes, predators do not share any explicit material they receive from victims once they realize they will not receive any money or their demands are not met.
“Don’t let your kids find out about drugs, alcohol and online predators the hard way,” Plyler wrote. “Be the first to tell them about what they are, why they are dangerous and how to prevent issues.”
Cooter said it is important for children to feel loved by parents and guardians so they can come to a trusted adult if they think something is wrong.
“If they have a parent they can go to, they can really have this open line of conversation,” Cooter said. “There’s a much easier pathway back out of all this.”
Monitoring devices
Plyler recommends parents use apps to monitor their children’s devices.
“Safeguards can be put in place to prevent downloading apps without parental permission,” Plyler explained. “Giving a child unfiltered access to the internet with no parental controls or restrictions is simply asking for trouble and is creating a preventable problem.”
Signs a child is being groomed and pressured into violent acts include trying to hide physical signs of self harm or harming small animals, even family pets.
Monitor any packages sent to children in case predators try to send them another device or burner phone if they know a children’s device was confiscated.
Make a report
Contact local law enforcement and give officers any devices with messages between a child and their perpetrator.
Plyler explained that sextortion predators are often in foreign countries and it can be hard for law enforcement to track them down; however, making a report and giving receipts of the messages between the victim and the predator to law enforcement makes a difference.
“If explicit images of you or someone you know have been publicly posted online, you can request those images to be removed by the specific website or flag them on social media platforms,” Plyler wrote.
Visit Stop Non-Consensual Intimate Image Abuse’s website (stopncii.org) or Take It Down’s website (takeitdown.ncmec.org) to have sexual images of minors removed.
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