On March 25, 2022, Jennifer Buta learned that her son, Jordan DeMay, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It happened just hours after the 17-year-old was a victim of “financial sextortion,” targeted by two brothers from Nigeria who posed as a young woman online.
The brothers, who were extradited to the U.S. and pleaded guilty last month to one federal charge of conspiring to sexually exploit minors, taunted DeMay to end his life after they tricked him into sending a sexually explicit image and then demanded he pay up.
Buta joins an unfortunately long list of parents who lost their children to sextortion and cyberbullying online. And Congress, where bipartisanship is increasingly rare, unanimously passed legislation to help keep that list from growing.
President Joe Biden will soon sign that bill into law, which will modernize and streamline how child sexual abuse material is stored and reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), adding new reporting requirements and increasing fines for failures to report.
“I am immersed in all of this. It has become my life to talk about Jordan and share his story in the hopes that his life will save another child’s life,” Buta told NBC News on Friday. “Financial sextortion is the fastest growing crime amongst our teenagers and change will happen when someone is held accountable for what’s happening to these kids.”
The REPORT Act was introduced by Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., as well as Reps. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., Susie Lee, D-Nev., Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, and Madeleine Dean, D-Penn.
“It is monumental and also completely unanimous,” Blackburn told NBC News in an exclusive joint interview alongside Ossoff in the Capitol on Wednesday.
“Social media platforms were not having to report bad actors that were in their space. And then when they were…
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