Police: kids are being preyed upon by sextortionists while playing Fortnite

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/12/police-kids-are-being-preyed.html

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I thought Fortnite had limited in-game communications to limit teaming up?

(Never played it, and I’m not going to sideload it on my Android.)

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And severely.

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Um, that’s would be “Fortnite”, no?

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From playing a total of 5 rounds on my Switch before deciding I wasn’t interested, there’s full voice chat if the game puts you on a team.

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Fixed. Thanks.

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There is more communication in the non-Battle Royale side of the game, which many people play. No idea how you would send or receive images, or reward them. For some reason it has never occurred to me to find out.

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from the article:

Those messages happen over the social media platform Instagram.

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Bit of pedantry…

Pederast refers to a kind of relationship between specifically an adult male and an adolescent boy, which typically does, but also may not, involve a particular sexual practice.

Here we have someone interested in inappropriate material, but don’t know if male, don’t know if adult, and don’t know if collecting material out of personal sexual interest or only for extortion. If adult, then pedophile and/or criminal; if minor, then… what precisely?

Article says predator, which is vague enough to be inarguable. Person-likely-to-have-the-shit-kicked-out-of-them-in-prison could also work.

Must now go have a chat with my own young Fortnite addict. :frowning:

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While the sheer ubiquity and popularity of Fortnite makes it inevitable that some skeevy stuff between players will happen at some point, the game is so frenetic that I can’t imagine many kids pausing during a Battle Royale to go check out a bunch of pictures on Instagram and start sexting or whatever.

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I haven’t gamed in a while. What is Fortnite exactly? Call of Duty style FPS?

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Pretty much. 100-person last-man-standing free-for-all. It’s the most popular video game in the world.

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damn, you gotta be real flexible to be a sextortionist.

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I didn’t know Tony Clement played Fortnite. (If you don’t know who that is, it probably just means you aren’t Canadian)

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I’m curious, why does everyone assume this is an adult pedophile predator and not another kid? Wouldn’t it be more likely that another teenager is on Fortnite, is a dick that makes bad decisions, and is stupidly and inappropriately horny regarding other teens?

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True but I guess TBH we can’t know the age of the person at this time. Older people definitely play that game too. I don’t like the whole genre so I don’t, but my BF played PUBG obsessively, played Fortnite occasionally, and now plays some game called something something Elysium always with the same group of friends who are similar in age. I would guess at this point it’s a toss up whether the creep is a teen or an adult.

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Technically third person, and that Call of Duty has their own Battle Royal mode called Blackout that just came out recently.

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