Local students target of social media threat

MEDFIELD, Mass. — Chances are your kids are on social media.

“Not that many that I know of,” said Medfield parent Katie Bender. “I do know that they go on TikTok and things like that.”

If they go to Medfield High, there’s a chance someone they know has been threatened by scammers saying “Send me money, or I’ll send compromising pictures to your friends.”

“I remember kids just getting like scamming DM’s in their Instagram,” said seniors Ryan Costello and Henry Lapham. “I’m pretty sure the ones that happened weren’t real, like they didn’t have any pictures of the kids. It was just fake accounts.”

Medfield High and Blake Middle schools sent letters to parents Wednesday warning them of the fake social media accounts posing as teenagers and following students whose profiles are public. The letters say the threat to send compromising pictures so far has only gone to High school students.

“Some people could be concerned about that but stay away from that you don’t have to worry about it,” said

Costello and Lapham. “Definitely just block the person, it’s pretty easy to tell I think it doesn’t really sound like a real person.”

The letter tells any targeted teens to contact police or a trusted adult and tells parents, time to have yet another conversation.

“We definitely have had a conversation about social media awareness being really vigilant about making sure that you’re only speaking online with people that you know and that you can confirm that you know them and disengaging if anyone reaches out to you who you’re not aware of,” said Bender.

We also reached out to several other school districts today and none of them have had reports of this happening yet.

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