RECAP: Exposed! How teenage boys are lured into selling nudes for cash – (PLEASE, KEEP A WATCH ON YOUR KIDS CONSISTENTLY)
A shadowy blackmail ring is preying on young boys, using their nude videos as weapons of coercion and profit. This investigation by GODFREY GEORGE reveals how explicit content is secretly sold on X (formerly Twitter) to the highest bidder, often without the victims’ knowledge. With harrowing testimonies and hard evidence, this report, which took eighth months, exposes how tech platforms, societal silence, and fear of stigma enable this growing digital crime. It makes a case for urgent legal action, accountability and online protection of vulnerable youth
They are all boys, young, vulnerable, and full of promise. All teenagers. All Nigerian. Yet, with each passing day, their innocence is stripped away by adults who should know better, by adults who exploit their naivety and silence for profit and pleasure.
Their nude videos are being hawked and sold to the highest bidder without their consent or knowledge by sexual predators on X (formerly Twitter).
These accounts, posing as regular X users, post these nude pictures and videos, asking users to come into their Direct Message inboxes to transact business and purchase these sexually explicit videos of teenage boys pleasuring themselves.
How did these videos come about in the first place? Who are these boys? When did they make these videos? And why?
Haunted by teenage adventure
In October 2024, a young man in his 20s – name withheld – made a cryptic post on the social media platform Facebook, threatening to end his life over an ‘embarrassing episode that has continued to haunt him in his adult life’.
He stressed that a social media user was blackmailing him with ‘stuff’ that he did when he was ‘younger and naïve’ and asked to be forgiven.
A Facebook user, who is a friend of this reporter, shared the post with Sunday PUNCH, prompting an investigation.
The young man, now 27 and employed at an auditing firm in Lagos, alleged that someone on X was circulating his nude videos on the microblogging platform.
These were videos he made when he was 16 or 17; videos of him pleasuring himself.
His face was clearly visible, and people could still recognise and trace the videos back to him now as an adult.
“Why were the videos made in the first place?” this reporter asked. “And who were they originally meant for?” asked this reporter.
“I was young. I was stupid. I made them and sent them to someone I thought I was in love with. But somehow, some of our mutual friends got a hold of them.
“You know how these things are. Your lover, who is in another state, requests nude pictures and videos, and you send them, only to later find out that he shared them with someone else,” he replied.
“This happened a long time ago,” he emphasised. Yet, the question remains, how did videos from his teenage years resurface on X? Who is behind their redistribution and sale? Why the blackmail? And why has there been a persistent refusal to take the videos down despite alleged repeated pleas?
Uncovering the menace
To answer these questions, this reporter began the investigation on the microblogging site, X, and found over 12 active handles where teenage pornography featuring boys was being published and sold to the highest bidder.
One particularly notorious account, which our reporter later realised had been shut down several times, is @Hidden_Domain.
The tech expert hired by PUNCH for this report stated that the account had undergone several transformations in recent years.
He traced the posting model to a similar account, @Naija_teens, which was popular on X in 2022 and was flagged down by the micro-blogging site after some of the victims mass-reported the page.
The expert also linked it to another account, @Ikeja_Fucker, which was recently brought down by Twitter in 2024 for alleged violations and republishing of unauthorised explicit content.
The tech expert revealed that the same user may be responsible for the new account, operating under a fresh name and identity as Hidden Domain. This new account was opened in October 2024, our correspondent can confirm.
What is its job? According to its own profile statement, it is “for the purchase of Nigerian twink content”.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a twink is an informal term (often derogatory) referring to ‘a young, attractive gay man with a slim, boyish appearance’.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word as a noun used among gay men to refer to ‘a gay or bisexual young man with a slim build and youthful appearance’.
A scroll through the X page revealed several short nude videos and pictures of young boys in their teenage years.
The videos, though disturbing, proved one thing: there is a thriving market for this kind of content on the dark web, and people are indeed purchasing these videos, primarily for sexual gratification through self-pleasure.
Global market with local victims
Across online platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Reddit, Telegram, and various adult subscription services, there is evidence of an insatiable international market for African “twink” content.
The term, long used in Western gay pornography, is being co-opted to describe slim, youthful Black males, often between the ages of 14 and 21, who are featured in explicit material.
