Amanda Todd’s video, posted to YouTube a month before her suicide, has been viewed more than 28 million times.

At the time, there wasn’t even a name for it.

More than three years later, researchers say they are finally beginning to understand it. They call it ‘sextortion’ and they say more and more young men and women are being caught up in its deadly grip.

On Wednesday, researchers at the Brookings Institution published findings of a lengthy study into what happens when a single compromising image is posted online.

To understand it better, you have to understand how something so simple brought Amanda, 15, to her knees and left her family and community searching for answers.

Amanda was a high school student in British Columbia, Canada, in 2010 when she, like most teens, started to make new friends online.

She spent time in chat rooms and over time formed trust with the people she met. One thing led to another before the Grade 7 student made a decision that would come back to haunt her.

Asked to show her breasts on camera, she did. She was influenced by compliments and could never have guessed that what seemed like a private, special moment was anything but.

Not long after she did so, the teen received a message demanding more, racier pictures and a “show”. Her blackmailer told her that she had a simple choice: Comply or have your image distributed to friends and family.

She covered up and hoped for the best. When police told her a picture was circulating on the internet, her downward spiral began.

She drank, lost friends, moved schools and tried to take her own life by drinking bleach.

In September 2012, Amanda posted to YouTube a confronting and emotional video that spelled out, literally, her turmoil.

Using a series of flash cards, the nine-minute video told how she was blackmailed, bullied and losing a grip on her mental state. A little over a month later, Amanda was found dead at her home.

Her video has been viewed more than 28 million times and, as difficult as it is to watch, it has helped start a conversation about a crime that nobody was talking about.

This week’s research focused on 78 cases of sextortion, though researchers acknowledge the true number of victims is likely much, much higher.

The research helped identify who are the perpetrators and who are the victims. It showed how they’re targeted and why.

Of the 78 cases, 69 of the victims were minors, and a quarter of those were male. Adult women were the victims in the majority of cases.

Most of the victims — 91 per cent — were targeted via social media. In 43 per cent of cases, computer hacking was involved.

There was one statistic that was overwhelmingly skewed: Every single prosecuted perpetrator was male. They included college students, fathers and stepfathers of their victims and many were repeat offenders.

In 25 cases, perpetrators targeted at least 10 victims. In 13 cases, there were at least 20 victims per offender and in another 13 cases there were more than 100 victims for every one sextortionist.

“Offenders frequently target multiple victims, a majority of whom are children under the age of 18 ... and it’s on the rise.” the researchers wrote.

Former NSW police detective Toby Dagg spends time researching child abuse material as part of his role with the office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner in Sydney. He told news.com.au the Amanda Todd story is the “single most tragic incident” he has ever encountered.

Canadian student Amanda Todd took her life in 2012 after being blackmailed and bullied over an explicit image.Source:Supplied

He said one particular trend he has seen regarding sextortion is the use of “spoofing” child likeness to attain explicit images.

“We know that offenders will often ‘spoof’ a child’s video likeness to entice and encourage children to expose themselves online to what they think are peers, and then use the threat of exposing that material to elicit increasingly explicit content.”

Amanda’s tormentor has yet to be brought to justice. Her mother said if she had one dying wish it would be to see him pay for what he did that pushed the 15-year-old over the edge.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported in April that Aydin Coban, a Dutch citizen, is being held on charges including extortion, internet luring, criminal harassment and the possession and distribution of child pornography.

He was arrested in 2014 and faces child pornography production charges, not related to Todd, in the Netherlands, according to CBC.

In 2015, Coban wrote a four-page letter proclaiming his innocence.

“I’m not the so-called tormentor of Miss Amanda Todd or of anyone else, for that matter,” the letter said.

“I’ve been in jail exactly a year now for things I haven’t done.”

What will happen in Coban’s case is anybody’s guess. As the Brookings researchers wrote in this week’s study, “there is no consistency in the prosecution of sextortion cases”.

“Because no crime of sextortion exists, the cases proceed under a hodgepodge of state and federal laws.

“Some are prosecuted as child pornography cases. Some are prosecuted as hacking cases. Some are prosecuted as extortions. Some are prosecuted as stalkings. Conduct that seems remarkably similar to an outside observer produces actions under the most dimly-related of statutes.”

We know more about sextortion now than we did when Amanda took her life but still there’s work to do on the subject, researchers say.

“Sextortion is dramatically understudied ... The subject lacks an academic literature.

“Aside from a few prosecutors and investigators who have devoted significant energy to the problem over time, and a few journalists who have written — often excellently — about individual cases, the problem has been largely ignored.”

If you or somebody you know needs help, phone crisis support service Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit www.lifeline.org.au