Comparing apples to oranges.

If someone had their car stolen, it would be ridiculous to treat them as if they’d been in a car accident, right?  Both involve cars, but they’re different beasts and should be treated as such.  Likewise, if someone is mugged by a drug addict, rehab isn’t where they need to be sent.  The media loves the phrase “sextortion” as a “cover all” name for a number of crimes, and we expect that.  The media also likes the terms “vigilantes” and “scamming the scammers”.  It’s a necessary evil we’ve come to live with.  The problems rise when law enforcement does the same.  There are at least three distinct crimes under the “sextortion” banner that are all similar insomuch as they involve the abuse of images or video of the victim (sextortion, webcam blackmail and revenge porn).  After that, they become different entities and should be treated as such.  Sextortion victims wouldn’t get the help they need on a revenge porn help site in exactly the same way a victim of revenge porn would find the advice on a webcam blackmail help site irrelevant.  We can see the differences between the three and treat them as such, so why can’t law enforcement?  They after all have people who are paid to help, while we are a small group of just four people doing this for free.  If we can do it with our limited resources, why can’t they?