Suicide of Amanda Todd

Amanda Michelle Todd (November 27, 1996 – October 10, 2012) was a 15-year-old student in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, who died by suicide at her home. A month before her death, she posted a YouTube video using flashcards to describe being blackmailed into exposing her breasts on a webcam via the livestreaming service BlogTV, and being bullied and physically assaulted afterward. The video went viral after her death and drew international media attention. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the British Columbia Coroners Service opened investigations into her death and the circumstances leading to it.

According to the video, Todd was blackmailed after a stranger she met via webcam saved a captured image of her and threatened to distribute it unless she performed further acts on camera. Police informed her in 2010 that the photo was circulating online. Todd changed schools multiple times as the image resurfaced, was physically assaulted by a group of peers, and attempted suicide by drinking bleach before her death; she also engaged in self-harm and was hospitalized after an overdose. She died on October 10, 2012; a preliminary investigation by the BC Coroners Service found her death to be suicide by hanging, though the official cause was not formally released in some reporting.

The Canadian tipline Cybertip.ca had received a report about circulating images of Todd roughly a year before her death, which was passed to law enforcement and child welfare agencies. A CBC investigative program later reported that the RCMP had been informed Todd was being sextorted by an adult male but told the family there was "nothing that could be done." A Facebook security investigation eventually helped identify a suspect; following cooperation between UK, US, and Dutch authorities, Dutch police arrested a man in January 2014 in a case involving multiple victims across the Netherlands, UK, and Canada. In April 2014, Dutch authorities charged the man—identified as "Aydin C." under Dutch privacy rules—with indecent assault and child pornography offenses, and the RCMP announced charges of extortion, internet luring, criminal harassment, and child pornography offenses related to Todd and other victims.

The man, Aydin Coban, was convicted in the Netherlands in 2017 on charges involving 39 other alleged victims (not including Todd) and sentenced to over 10 years. He was extradited to Canada, with the process delayed by travel-document issues until December 2020. His trial in the Supreme Court of British Columbia began June 6, 2022. On August 5, 2022, a jury convicted him on all counts related to Todd. On October 14, 2022, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison, with the judge citing the sophistication of the extortion scheme, the wide distribution of Todd's images, and his lack of remorse. On December 21, 2023, a Dutch judge reduced this sentence to six years, to run consecutively with his existing Dutch sentence.

Todd's death led to public vigils across Canada and internationally, a parliamentary motion on bullying, and the creation of the Amanda Todd Trust by her mother, Carol Todd, to fund anti-bullying and youth mental health initiatives.