Social media platforms may offer young people opportunities for connection, creativity, learning, and self-expression. However, misuse can expose them to significant risks. These include excessive screen time, addiction-like behaviours, exposure to inappropriate content, misinformation, and unhealthy comparisons that affect self-esteem and mental health. Algorithms often prioritise engagement over wellbeing, pushing sensational or harmful content. Children may also overshare personal information, making them vulnerable to privacy breaches, identity theft, or exploitation. A lack of digital literacy and supervision can increase these risks, highlighting the need for education around safe, balanced, and responsible social media use.

Cyberbullying refers to the use of digital platforms such as social media, messaging apps, online forums, and gaming environments to intimidate, threaten, humiliate, or target children. This can include name-calling, spreading rumours, sharing embarrassing or harmful images, exclusion from online groups, impersonation, and repeated unwanted contact.

Unlike traditional bullying, cyberbullying can occur 24 hours a day, follow children into their homes, and spread quickly to large audiences. The anonymity of the internet often encourages more aggressive behaviour and reduces accountability for perpetrators. Victims may experience anxiety, depression, loss of self-confidence, social isolation, sleep disturbances, and a decline in academic performance. In severe cases, prolonged online bullying has been linked to self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

To address cyberbullying a multi-layered approach is necessary. This includes educating children about respectful online behaviour, encouraging them to report abuse, strengthening school and community support systems, and ensuring that digital platforms have effective moderation and reporting mechanisms. Parents, educators, and policymakers play a critical role in creating safe digital environments where children are protected and empowered to seek help.

Online grooming happens when someone builds an online relationship with children to gain their trust and then takes advantage of them. This can happen through social media, messaging apps, online games, or live videos. Groomers may pretend to be a friend, offer compliments or gifts, or ask the child to keep secrets.

Exploitation can include pressure to share private photos or videos, emotional or sexual abuse, or being tricked or threatened online. 

These experiences can be frightening for, and harmful to children. Keeping children safe online means teaching them to recognise warning signs, educating them about the risks, encouraging them to talk to trusted adults, and making sure the online platforms they use or have access to, have strong safety and reporting tools.

Children’s easy access to the online means that they can be exposed to inappropriate content. This presents serious legal, developmental, and safety concerns. Explicit material is widely available through websites, social media platforms, messaging apps, and search engines, often without effective age verification or safeguards.

Early exposure to pornography can distort children’s understanding of relationships, consent, and healthy sexual behaviour. It may normalise violence, exploitation, and harmful gender stereotypes, and can contribute to emotional distress and risky online behaviour.

Children may also be pressured to create, share, or view explicit content, exposing them to exploitation and potential legal consequences. This is referred to as “sexting”.

“Sexting” refers to sending sexually explicit photos, videos, media or messages to someone else. If the sender is under the age of 18, it is illegal. If the recipient is under the age of 18 and does not delete the content, but saves it or forwards it, he/she is also guilty and the consequences are grave.

Addressing these risks requires robust age-verification measures, parental and educational guidance, and creating awareness regarding the legal implications, protection, and privacy in the digital environment.

Children’s rights apply fully in the digital environment, including the rights to privacy, dignity, protection from harm, access to information, and participation. As children increasingly engage with online platforms, digital services, and emerging technologies, these rights face new and complex challenges.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems can collect and analyse children’s personal data, influence behaviour through targeted content, and generate or manipulate images, voices, and identities. These technologies raise serious concerns around consent, data protection, bias, surveillance, and the misuse of AI-generated content for abuse or exploitation.