What changed in cyberbullying, and who it affects

Cyberbullying has changed in three visible ways since 2020: laws now name it, financially motivated sextortion has surged, and AI tools can produce an explicit image from a classmate's photo. Who it affects most has shifted too.

Pew Research Center's 2022 survey found 46 percent of US teens ages 13 to 17 had experienced at least one harassing behavior online. Older teen girls reported the highest rates. The Cyberbullying Research Center, run by Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, puts recent annual US rates at roughly 20 to 30 percent of students in the past 30 days.

The Trevor Project reports that more than half of LGBTQ+ youth have been cyberbullied in the past year. Disabled students are two to three times more likely to be bullied, according to StopBullying.gov. Boys ages 14 to 17 are the main targets in financial sextortion, the FBI has warned.

This page covers what to re-check annually and what to leave alone. It names the laws, services and reports so you can check them yourself. It predicts nothing.

What to take away

The four things that move

Nothing about this subject stays still for a year. The platforms move, the school staff move, the friendship group reorganizes itself, and the child you wrote your rules for is not the child in the house now.

The fourth row causes most of the trouble. A rule written for a twelve-year-old and applied at fifteen reads as an insult. Once one rule is ignored, the rest lose their standing too.

Re-checking the route to help

Do this on a quiet evening rather than during something. Name the contact, walk the reporting flow, and check the record.

Find the current name and role of the person at school who deals with this. Titles change and the person changes. A general email address is a slower route than a name. School guidance covers who is worth contacting and why it is rarely the most senior person.

Open the reporting flow on whichever service your child actually uses now, together, without reporting anything. On Instagram, that means the three-dot menu and 'Report'; on TikTok, the share arrow and 'Report'; on Snapchat, press and hold the message. Knowing where the button is matters more than knowing that it exists.

Check what your household record looks like. A dated page of what happened, where, who was told and any reference received makes a second incident a continuation rather than a fresh start. Reporting resources covers what belongs on it.

What has not changed and will not

The mechanics of the first hour are stable, and they are worth rehearsing rather than revising.

Where a child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services first. None of the above comes before that.

For sextortion, report to NCMEC's CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org or 1-800-843-5678. The FBI warns against paying. NCMEC counted 26,700 financial sextortion reports in 2023, more than double the 10,731 in 2022.

What actually changed in the rules and the risk

Every year brings claims that some platform, some rule or some feature has transformed this. Most of it is either a proposal reported as a fact, a company's own description of its tools, or a product being sold to worried parents.

Three legal changes now affect who is covered. The UK's Online Safety Act 2023 gives Ofcom power to enforce duties on platforms, including age checks that began in 2025.

The EU's Digital Services Act has applied to all covered platforms since February 2024 and requires notice-and-action systems and risk assessments for minors. Australia's Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 bars under-16s from social media accounts, with the eSafety Commissioner enforcing from December 2025.

In the US, every state has an anti-bullying law, and most name electronic harassment, but they differ on off-campus conduct and reporting. StopBullying.gov tracks the state-by-state rules.

Platforms have added family tools. TikTok Family Pairing, Snapchat Family Center, Discord Family Center and Roblox parental controls all launched or expanded since 2020.

Instagram Restrict limits a harasser without notifying them. None of these tools covers what happens in a corridor the next morning.

In the United States the Federal Trade Commission maintains material on children's online privacy; your national data protection authority is the equivalent elsewhere.

Treat anything sold as detection with the same care you would have last year, because the trade it asks for has not improved. Parental controls covers why a tool your child knows about is a different object from one they do not.

For the shape of a school framework, the education department for England publishes guidance to schools on preventing and tackling bullying. It applies only there and is useful for knowing what to ask your own school.

AI 'nudify' tools have produced school and police cases since 2023, including in Westfield, New Jersey; Issaquah, Washington; and Lancaster, California. The FBI has warned that AI-generated explicit images of minors are illegal in the US.

Check a claim about a rule with the body that publishes it, since rules on children's online safety differ by country and have been moving for several years running.

The annual conversation

Who is exhausting at the moment. What would you do if someone started on you, or on a friend. And is there anything you have not told me because you thought it would cost you something.

The third question is the one that pays. Ask it plainly, accept a no without treating it as evidence, and then keep the promise it implies for the rest of the year.

Where the answers suggest something is being done to your child rather than between them, cyberbullying covers what that looks like from the outside. Where the change has lasted weeks and spread across sleep, school, eating and friendships, that is a doctor rather than a review, and mental wellbeing covers making the call.

Pew's 2022 findings show who may need the third question most: older teen girls, LGBTQ+ youth and disabled students. The Cyberbullying Research Center's annual surveys put typical recent US rates at 20 to 30 percent in the past 30 days.

What should not be reviewed

The promise that telling you does not cost the phone is not a setting and does not get an annual reconsideration. If any change you make raises the price of a disclosure, it was the wrong change, whatever prompted it.

That is the whole point of reviewing anything else. Everything on this page exists to keep the channel open long enough to be useful.

Common questions

How often is this really worth doing?

Once a year, plus whenever a new device or a new school year arrives. More often than that turns into a standing inspection, which is its own cost.

My child will not tell me which services they use.

Accept an incomplete answer and work with it. Ask what their friends use rather than what they use, which is an easier question, and keep the promise about disclosure so that the honest answer becomes cheaper next year.

Do platform safety features actually improve?

Some do. TikTok Family Pairing, Snapchat Family Center and Instagram Restrict are real additions. None changes what happens in a corridor the next morning. Treat a new feature as a small convenience rather than as a reason to relax anything.

Should I revisit an incident from last year?

Only if your child raises it. What is worth revisiting is whether the arrangements you made afterwards still fit, which is a different conversation and a much easier one to have.

This page is general information for parents, not legal advice. It summarizes public laws and services, and promises no outcome. Rules differ by country, district and school and they change; check the current wording with the body that publishes it, and where a child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services.