‘Serious cyberbullying’ skyrockets in under-14s according to eSafety Commission

Serious cyberbullying involving children under the age of 14 has more than tripled since before the covid pandemic. Find out what’s going on and what you can do about it.

Real texts from cyberbullies have been released to show parents the types of shocking messages kids are sending each other.

It comes as the eSafety Commission exclusively revealed “serious cyberbullying” involving under 14s has more than tripled compared to before the pandemic, with 230 complaints in May, the largest on record.

And kids sending or receiving these types of messages – often littered with expletives and threats of violence – are getting younger, with incidents involving children as young as eight, according to the online regulator.

In 2019, eSafety received a little over 200 complaints from children aged eight to 13 years, but that jumped to almost 740 in 2022.

“Many parents are telling us they’ve found it hard to limit screen time since the pandemic,” Acting eSafety Commissioner Toby Dagg said.

“We’re pleased that more Australian children and young people know we’re here to support them when platforms fail to act, but the number of complaints from children in school years 5, 6 and 7 is concerning and continues to grow.”

Cyberbullying is affecting children from a young age.

Online safety expert Leonie Smith said it was not a surprise there had been a rise in cyberbullying among primary school kids because many have access to social media platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram, before the recommended age of 13.

“They are just not mature enough to deal with this environment,” Ms Smith, who hosts digital awareness seminars for parents, said.

“They take their frustrations out online and a lot of the time they are unsupervised.”

Children can be intimated through impersonation accounts.

She warned parents that some of the worst abuse was via impersonation accounts – where someone sets up an account with the name and image of another person.

She said in one incident a boy was the victim of a fake Instagram account from which abusive messages and photos were sent to girls in his class.

“It was like a double harassment because the girls, their parents and teachers were upset with him and it was damaging his reputation,” Ms Smith said. “But it’s hard to prove otherwise.

“The first step is to report it as a fake account to the platform.”

How to report serious cyberbullying. Picture: Supplied

Ms Smith, who recently set up Digital Families Counselling for parents struggling to manage their children’s online use, said tech companies needed to “gatekeep” to stop children setting up accounts under age.

Australian Primary Schools Association President Angela Falkenberg said principals she had spoken to had mainly found incidents were happening out of school in online games, with kids sending “mean messages that sometimes veered into more explicit language”.

Mr Dagg urged parents to double check age-appropriate parental controls and privacy settings were activated before kids go back to school, as incidents tended to increase during the school term.

He added that parents should encourage their kids to only use their devices in common areas around the house and to leave them outside the bedroom at night.

Most importantly, he urged parents to encourage children to talk to them about their online activity and to know that they are available to their child, even in the middle of the night as cyberbullying can happen at anytime.

Mr Dagg said while cyberbullying can look like a bit of teasing or a few insults, the fact that it is often highly visible to peers can be really “destabilising” for kids.

Originally published as ‘Serious cyberbullying’ skyrockets in under-14s according to eSafety Commission