What counts
eSafety’s plain-language description is someone being mean to a child or young person online, leaving them feeling bad or upset. For eSafety to investigate, the content has to target a specific child or young person under 18 who lives in Australia, and meet the legal definition of cyberbullying in the Online Safety Act 2021. In short, the content has to be likely to harm the child’s physical or mental health because it is seriously threatening, intimidating, harassing or humiliating.
eSafety explains those four words in young people’s terms. A threat is a promise to hurt you, or a push for others to. Intimidation is being made to feel scared or bad until you give up something you do. Harassment is unwanted messages or posts about you that keep coming, each perhaps small on its own but upsetting together. Humiliation is a really embarrassing post, picture or video put up to mock you.
It can arrive as a post, comment, text, message, chat, livestream, meme, image, video or email, on social media, a messaging or chat service, an online game where players can contact each other, email, or a website. The harm may be felt briefly or for a long time.
Who can report
- The child or young person who was targeted. They must live in Australia, but can be overseas on holiday when it happens.
- A trusted adult they ask, such as a parent, carer, teacher or police officer.
- A parent or guardian on their own account, if they know their child has been targeted. eSafety says they can do this even without the child’s consent, if they can collect the evidence it needs.
- Someone who has just turned 18, up to six months after their birthday, if they report soon after finding the content.
The order things happen in
- Tell a trusted adult. eSafety suggests a young person ask a parent, carer or teacher to help, and work through the steps together.
- Keep the proof before deleting anything. eSafety asks people not to delete the content straight away, because they will need evidence of what happened and where. Its page on how to collect evidence sets out what to capture.
- Report it to the service. Report it to the site, game or app it was sent or posted on. This is often the fastest way to get it removed, and eSafety only investigates content that has first been reported there. The eSafety Guide has reporting links for common services.
- Go to eSafety if the service doesn’t help. If it is serious and the service doesn’t remove it, report it with eSafety’s online form, which asks for the proof and for evidence that it was reported to the service.
- Limit further contact. eSafety suggests not responding or hitting back, using the app’s tools to ignore, mute or block, and changing privacy settings to stop someone making contact or seeing where you are.
If someone is threatening a young person or their family or friends, eSafety says reporting to the police is often the safest thing to do. If someone is in immediate danger, call Triple Zero (000).
What eSafety does next
When a report comes in, eSafety checks the young person is safe, looks at the proof and asks more questions. Most of the time it replies within two full working days; it doesn’t work weekends, so a report made from Thursday to Sunday may not be answered until the next week.
If what happened was against Australia’s online safety laws, the possible outcomes eSafety lists are:
- the site, game or app removes the content
- the site, game or app is fined or penalised if it doesn’t remove the content
- the person responsible is told to stop
- the person responsible is told to say sorry.
eSafety can also report the person to the service, which could delete their account, and can tell a school or the police where it thinks they can help; it says it will usually check with the young person before contacting their school. A report can be made without knowing who is behind the content, but the person reporting does have to give their name. If the content was not against the law, eSafety says it will still check the young person is safe, offer tips and help them find support.
Under 16, and on a restricted platform
A young person under 16 can report cyberbullying that happened on an age-restricted social media platform, and won’t get into trouble for being on it. eSafety says that when it handles such a report, it will not tell the platform the account belongs to an under-16. Mark 4 has more on what this means for families.
How adults can help
Children don’t always tell an adult. eSafety says some fear a parent will overreact, or take away their devices; others feel ashamed. Signs it lists include being upset after using devices, unexpected changes in friendship groups, avoiding school or activities, and becoming secretive about phone use.
Its advice to parents and carers:
- let them know you have noticed and want to help, and that you won’t be angry or ban their devices, which eSafety says can leave a child more lonely and isolated
- listen without judging, and ask how they feel
- make sure they have details for support services such as Kids Helpline and headspace, and know it’s OK to talk to someone other than you
- help them report, update their settings, and see a counsellor or doctor if they are still struggling.
Kids Helpline is a free, confidential 24/7 phone and online counselling service for people aged five to 25, on 1800 55 1800.