How to help a child experiencing online abuse

Online abuse can have serious impacts on children and young people, so it’s important to know how to recognise when it's happening and what to do about it.

On this page: 

• Recognising the signs of online abuse
• What to do if you know about or suspect online abuse
• Steps for reporting online abuse

When abuse happens online it can impact every aspect of a child’s life. The abuse can follow them everywhere that they carry a device, and rapidly spread in very public spaces, making it feel inescapable. Children need adults to help them get harmful online content removed, deal with the impacts of the abuse and find extra support.

But many children don’t tell anyone they’re experiencing online abuse. This can be because:

• they don’t know they can report it and get help
• they don’t believe anything will be done about it 
• they think the abuse is their fault, or that others will blame them or get back at them
• they think that adults will take away their devices or limit their access to online activities. 

This means it’s important to let children know they won’t get in trouble if they speak up about what’s happening to them online. It’s best to do this before you’re aware of any specific incidents.

It’s also important to watch for signs of online abuse. These can be direct, such as:

• telling others that someone or something worried them online
• changes in how much time a child spends online, their online activities or their online friends
• more carefully protecting personal information online
• being more cautious about who they communicate with online.

Other signs of possible online abuse are less obvious. They can include:

• avoiding or seeming anxious about their phone or other devices
• becoming quieter or more withdrawn
• changes in their school or work performance
• using their devices in private spaces and becoming vague or secretive about their online activities 
• having unexplained access to money, gaming credits or new items such as expensive shoes or clothes. 

The signs of abuse can differ depending on a child’s developmental stage, the nature of the abuse, and who abused them. Or some children may not show any signs at all. 

This means all adults need to be aware of the risks that children can experience online and typical ways for abuse to happen. This helps you stay alert for potential danger and to think carefully about what you’re seeing and hearing around the online activity and behaviour of those in your care. Spotting issues early makes it easier to prevent them escalating to seriously harmful levels. Knowing what support to provide when harm does occur helps to minimise the impacts. Whenever you notice changes, it’s important to pay close attention in case a child needs support.

Online abuse can include cyberbullying, sharing (or threatening to share) nude or sexual images, child sexual abuse, and tech-based abuse related to domestic and family violence. Learn more about types of online abuse and how they happen on our page about online risks for children in your community.

'We want all young people to be able to easily identify and access appropriate avenues for seeking help when they need it. We want these services to be non-judgemental, confidential, sensitive, culturally appropriate and anonymous.' 

Read more in the Youth Aspirational Statement.

Check the child is safe from immediate danger - from other people and from self-harm.

Act quickly to understand what has happened. For example, you could start a conversation with, ‘I can see that something on your phone is upsetting you. Is it OK if I ask some questions to try to help? Even if the problem seems embarrassing or seems overwhelming, we can get help together.’ This is particularly urgent if you suspect a nude or sexual image or video of the child has been shared, as it’s important to stop the spread of the material. 

Reassure the child that they are not in trouble and that you can help them, no matter what has happened. Children may rely on devices for social and mental health support, so avoid taking away their device – or if it’s necessary, let them know when they will be able to access it again. 

Help the child to follow the reporting steps if the abuse is very serious or online content needs to be removed. A child or young person under 18 can report online abuse themselves, but they may need support. They can ask an adult to report it on their behalf. The child’s parent or legal guardian can also report the abuse, even if the child doesn’t ask them to.

1. Collect evidence

Help the child to take a record of what has happened and where. This can include: 

• the web page address (URL) and name of the social media platform, messaging service, website, game or app
• the user profile or account name
• the date and time the harmful content was sent, posted or shared
• proof of any reports you’ve made to the online platform or service, or to the police.

Taking screenshots, photos or recordings of your device’s screen is a quick and easy way to collect evidence. But don’t save or share nudes or sexual images or videos of anyone under 18 or any other illegal or restricted content. 

Find out how to collect evidence, including how to take screenshots on Mac, Windows PC, iPad or iPhone, or Android devices.

2. Report it  

For child sexual abuse, help the child or their supporting adult to report it to the specialist police investigators at the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. This includes grooming a child for sexual abuse. It also includes sexual extortion of someone under 18, which means blackmailing them over nude or sexual images or videos (a type of image-based abuse). 

Child sexual abuse can also be reported anonymously to Crime Stoppers.

If someone shares, or threatens to share, an intimate image or video of a person under 18 and there’s no grooming or sextortion involved, this is also a type of image-based abuse. Help them report it to eSafety so we can have the image or video removed online and help stop further threats.

For cyberbullying, help the child or their supporting adult to report harmful posts, comments, messages or profiles to the online service or platform first. Reporting links for most apps can be found in The eSafety Guide. If the platform or service doesn’t help and the content is seriously harmful, they can make a report to eSafety. We will ask for evidence that they have complained to the service or platform first, such as a receipt, reference number or report number. If the child has turned 18, they may be able to report adult cyber abuse instead.

For domestic and family violence, encourage the child or their supporting adult to contact 1800RESPECT for 24/7 crisis support. They can also follow the reporting steps for incidents that involve child sexual abuse, image-based abuse, child cyberbullying or adult cyber abuse. eSafety has more specific advice for parents and carers who are keeping children safe and for services and practices that are supporting children.

It is illegal to view, share or produce material that shows or encourages child sexual abuse, self-harm, suicide, terrorism and violent crimes such as murder and rape. Report illegal content directly to the platform and to eSafety.gov.au/report so it can be removed – this stops it being spread and harming others. 

Find more detailed advice in our page on what you can report to eSafety.

Easy Read information with pictures is also available for people with low literacy.

3. Stop contact, tighten security and prevent sharing

You can encourage the child to:

• use in-app functions to hide, ignore or mute abusive accounts and comments – when they have collected evidence and made a report they can also block the other person
• update their privacy and security settings across all their online accounts
• take a break from the platform or service by logging out or temporarily deactivating their account.

They can also use takeitdown.ncmec.org to block their intimate image or video from being uploaded to platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Yubo, OnlyFans and Pornhub. They need to have a copy of the image or video, but they don’t need to send it to the platform – a digital ‘fingerprint’ (or ‘hash’) will be created instead.

4. Get more support

Experiencing serious online abuse can be distressing. You can share information about managing the impacts of cyberbullying, image-based abuse and exposure to illegal content with the child. There are also support and counselling services available to them.

Counselling and support specifically for children and young people is available, and for their families.