The online harms research

New research into the impact of COVID-19 on online harms revealed that more than two thirds of young people interviewed had seen content online that was either violent or explicit during lockdown. In light of the increased amount of time young people spent online during the pandemic to learn, socialise and for entertainment, London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) commissioned an in-depth exploration of online harms, ‘acceptable’ use and regulation, that included the voices and experiences of young people, whose voices were missing from the body of existing research.

The Social Switch Project, a collaboration between charities Catch22 and Redthread, carried out interviews with vulnerable children and young people that use its services, frontline youth workers, police and tech platforms.

Research showed that 97 per cent of Catch22’s child sexual exploitation referrals have an online or social media element – with substantial increases related to online grooming and abuse. Consultation with young people also showed that more than 70 per cent of young people had seen content during lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 that was either violent or explicit, which included videos of suicide, nudity and extreme violence. They also described social media as ‘toxic’ and found it led to a negative impact on a young person’s mental health and wellbeing.

Young people cited unwanted contact online from adults, companies and bots, while there were also complaints of cyberbullying, threats and sharing of explicit content.

There were also examples cited of young people receiving responses a long time after a complaint, which caused them to relive the event or incident.

The data provides much-needed context on the wide-reaching implications of the pandemic and the need for services and training for professionals, parents and guardians during this time.

Further findings include:

• Young people want to see better training for professionals and guardians in relation to online behaviour
• Young people felt responsible to report content, but also felt the ‘damage’ had already been done
• Children and young people want to see improved monitoring, swift action and accountability from tech organisations, rather than the responsibility being placed on the user
• Police are ‘one step behind’ developments in technology and so need to develop stronger relationships with tech companies
• As well as harms, young people highlighted significant benefits to their online world – in their education, their social lives and in their identity