European Commission announces EU-wide 'action plan' to combat cyberbullying

In February 2026, the European Commission announced an EU-wide action plan to combat cyberbullying, a phenomenon afflicting as many as one in six children between the ages of 11 and 15. EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen stated that children and young people have the right to be safe when they are online. The plan includes the rollout of an EU-wide app that will let children confidentially report bullying to a national helpline, safely store and send evidence, and receive help from law enforcement, education or child protection services. The proposal comes as the EU pushes on multiple fronts to shield children from harmful social media impacts, from exploring a bloc-wide ban for younger teens, to working on a new age verification tool, to clamping down on addictive features in apps.

Reporting infrastructure captures evidence after harm has occurred; real-time detection surfaces the child in crisis before escalation. Guardii's cyberbullying and abuse-of-athletes detection modules identify sustained targeting, coercion and escalation as they unfold in direct-message conversations across platforms, blocking or flagging hostile contact before it reaches the target and enabling a parent, school or professional to intervene at the first signal of distress rather than waiting for the child to recognize the pattern, preserve screenshots and navigate a formal complaint process, closing the gap between the onset of abuse and the moment help arrives.