National Anti-Bullying Framework under review as cyberbullying rates climb

The Australian Government has launched a rapid review of the National Anti-Bullying Framework following new data showing that 32 percent of secondary students experienced cyberbullying in the past year, up from 24 percent in 2022. The Anti-Bullying Rapid Review, announced by Education Minister Sarah Mitchell, will assess whether current state education department responses and the Let's Stop Bullying campaign are adequately equipped to address rising digital harassment, particularly on platforms including Instagram, Snapchat and Discord where most incidents occur among 13-to-16-year-olds.

When intervention waits for a report to travel through school administrative channels, the targeting has already occurred and often escalated. Guardii's AI-driven cyberbullying detection module identifies sustained targeting, coercion and escalation patterns in direct messages as they unfold in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other platforms, flagging hostile contact before it reaches the child and surfacing a student in acute distress to a parent, school counselor or professional without requiring anyone to read through message content. By blocking or alerting at the point of contact rather than after harm is reported, pattern-based detection addresses the operational gap the review has identified.