Social media facing fresh child protection claims

Ofcom published its Children's Online Experiences report in May 2026, finding that a majority of users aged between 11 years and 17 years reported having seen harmful content, a statistic barely changed since online safety rules came into force, due to personalised feeds. Children listed TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook as sites where they were most likely to see such content. A high proportion of those aged between eight years and 12 years told Ofcom they had accessed services with a minimum age limit of 13 years, with YouTube, WhatsApp and TikTok heading the list. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission faced renewed pressure to investigate Roblox.

Regulatory findings confirm the limits of content moderation applied at scale. When harmful material evades platform filters, it reaches children through direct messages and group chats where detection must operate in real time. The anti-grooming, anti-sextortion, cyberbullying and CSAM detection capabilities that Guardii deploys across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms monitor for sustained targeting, escalation and coercion, surfacing the child at risk to the parent, school safeguarding team or law enforcement without creating a feed of what was said, and enabling intervention before the harm becomes irreversible.