South Australian Commissioner for Children calls for cyberbullying law reform in submission to national review

South Australia's Commissioner for Children and Young People has submitted a formal recommendation to the federal Anti-Bullying Rapid Review urging the creation of a specific cyberbullying offence under national law and stronger obligations on social media platforms to prevent and respond to online harassment of minors. The submission cites evidence that existing civil remedies through the eSafety Commissioner are too slow for fast-moving online abuse and that criminal provisions in some states are inconsistently applied, leaving gaps in protection for children who experience sustained targeting in direct messages and group chats.

Legal remedies, whether civil or criminal, operate retrospectively: they punish or provide redress after harm has occurred and evidence has been gathered. Preventive technology intercepts the conduct before the threshold for legal action is crossed. Guardii's anti-cyberbullying detection identifies escalation, coercion and sustained targeting as they unfold in a child's direct messages on Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, blocking hostile contact at first occurrence and alerting the parent or school when a pattern emerges, so that intervention precedes trauma and the child is never left to endure abuse in silence while waiting for a legal process to conclude.