Digital tracker survey – June 2023

What is harmful content?

There are 7 types of harms labelled ‘priority’ or ‘primary priority’ by the Online Safety Bill in our survey. These are:

• Hate speech
• Violent content
• Online bullying from people kids know
• Online bullying from strangers
• Sexual content such as pornography
• Content promoting bad eating habits
• Content promoting self-harm

In the June 2023 survey, 46% of children reported experiencing at least one of these harms.

How much do parents know about their child’s online experiences?

When asked about harms children experience online, parents underestimate. For instance, while 23% of children say they have come across hate speech online, only 9% of parents said their children had experienced this.

Parents also significantly underestimate these experiences across violent content and online bullying from strangers. Children and parents report similar numbers with other online harms.

Impacts on children with learning needs, mental health issues and other vulnerabilities

The June 2023 survey found that children with vulnerabilities were more likely to report experiencing one of the 7 harms outlined above.

Some comparisons include:

• hate speech: 29% of children with vulnerabilities came across this online compared to 23% of children without vulnerabilities
• violent content: 25% versus 19%
• online bullying from people they know: 19% versus 14%