In the News

In a nondescript blue and white bedroom, a sombre-looking girl holds up a message that seems to have been hastily scribbled in felt-tip pen, on the back of a homework assignment. The words, “Roast Me” are an invitation for tens of thousands of users of the open social network site Reddit to annihilate every facet of her appearance, from her glasses to her hair style.

Company claims as many as 40% of US teens are on the chat app – but after a series of scares, online safety groups urge caution

Police in England and Wales are producing new guidelines designed to avoid "criminalising" children caught sending indecent images to each other. Under current Home Office rules any such "sexting" incident reported to the police must be recorded as a crime.

The company called Pindex launched this month, and is a self-funded online platform that creates and curates educational videos and infographics for teachers and students.

Pornographic websites will require users to verify their age in a bid to stop children viewing harmful material online. Companies that fail to put safeguards in place will face civil sanctions under a new legal framework announced by the Government.

Dealing with online risks is a family affair; recent global research from Norton found that nearly all parents (89%) in the UK worry about their children’s safety online – in particular that they will give too much information out to strangers (44%) and that their online actions will have repercussions for the entire family (36%).

Many children are leaving themselves vulnerable online by failing to set their social media profiles to private, an online safety group has warned. Internet Matters said only 47% of children set their profiles to private, meaning they are more vulnerable to being contacted by strangers online and cyberbullying outside of their circle of friends.

One in four teenagers suffered hate abuse online in the last year, a major report has revealed. A survey of 13 to 18-year-olds found 24% reported that they were targeted on the internet because of their gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability or transgender identity.

Kaspersky Lab has revealed that one in ten 16-19 year olds in the UK know someone who has engaged in cyber activities that could be considered illegal, which includes everything from cyberbullying to DDoSing and hacking. The same poll - which surveyed 1,556 16-19 year olds over a period of 10 days - also found that a third would be impressed if a friend hacked a bank and replaced its homepage with a cartoon.

West Mercia Police said officers had looked into 74 cases of children sending or sharing explicit or naked pictures of themselves on social media or text messaging services to others in the last year.

Twitter has partnered with a number of specialist charities to create a global expert safety council that will work to establish a slate of anti-harassment features and help protect users from online abuse and threats.

Cyber crime is becoming an increasing problem for children and teenagers. Almost a third of cyber crime victims last year were less than 18 years old and the number of online crime victims in that age group has increased by 163%.

A child born today will grow up in a world powered by data. They will be surrounded by powerful digital technologies, while the world’s information is digitised, analysed and transmitted around them in seconds. In the first week of their life, 3.5bn tweets will be sent.

More than three-quarters of children aged 10 to 12 in the UK have social media accounts, even though they are below the age limit, a survey for BBC Newsround suggests.

Today is Safer Internet Day, but do any of us actually know what Britain's youth are getting up to online?

Survey of 13- to 18-year-olds reveals teenagers with disabilities and those from minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to encounter cyberbullying

With reports of cyberbullying on the rise, a guide to what Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram are doing, and whether it’s enough

Horrified teachers at a Church of England primary school have spotted children as young as four acting out scenes from the X-rated video game Grand Theft Auto V.

Twitter has suspended over 125,000 accounts for 'terrorism' related largely to ISIS after calls from the US government and European Union for social media companies to prevent radicalisation and violent extremism online.

Mobile messaging service WhatsApp is now used by a billion people every month, Facebook has reported. The Facebook-owned app now outperforms the social network's own Messenger mobile app, which has 800 million monthly users.