Source: in-cyprus.philenews.com
Over recent months, a troubling conversation has been growing louder — in Cyprus and across Europe — about the very real dangers facing millions of children online. At the sharp end of those dangers: cyberbullying, sexual exploitation, and abuse. The European Commission launched a public consultation in July 2025 to shape new legislation by 2026, strengthening consumer protections online with a particular focus on minors. Then, in November, the European Parliament went further — voting to establish a minimum age of 16 for social media use across the entire EU, a direct attempt to slam the door on unrestricted access by children.
The guidelines under discussion centre on tightening minors’ account settings to reduce the risk of unwanted contact from strangers, and on blocking the uploading or screenshotting of content posted by children — a basic line of defence against the non-consensual sharing of sexual or intimate material and sexual blackmail.
Online sexual crimes against children are a fast-spreading infection — and one that is claiming more young victims with every passing year. The vast majority of cases never see a police station, let alone a courtroom. The youth and vulnerability of the victims, their inability to fully grasp what is being done to them, let alone report it, and the silence that too many families maintain for reasons of their own — all of this gives predators the cover they need to reoffend, again and again, without consequence.
In cases prosecuted across Europe, perpetrators were found to have filmed and photographed themselves in the act of abusing their victims — in some instances, the children of their closest friends! They then shared the material to members of their networks.
Child protection organisations put it with devastating bluntness: “Technology opens doors for paedophiles faster than we can close them.” But of course, the technology isn’t the villain here — people are. As those same organisations make clear, “the problem is the behaviour of offenders who exploit every available means to reach and harm children. The responsibility for keeping children safe rests with all of us — not just in the playground or the park, but on their laptops and their phones.”