What is cyberbullying? Warning signs, AI threats, and effects

Cyberbullying has moved well beyond hurtful texts. Children are being targeted across gaming platforms, group chats, and social media, too. According to Norton’s 2026 Connected Kids report on digital risks facing kids, 25% of U.S. parents said their child had experienced cyberbullying at some point.

The same report reveals that in the U.S., classmates are the most common perpetrators of cyberbullying (44%), followed by online gaming contacts (36%), and strangers online (also 36%). Perhaps surprisingly, 16% of parents report that their child has been bullied by an AI-generated account or bot, marking a change in how kids are experiencing digital harassment.

Bullies are using AI to generate fake audio clips, social media profiles, and even videos. Here’s what cyberbullying looks like today, how it could impact your child, and what you can do about it.

What is cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is when someone repeatedly and intentionally harasses, mistreats, or humiliates another person online. This can happen on legacy social networks like Facebook, visual-first apps like TikTok and Snapchat, gaming communities, video-sharing sites, and direct messaging tools. In the U.S., Facebook remains the most commonly-cited platform for cyberbullying, followed by TikTok and Instagram, according to Norton’s 2026 Connected Kids report.

Cyberbullying comes in the form of mean comments, rumor spreading, exclusion from group chats, or sharing embarrassing photos. And with AI, it can now include impersonation and deepfakes designed to humiliate the victim.

How cyberbullying is different from traditional bullying

Unlike traditional bullying, which involves face-to-face interaction, cyberbullying plays out through screens and follows a child home into spaces that should feel safe. A humiliating post can quickly spread throughout the entire school, and its effects can linger long after the post is taken down.

Often, the person behind cyberbullying is hiding their identity. A fake screen name or anonymous profile gives bullies a sense of invisibility. In a 2023 study on anonymity’s role in digital aggression, researchers found that anonymity lowers inhibitions, allowing perpetrators to feel less restrained. And victims often perceive anonymous online harassment as more humiliating and threatening than in-person bullying. Now, AI tools allow bullies to harass their victims at scale — without ever revealing who they are.

These elements make cyberbullying hard to catch as a parent. Norton research on the risks of chatting with online strangers indicates that gaming chats may be a particular blind spot for parents, and the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) recently reported that only 35% of parents use any form of parent control methods on their children’s gaming systems. Meanwhile, on platforms like Discord, which are built around private chatrooms, teens have been driven to thoughts of self-harm and suicide through bullying.

Common types of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can take many forms. Some, like harassment and doxxing, are blatant. Others, like catfishing and exclusion, can be harder to recognize. Here are some of the most common types of cyberbullying today:

• Harassment: Your child receives repeated hurtful, threatening, or offensive messages online. It’s among the most common forms of cyberbullying and can happen on any platform.
• Cyberstalking: Someone persistently monitors, follows, or contacts your child online to the point of causing distress. Cyberstalking often escalates over time.
• Doxxing: A bully publicly shares your child’s sensitive information (home address, phone number, or personal details) to intimidate them or invite others to pile on. Personal information exposed in a doxxing attack can also lead to swatting in extreme cases.
• Impersonation: Someone creates a fake account pretending to be your child or gains access to their real account to post content that damages their reputation.
• Outing: A bully shares details of your child’s private life (like embarrassing photos or their sexual orientation or gender identity) to humiliate them publicly or put them in danger.
• Exclusion: Your child gets deliberately left out of group chats, games, or online social spaces, which isolates and ostracizes them.
• Catfishing: Someone builds a fake online identity to gain your child’s trust, often to extract personal information, manipulate them emotionally, or pressure them into sharing explicit images.
• Deepfake abuse: Someone uses AI to create realistic fake images or videos of your child — sometimes explicit — to humiliate or harass them. The TAKE IT DOWN Act offers victims some legal recourse, but there’s no law that can wipe people’s memory if they saw the image or video while it was up.

How does cyberbullying affect mental health?

Cyberbullying can lead to anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal in children and teens. Here’s what research shows about how fast it sets in and how long it can last:

• A 2026 meta study found that youths who experience depression, anxiety, or low self-esteem may be more vulnerable to cybervictimization.
• Recent research on cyberbullying and eating disorders indicates that cyberbullying is strongly associated with worry about weight gain, self-worth tied to weight, and binge eating.
• A Chinese study on cyberbullying found that many victims experienced measurable psychological changes within three months of their first cyberbullying incident.

The problem has become serious enough that the U.S. Surgeon General formally identified social media as a risk factor for youth mental health. The 2023 advisory reviewed 36 studies and found a consistent link between cyberbullying on social media and depression in children and adolescents.

Recognizing the warning signs of cyberbullying

Signs of cyberbullying can show up as changes to your child’s behavior, mood, school performance, or even physical health, and some kids may hide what’s really happening. They use disappearing messages on apps like Snapchat, create secondary “finsta” (fake insta) accounts, or simply shut off their screens when you walk in.

Here’s what to watch for:

• Secrecy around devices: A child who used to share everything suddenly deletes apps, hides their phone screen, or shuts their laptop the moment you walk in.
• Reluctance to discuss online life: When asked about friends, group chats, or what happened at school, you get silence or vague answers.
• Withdrawal from people: Your child stops reaching out to friends, skips family time, and retreats to their room more than usual.
• Loss of interest in activities: A child who loved sports, gaming, or art suddenly stops caring or showing interest in their favorite hobbies.
• Mood changes: Unusual anxiety, irritability, anger, or emotional flatness — especially after spending time online — can be another sign of cyberbullying.
• Slipping grades: A student who used to do homework without prompting starts skipping assignments, or teachers begin flagging negative changes.
• Sleep disruption: Your child starts going to bed later, complaining of restless sleep, or wakes up feeling unrested.
• Physical complaints: Your child reports headaches, stomach aches, or is frequently finding excuses to skip school.

Is cyberbullying illegal?

Cyberbullying can be illegal, even though there’s no single federal law against it. Most cases fall under existing state harassment and stalking laws, school anti-bullying policies, or newer legislation targeting AI-generated harassment. Penalties depend on where you live, what platform it happened on, and how serious the harassment is.

At the federal level, the TAKE IT DOWN Act requires platforms to remove non-consensual intimate images, including AI-generated deepfakes, within 48 hours of being flagged. This gives victims a clear path to get harmful content taken down, which used to be one of the hardest parts of responding to deepfake abuse.

At the state level, all states have harassment and stalking statutes, many of which can apply to cyberbullying, though penalties vary widely. Tennessee, for example, passed a law that allows judges to suspend a teen’s driver’s license for a year if they’re convicted of bullying or cyberbullying. The thinking is that a license hits harder than a fine that parents end up paying anyway. Around 46 states have also enacted deepfake legislation, though what’s covered varies by state.

Schools also have their own authority to act. All 50 states require schools to have a formal anti-bullying policy, and some states, like Massachusetts, explicitly allow schools to discipline students for cyberbullying that happens off-campus if it disrupts the learning environment, which matters when the bully is a classmate, but the harassment happens after hours.

Cyberbullying.org maintains a helpful state-by-state breakdown of bullying laws if you want to look up what applies in your state.

What to do if your child experiences cyberbullying

The steps below cover everything from documenting evidence and reporting to individual platforms, to talking to your child, involving the school, and knowing when to call law enforcement. Here's what to do to help stop cyberbullying:

• Document everything: Screenshot every message, post, or image before it disappears. Note the date, time, platform, and username of whoever is responsible.
• Don’t retaliate: Responding to a bully directly (even to defend your child) may make things worse. It can escalate the situation and complicate any formal action you take later.
• Block and report: Report the offending account or content directly to the platform and block the bully. Most social media platforms have clear reporting tools, and some even suspend accounts for harassment.
• Talk to your child: Ask open questions and listen without judgment. Your child needs to know they won’t lose their phone privileges or get in trouble for telling you the truth.
• Contact the school: If the bully is a classmate or the harassment is affecting your child’s school life, notify a teacher or administrator. Schools may have a legal obligation to act when cyberbullying disrupts the learning environment.
• Preserve privacy: Review what personal information about your child is publicly visible online (photos, videos, location, school name) and lock it down. You can also protect their privacy on social media by limiting who can contact them.
• Review privacy settings: Go through every app and social platform your child uses to switch accounts to private and block inappropriate content. Turn off location sharing and restrict who can message them, too.
• Create a safety plan: Work with your child on what to do if cyberbullying happens again, and how they can stay safer online. This includes deciding who to tell, what to screenshot, and when to step away from their device.
• Contact law enforcement: If the harassment includes threats, deepfakes, explicit content, or anything that feels like stalking, contact your local police.
• Seek ongoing professional support: If your child shows ongoing signs of anxiety, depression, or withdrawal, connect them with a counselor or therapist. You can also look for someone familiar with the SHIELD framework, an approach specifically designed to help young people recover from bullying and cyberbullying.

Get more visibility into your child’s digital life

Knowing the signs of cyberbullying is a start, but staying ahead of it requires visibility into your child’s online world that most parents simply don’t have. The platforms keep changing, the conversations move to new apps, and kids get better at hiding what’s happening long before parents notice something is wrong.

Norton Family gives you visibility into what your child searches for, which sites they visit, how much time they spend online, and where their device is. This means you’ll be better equipped to start the right conversations before negative situations escalate.

FAQs

At what age does cyberbullying most commonly start?

According to some studies, cyberbullying can start as young as six, if kids gain early access to devices and social platforms, although it tends to get worse through the teenage years as they spend more time online and social dynamics get more complicated.

What should I do if my child is the one doing the cyberbullying?

If you think your child is engaging in cyberbullying in any capacity, we suggest you have an honest conversation — that’s not framed as a punishment or shaming — to find out what’s driving the behavior. Then create a plan to make amends with the bullied person and set clear consequences, such as revoking device privileges, and involve the school if required.

What parental controls can help prevent cyberbullying?

Parental control tools like screen time managers, privacy controls, parental supervision software, and location trackers can tell you about your child’s online activity. They won’t stop cyberbullying entirely, but they help you spot warning signs early and act before things escalate.