Violence, extremism, pornography: Whenever young people use popular internet services they quickly come across harmful content. The possibility to interact with other users online additionally makes them easy targets of cyberbullying or sexual harassment. There are more and more depictions of sexualised violence toward minors.

Popular games associated with dark patterns become traps for children. However, many providers of popular services do not take all precautionary measures to protect their underage users. This is one conclusion of jugendschutz.net’s annual report 2021. In 2021, jugendschutz.net processed 6,865 cases (2020: 5,056). 58 % were related to sexualized violence. Political extremism came second with 15 % followed by pornography with 14 %, self-harm behaviour with 6 %, violence with 5 % and cyberbullying with 2 %.


Access the full Report here.