site.bta70,000-Plus Alerts about Children's Cyberbullying Submitted in 2024

In 2024, the Cybercrime Directorate at the Interior Ministry's General Directorate Combating Organized Crime received 70,268 alerts about children's cyberbullying. 

The news was broken here on Tuesday by Antoaneta Vasileva, coordinator of the Safe Internet Centre, at a conference on the occasion of the Centre's 20th anniversary.

In her words, parents' and children's awareness of online safety has increased substantially.

"We get ever more queries from parents," Vasileva said. "Ever more often they ask us how to make their profiles safe or restrict onscreen time," she explained. She added that the Safe Internet Centre follows up on all alerts. The Centre, though, has been worried to find out that one in seven children is a victim of cyberbullying.  

"Nearly 99% of these victims are girls," the expert said further. "Over 100,000 alerts concern images published on Telegram. The content that we failed to block was transferred to a server in the Netherlands, and we are making efforts to have it removed," Vasileva explained.

In her words, children are bullied not only on social media but also in various chat apps and in online games.