The online world has become so woven into the lives of teenagers that many of the old conversations about safety no longer go far enough.
These days, questions are not just about where they’re going, who they’re with or what time they’ll be home. They also involve what is happening on a phone, what’s being shared in a group chat, and how quickly something done in a moment of foolishness or cruelty can take on a life of its own.
For parents, that has changed their job. Many of the risks facing young people are no longer out beyond the front door. They are coming through it every evening, tucked into a schoolbag or charging on a bedroom floor.
A child can be sitting safely at home and still be caught up in something humiliating or threatening. And while the harm may begin online, rarely does it stay there. It follows young people into school, friendships and family life.
That is why the decision to have Gardaí deliver classroom lessons in secondary schools on Coco’s Law feels like a positive step. The new lesson, developed with Webwise as part of the Garda Schools Programme, is aimed at first and second years and is designed to explain plainly what the law covers, particularly around threatening or offensive communications and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
There will be some who say schools already have enough to carry, and they would not be wrong. But there is something powerful about young people hearing this directly from Gardaí within the school environment. Not as a scare tactic, and not as a substitute for conversations at home, but as a clear reminder that what happens online does not somehow sit outside the law.
Too often, online harm is brushed off as messing, gossip, or banter gone too far. But behind that language can be very serious damage.
What may be dismissed as “just sharing on” can in reality leave a young person humiliated and frightened. It can undermine their confidence, affect how they see themselves and, in some cases, alter the course of their life. And once something is loose online, it can be very hard to pull it back.
Since the start of 2023, Gardaí say more than 1,860 harmful communication incidents have been recorded and more than 400 charges and summonses have been initiated under Coco’s Law. So this is not a problem at the margins but something that is already happening in large numbers.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office published late last year found that 84 per cent of women aged 16 to 29 had encountered hostile or degrading content online, while for males in the same age group it was 72 per cent.
The figures relate to those aged 16 and over, so they are not even a direct measure of all of those young people online. But they do tell us something important about the online environment that older teens are living in and younger ones are growing into.
There is growing evidence too that many children are carrying these experiences quietly. The Children’s Rights Alliance’s Online Safety Monitor 2025, highlighted by the INTO, found that 40 per cent of Irish children had experienced cyberbullying, while 36 per cent said they reported upsetting incidents to no one. That silence may be one of the most worrying things of all because you can’t deal with issues that aren’t talked about.
Donegal Youth Service’s Youth Talk support service lists bullying among the issues young people seek help with, which may happen through apps and platforms that are global, but the consequences are always local.
None of this means Garda lessons will be a total fix. Schools still need support and parents still need to keep talking to their children.
Technology companies have big questions to answer but while we wait for that to happen and for meaningful action, there is value in young people being told clearly, early and in plain language that some behaviour online is not just wrong; it’s unlawful.
If these lessons help even a small number of young people understand that a phone is not a shield from consequences, then they will have done something useful.