Tens of Millions Kids Were Exploited Online in a Year. Here’s Why Parents Should Pay Attention

A teenager holds her smartphone displaying a logo “ban under 15” in Brussels on July 7, 2026. The European Commission estimated, on July 6, 2026, that the French bill banning social media access for children under 15 was not fully compatible with European Union law, while reaffirming its support for the initiative. Like France, Spain and Denmark are also working on the introduction of a digital age of majority to follow Australia’s example, who became in December 2025 the first country to implement such a law. Photo by Nicolas TUCAT / AFP via Getty Images UNICEF estimates that 20 million children ages 12 to 17 were touched by some kind of tech-enabled sexual exploitation or abuse in a recent 12-month period, across 21 countries. Close to 60% of those cases trace back to five mainstream apps — WhatsApp, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook — while only 14% involved online games. Hispanic teens in the U.S. rank among the heaviest daily users of TikTok, the very kind of platform UNICEF’s data flags most often, according to separate Pew Research Center surveys. A Global Number With a Familiar Shape UNICEF put a hard number on the problem on September 3: by its
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