5 Online Harms Every Secondary Teacher Should Know in 2026

Why this briefing exists

The revised RSHE statutory guidance that comes into force in September 2026 requires schools to address online harms in a way that reflects the actual landscape young people inhabit — not the online safety curriculum of five years ago. The harms that matter most have changed. The platforms have changed. The mechanics of how harm is perpetrated have changed.

Secondary teachers and form tutors are expected to deliver sessions on content they may not have encountered personally, using pedagogical approaches that are evidence-based, and in a context where students often know more about the specific platforms than the adults teaching them.

This briefing summarises the five social media harms that are most active in secondary schools right now, drawing on the most recent available research and practitioner evidence. It is designed to be read in fifteen minutes and used in lesson planning.

1. AI-generated intimate imagery

The creation and sharing of non-consensual AI-generated intimate images — sometimes called deepfake pornography — has become a significant and growing safeguarding issue in secondary schools. Research published in the journal Behavioural Sciences in April 2025 found that teachers in eight UK schools were dealing with incidents involving AI-generated intimate images, and that students were receiving no explicit education on the topic even in schools where incidents had occurred.

The key pedagogical challenge is not teaching students that this is wrong — most understand that instinctively. It is helping them understand why: the harm to the person depicted is real regardless of whether the image is "real", the legal consequences for perpetrators are serious (the Criminal Justice Bill 2024 extended criminal liability to the creation of such images), and the normalisation of image-based objectification of women and girls in online culture is directly connected to real-world harm.

2. Sextortion

Sextortion — the use of real or fabricated intimate images as leverage for financial payment or further abuse — has increased sharply among secondary-age young people. The Internet Watch Foundation's 2024 annual report documented a significant increase in financially motivated sextortion targeting boys aged 14 to 17, often perpetrated by organised criminal groups operating from overseas through gaming platforms and social media.

Teachers need to understand that victims of sextortion are overwhelmingly unlikely to disclose voluntarily. The shame, fear and perceived complicity that perpetrators deliberately cultivate are powerful silencers. Young people need to know — before an incident occurs — that this is not their fault, that there are specialist support services, and that paying rarely stops the abuse.

3. Incel and manosphere pipeline content

Research published in PLOS ONE in February 2025 by the University of York found that 76% of secondary school teachers were extremely concerned about the influence of online misogyny in their schools. The manosphere — the interconnected ecosystem of misogynistic content ranging from mainstream influencers such as Andrew Tate to incel communities — operates through algorithmic recommendation that can move young men from mainstream content to more extreme material within weeks.

The pedagogical challenge is that many young men who consume this content do not identify it as harmful — or as ideological at all. They experience it as entertaining, validating and community-building. Effective teaching engages with these genuine appeals rather than dismissing them, and builds the critical media literacy to recognise manipulation without creating defensiveness.

4. Coercive control via technology

Technology-facilitated coercive control — the use of location tracking, message monitoring, image threats and constant digital contact as tools of relationship control — is now present in a significant proportion of adolescent relationships. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline reports that technology-facilitated abuse features in the majority of cases it handles.

Young people often do not recognise technology-facilitated control as abuse because the specific behaviours — checking a partner's location, expecting instant responses, sharing passwords as evidence of trust — are widely modelled in peer culture and sometimes in the content they consume online. RSHE that addresses coercive control needs to address the digital dimension explicitly, not as an add-on but as the primary context in which these dynamics present for young people today.

5. Online radicalisation and extremist content

Ofsted's research and PREVENT data both indicate that online radicalisation pathways have become more diffuse and harder to identify since the proliferation of short-form video. Young people do not typically encounter extremist content through deliberate search — they encounter it through algorithmic recommendation, often beginning with content that appears benign or entertaining.

The overlap between misogynist content, conspiracy theory content, and far-right content is well-documented: the manosphere functions as a pipeline not only towards more extreme misogyny but towards broader anti-democratic and violent ideologies. Secondary teachers who understand this overlap are better placed to identify concerning patterns in students' attitudes and to address them through curriculum rather than reactive disciplinary approaches.