Experience and frequency of potentially harmful online content, by country (Base: All children 10–16)

This dataset from the 2026 EU Kids Online comparative study provides European policymakers, who are debating platform regulation and social media restrictions, with critical empirical evidence by mapping children's self-reported annual exposure to seven key categories of harmful content. Across the 19 surveyed nations, exposure to severe risks is widespread: gory or violent images are the most common form of harm (40% on average across Europe), followed closely by content that encourages eating disorders (39%), self-harm (37%), and dangerous viral challenges/dares (36%). Narratives encouraging substance use (33%), adult pornography (27%), and suicide methods (25%) are also seen by substantial minorities of children, demonstrating that the systemic dissemination of risk material by algorithms is the norm rather than the exception. Cross-national disparities highlight significant geographic variation in exposure. Children in Belgium, the Czech Republic, and Malta report the highest exposure rates across almost all categories of harm. For example, 65% of Belgian young people see gory or violent imagery, and 56% see self-harm content. This is compared to 28% and 25%, respectively, in Serbia. Furthermore, extreme risks such as suicide instruction affect 45% of children in Malta and 39% in Belgium, while body image risks are most prevalent in Poland (55%) and the Czech Republic (54%).