In Hawaiʻi, our schools are often described as extensions of our communities. They are supposed to be places where young people learn not only academics, but also the values of respect, care, and kuleana. 

In the digital era, however, the social culture of a school can no longer be contained within classroom walls. As a high school student, I have seen how social media can propagate gender-based violence not only through group chats, but also through the content youth are fed that reinforces stereotypes and normalizes harm. 

Across the country, a growing number of incidents have revealed how digital spaces are being weaponized to target young women and girls. From coordinated harassment on social media to the nonconsensual sharing or manipulation of intimate images, these patterns are becoming a distressingly common part of life for younger generations.

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Nationally, surveys suggest that nearly 60%c of teen girls have experienced online harassment and one in five report having received unwanted explicit images. LGBTQ+ youth face even higher rates of abuse.

These statistics reflect the lived experiences that shape whether young people feel safe and can trust the institutions meant to protect them.

Technology has made digital harm easy to scale, but hard to control. Anonymous web forums allow harassment to spread without accountability. Artificial intelligence tools can create deepfake images that are nearly indistinguishable from real photographs, leaving victims with little recourse and lasting emotional harm.

Meanwhile, reporting pathways are inconsistent, platform safety policies are often opaque, and existing laws were not designed to meet the needs of our rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Because digital spaces are such a large part of young people’s lives, unsafe online environments can deeply harm their mental health and sense of self. Yet, too many of today’s youth do not know where to turn when digital abuse occurs.

Some fear retaliation. Others worry that reporting will not be taken seriously. Many young people simply do not recognize that coercive control through devices, image based abuse, and persistent cyber-harassment are part of a broader pattern of gender violence.

Hawaiʻi cannot wait to prioritize youth digital safety. A coordinated effort should assess how technology-facilitated abuse is affecting our keiki, identify gaps in local laws, and develop clear pathways for preventing the spread of digital trauma.

A state-backed working group, for instance, could bring together educators, survivor service providers, public health experts, youth leaders, and technology stakeholders to bridge the policy gap between when harm occurs and where help is made available.

Numerous opportunities exist for enhancing the islands’ technological safeguards, such as investing in digital literacy education that teaches young people how to navigate online spaces responsibly and equipping schools with trauma-informed protocols to respond to digital harassment and abuse.

We should also ensure that online platforms thoroughly investigate reports of harm and that youth-serving institutions are transparent about how they address cyber-harassment. Most importantly, officials must center the voices of young people who are directly impacted by the threat of digital violence.

If state leaders do nothing, the harms we are witnessing today will only become more normalized and, ultimately, more difficult to manage. If we take action now, however, we can create lasting structures of protection and accountability, so no young person in Hawaiʻi has to face digital violence alone.