Online Harm and Safeguarding Foundation Explainer

What are online harm or Com networks?¶

Online harm networks are loose, sometimes overlapping online communities in which people encourage, organise, circulate or exploit serious harm. In the networks often described as The Com, young people and other vulnerable individuals may be targeted, coerced or drawn into harming themselves or others. A network label describes a reported pattern; it is not a single registered organisation with a reliable membership list.

For an investigator the practical starting point is what happened to whom, on which service, and who appears to have influenced each action. The label can help recognise a wider pattern, but it cannot replace the case evidence.

In one sentence

The Com is an umbrella description for changing online networks associated with coercion, exploitation and violence; identify the conduct and people before trying to assign a network name.

What does a network actually look like?¶

A child might first encounter someone in a gaming community, receive friendly private messages elsewhere, then face threats after sharing personal information. Other accounts may watch, reward or circulate harmful material. Some take an active role; others only claim association. This is not necessarily one continuous group chat or one command structure.

Illustrative evidence route — fictional, non-graphic

Gaming account · Contact begins during ordinary playMessaging account · Private messages shift from friendship to demandsAnother account · Claims status within a named networkChild's device · Retains messages showing a threat and resulting distress

Established a sequence of contacts and demands, if the source records verify itNot established that all three accounts belong to one person or to a formal organisation

Europol's Project COMPASS describes The Com as decentralised, with different subgroups and purposes. The FBI warns that networks such as 764 can use coercion and extortion against minors. Treat both as sourced threat assessments, not proof about a particular Telegram channel or child. Sources and their dates.

Why this matters to an investigation¶

There are two enquiries running together: safeguarding the person who may be at risk now, and preserving an evidential route through changing accounts, services and participants. A child who posts an upsetting message may also have received a threat just before it. Looking only at the final post misses the surrounding conduct.

Ask who reported the incident, whether anyone is in immediate danger, which original messages or devices exist and who else may have retained the conversation. Immediate preservation and children who are both harmed and causing harm develop those decisions.

Source position¶

This introduction reflects Europol Project COMPASS and the FBI violent-online-networks alert, verified 25 October 2026. Names, roles and network activity change: use the maintained, source-dated landscape described in OHS-002, not a static list presented as current intelligence.

The point to remember

A reported network name gives context. The actionable case is the person at risk, the specific harmful conduct and the records that can establish who did what.