Teens rarely report online harassment. When they do, they rarely get help.

It’s (sadly) no surprise that tweens and teens are frequently subjected to sexual harassment through social media. But how do teens respond to these incidents — and what are social media providers doing about the problem?

To help answer those questions, researchers in Belgium set out to examine what prompts kids to report offensive or abusive incidents to social media providers. The disheartening answer: Most don’t. Of the 300 students who said they had been harassed — the study defined harassment as unwelcome or graphic “sexual and gender-degrading comments” — only 60 reported the abuse to the social media providers. About half received a response, and the offending content was removed in only 18 cases. Which could reinforce the perception among some teens that “nothing is done” even if an incident is reported.