WPMT-TV (FOX): “Communities want to weigh in” | State lawmakers react to potential executive order limiting AI regulation: President Trump announced on Truth Social that he plans to sign an executive order banning states from regulating AI development later this week, prompting reactions from lawmakers across the Commonwealth.

Route Fifty: Feds float tying kids’ screen time to school subsidies: The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will study the impact of technology and screens on students’ learning and the use of federal dollars to buy that tech, Administrator Arielle Roth announced last week.

Erie News Now: Australia Pioneers Social Media Ban for Children Under 16: As of today Dec. 10, Australia has become the first country in the world to ban social media accounts for children under the age of 16. The landmark decision comes amid growing concerns about the impact of social media on youth mental health.

Business Insider: Australia is booting kids under 16 off social media. Some senators hope the US is next: ‘Our lack of action is inexcusable.’: A law in Australia banning children under 16 from creating social media accounts took effect this week. It was the latest move in a growing global effort to protect young people from the harmful effects of social media.

InsideNoVa: Social Media Draining Kids’ Ability To Concentrate, Study Argues: Social media could be draining children of their ability to concentrate, a new study says. Children who spend a lot of time on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter or Messenger gradually become less able to focus and pay attention, researchers reported Dec. 8 in the journal Pediatrics Open Science.

Courthouse News Service: Owner of Robux gambling site must face unfair competition claims by underage users: The owner of a now-defunct online casino that targeted Roblox users failed to convince a federal judge to toss the claims brought against him in a proposed class action on behalf of children who gambled away their virtual Robux on his and other websites.

Tri-State Alert: Pennsylvania is finally taking a cell phone ban in schools seriously – but why will it take two years?: Senate Bill 1014 would ban cell phones in all Pennsylvania schools from bell to bell. That would mean from the start of the school day to the end of the school day, students wouldn’t be allowed to have their phones out. Reports have shown that districts that have implemented that kind of ban saw increases in everything from test scores to student morale.

USA Today: Australia is first nation to ban social media for kids. Is the US next?: Starting Dec. 10, Australia is the first country to ban social media for kids under 16. Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote about the move in an opinion essay posted Dec. 7, saying the ban “will be one of the biggest social and cultural changes our nation has faced.”

The New York Times: Australia’s Social Media Ban for Children Takes Effect: Hundreds of thousands of teenagers in Australia awoke Wednesday to find their social media accounts logged out or deactivated, under a new law that bars anyone younger than 16 from the services.

The Hill: Australia implements social media ban: What’s the environment in the US?: A new law banning kids from prominent social media sites took effect in Australia on Wednesday, teeing up a key test of one of the most far-reaching approaches to protecting children online.

State Affairs: Senate panel Oks phone-free school bill: The Senate Education Committee Tuesday approved bipartisan legislation to ban students’ use of mobile phones during the school day amid discussion of potential amendments.

Brookings: Opinion: How will bans on social media affect children?: Australia’s first-of-its-kind social media ban for children under the age of 16 will take effect on December 10, following heightened concerns about the impact of social media on teen mental health and well-being. Since the ban was passed in 2024, other countries have followed suit, introducing or considering similar legislation.

York Dispatch: York Haven 19-year-old accused of sharing explicit images of girl: A 19-year-old man faces multiple charges after he allegedly shared a sexually explicit video of him and a 16-year-old girl and posted sexually explicit material on the girl’s Tik Tok account.

WPVI-TV (ABC): Radnor High School alerts families to ‘inappropriate’ AI video depicting students: Radnor High School and Radnor Township Police are investigating an AI-generated video that allegedly depicts several students inappropriately, according to an email sent to families by Principal Dr. Joseph MacNamara.

Reuters: Australia’s social media ban for children takes effect in world first: Australia has become the first country to ban social media for children under 16, blocking access to platforms including TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook from midnight.

CNN: Millions of Australian children just lost access to social media. What’s happening and will it work?: Children across Australia will wake up on Wednesday with no access to their social media accounts under a world-first ban designed to shelter those under 16 from addictive algorithms, online predators, and digital bullies.

Telecompaper: Social media platforms affect children’s ability to concentrate but TV and games do not – study: Children who spend significant time on social media tend gradually to lose their ability to concentrate, says a study by Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet (KI) published in Pediatrics Open Science. Watching television or video and playing computer games have no such effect, the study found. ‘Digital Media, Genetics and Risk for ADHD Symptoms in Children – A Longitudinal Study’ describes research by KI and by Oregon Health & Science University following 8,324 children aged 9 to 10 in the US for four years.

Amnesty International: Australia: Social Media Ban for Children and Young People an “Ineffective Quick Fix”: From December 10, social media companies must prevent under-16s in Australia from opening accounts and remove existing accounts from their platforms.

The Conversation: Social media, not gaming, tied to rising attention problems in teens, new study finds: The digital revolution has become a vast, unplanned experiment – and children are its most exposed participants. As ADHD diagnoses rise around the world, a key question has emerged: could the growing use of digital devices be playing a role?

The New York Times: What to Know About Australia’s Social Media Ban: There are an estimated 440,000 young Australian teens, ages 13 to 15, on Snapchat. On Instagram, 350,000 of that age group are active users, and on TikTok, 200,000. Even Facebook — not exactly squarely in the Gen Alpha zeitgeist — reportedly has 150,000.

NPR: A look at Australia’s upcoming social media ban for children under age 16: NPR’s Eyder Peralta speaks with Susan Sawyer of the University of Melbourne about Australia’s new ban on social media for children under 16. It goes into effect next week.

Fortune: ‘Its own research shows they encourage addiction’: Highest court in Mass. hears case about Instagram, Facebook effect on kids: Massachusetts’ highest court heard oral arguments Friday in the state’s lawsuit arguing that Meta designed features on Facebook and Instagram to make them addictive to young users.

The Washington Post: Australia is set to ban social media for teens. Others could follow.: Australia on Wednesday is set to begin enforcing a ban on social media apps for children under the age of 16 — becoming the first country to do so, as companies and global policymakers look on. “I’ve always referred to this as the first domino,” Julie Inman Grant, who leads Australia’s online safety regulator, said in remarks Thursday, Reuters reported.

The New York Times: When Kids Adopt New Technologies, Hype Can Turn to Backlash: This year I created a WhatsApp group called “Take back control!” I added all the parents of my 14-year-old daughter’s friends and suggested we take their phones away. (Spoiler alert: It went nowhere.)

Bloomberg: Meta Is Failing Kids. Lawmakers Are Failing Them, Too.: The creators of social media platforms have relentlessly pursued child customers and have ignored the technology’s harmful effects. Or so argue tech whistleblowers and at least some members of Congress. In late November, court filings were unsealed that include salacious details, such as Meta requiring more than 17 human trafficking attempts before flagging an account, something verified by multiple company sources.

Reuters: Australia says the world will follow social media ban as Meta starts blocking teens: Australia’s internet regulator said a teen social media ban would be the first domino to fall in a global push to rein in Big Tech, as Meta’s Instagram, Facebook and Threads began locking out hundreds of thousands of accounts ahead of a deadline next week.

WHTM-TV (ABC): Child sexual abuse files, AI images allegedly found on Adams County sex offender’s phone, police say: A registered sex offender is in Adams County Prison with bail denied after investigators said they found hundreds of files of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on his phone.

The Atlantic: Is This the End of Kids on Social Media?: Australia is actually doing this. As of December 10, no one under 16 will be allowed to have an account on TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, or basically any other platform an average teen might care about.

CPR: As House debates keeping kids safe on social media, one Colorado mom says bills don’t go far enough: In the months following her daughter Annalee’s death by suicide, Lori Schott learned the role social media played after reading Annalee’s journals and looking through her daughter’s social media.

K-12 Dive: House subcommittee debates best way to protect children online: Nearly 20 House bills seeking to address the harm social media poses to children and teens were discussed during a hearing held by the chamber’s Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade subcommittee on Tuesday.

Bloomberg: MrBeast Hasn’t Thought Much About How Social Media Impacts Kids: YouTube star MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, created a $5.2 billion business empire making stunt videos for children without thinking much about how social media affects kids.

CBS News: Tech groups ask court to quickly hear arguments about whether Florida’s social media law violates First Amendment rights: After a ruling last week allowed Florida to begin enforcing a 2024 law designed to prevent children from having access to certain social media sites, tech industry groups Wednesday asked a federal appeals court to quickly hear arguments about whether the law violates First Amendment rights.

The Star: Why kids are the hidden victims of gambling addiction: Gamblers can wager away their very last penny and drag their families down too, in a problem that’s growing worse as people use their phones and the Internet to place bets anywhere at any time.

The Hour: How to protect kids after police say CT teens were lured, kidnapped and sexually assaulted: When parents teach a child to cross the street, it typically starts with holding hands and a reminder to look both ways. “You’re not going to teach a kid to cross the street by taking them to New York City, dropping them in the middle of Times Square and saying, ‘I’m going to be back in an hour,'” said Erin Williamson, chief programs and strategy officer at Love 146, a New Haven-based nonprofit that helps children who are victims of trafficking and exploitation.

Deseret News: Congress explores more than a dozen bills to protect children online: Congress is set to wage an all-out war against internet companies and social media platforms to protect children online, and there’s bipartisan support growing to enact legislation to do so.

WCCS-FM: DOJ busts ‘Greggy’s Cult’ child exploitation network that allegedly coerced kids into self-harm: The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday charged five men from across the U.S. with running an online “child exploitation enterprise” called “Greggy’s Cult,” that allegedly used Discord servers to terrorize, blackmail and coerce minors into “horrific acts of self-harm.”

AP: Australia to enforce social media age limit of 16 next week with fines up to $33 million: Social media platforms must report monthly how many children’s accounts they close once Australia begins enforcing its 16-year age limit next week, a minister said Wednesday.

BBC: YouTube says it will be less safe for kids under Australia’s social media ban: YouTube says Australia’s “rushed” new laws to block teens from its platform will mean children will be less safe as its “robust parental controls” will be stripped away.

WCAU-TV (NBC): U.S. attorney charges 2 believed connected to child exploitation group 764: The FBI told the News4 I-Team it’s growing very concerned about a violent extremist criminal organization, commonly referred to as “764,” which they say targets vulnerable children online.

PennWatch: PA Senate Passes Bill to Protect Young People from AI Generated CSAM: The Pennsylvania Senate voted unanimously to require all individuals who are classified as mandated reporters to notify authorities of all instances of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) they become aware of, including those produced by a minor.

ABC News: Kids who have smartphones by age 12 have higher risk of depression, obesity: Study: Children who have smartphones by age 12 are at higher risk of lack of sleep, obesity and depression, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Reuters: Australian teen challenging social media ban says internet will be less safe: A teenager suing the Australian government to overturn a ban on social media for under-16s says the measure would make the internet more dangerous for young people and be widely circumvented.

BBC: Australia won’t be intimidated by firms over social media ban, minister tells BBC: Australia’s Communications Minister Anika Wells has told the BBC she is not intimidated by technology companies who disagree with the country’s “world-leading” social media ban and is ready if Washington weighs in.

Time: Lawmakers Unveil New Bills to Curb Big Tech’s Power and Profit: Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts Democrat and longtime critic of Big Tech, introduced a package of three bills on Monday designed to tighten oversight of social media platforms, expand safeguards for children, and tax advertising revenue from major tech companies to fund education initiatives.

The Citizens’ Voice: Lawsuit: Meta allowed sex-trafficking posts on Instagram as it put profit over kids’ safety: A significant new court filing claims Facebook and Instagram owner Meta had a “17x” policy allowing sex traffickers to post content related to sexual solicitation or prostitution 16 times before their accounts were suspended on the 17th “strike.” The allegation is one of many in the filing claiming Meta chose profit and user engagement over the safety and well-being of children.

ABC 27: A lost generation of news consumers? Survey shows how teenagers dislike the news media: Cat Murphy, a college student, has wanted to be a journalist since she was 11. Many of her friends don’t understand why. When they engage with the news — if they do — they hear a cacophony of voices. They don’t know who to believe. Reporters are biased. They make mistakes. Besides, why would you hitch your future to a dying industry?

Bloomberg: A Global Drive to Curb Social Media for Kids Begins in Australia: Australia will soon ban its youth from popular services like TikTok and Instagram, becoming the world’s first democracy to carry out such a crackdown in response to growing concerns about social media’s harms. It’s likely to be the first of many.

The Guardian: How to support your child through the social media ban – listen, be on their side and don’t try to justify the new rules: As if parenting children and teenagers isn’t complex enough, the monumental rise of social media has presented this generation of parents with a new raft of challenges. They must reckon with restricting, delaying or understanding their children’s use of a technology that they themselves did not grow up with. And so as many as two-thirds of parents, surveyed earlier this year, welcome the upcoming social media ban for children under 16. But it could create a new set of complications.

CNN: What happens when you kick millions of teens off social media? Australia’s about to find out: It’s August, and a show of hands in an auditorium filled with 300 students at All Saints Anglican School in Australia shows that few of the Grade 9 and 10 students sitting in plush red seats had heard of the country’s impending ban on social media, much less how to prepare for it.

BBC: Ban harmful content from social media instead of us, say Australian teens: Social media companies and the Australian government should be using their resources to remove predators and harmful content from platforms rather than banning under-16s, teenagers challenging the law have said.

AP: Australia will enforce a social media ban for children under 16 despite a court challenge: The Australian government said young children will be banned from social media next month as scheduled despite a rights advocacy group on Wednesday challenging the world-first legislation in court.

Reuters: EU Parliament pushes for age limits on social media to safeguard minors: The European Parliament called on Wednesday for the European Union to set minimum ages for children to access social media, to combat a rise in mental health problems among adolescents from excessive exposure.

CBS News: Florida can temporarily enforce law preventing children from accessing some social media platforms: A divided federal appeals court Tuesday ruled that Florida can begin enforcing a 2024 law aimed at preventing children from having access to certain social media platforms, rejecting arguments that the measure violates First Amendment rights.

Washington Examiner: Child safety online is a bipartisan issue for a reason: New research data indicate that filtering and blocking software do not consistently work to protect children from what they access online. But content is not the only problem.

Route Fifty: How parents and teens feel about state efforts to regulate social media: A Virginia law is facing scrutiny after an internet advocacy group filed a lawsuit last week challenging the policy, which limits young people’s use of social media to an hour per day.

WPMT-TV (FOX): Pennsylvania Attorney General joins group objecting to federal plans to block AI regulation: Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has joined 36 other attorneys general to voice opposition to federal attempts to block states from regulating artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to strike a provision from the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ that would have placed a ban on states doing anything to regulate AI for the next 10 years

Beaver County Times: PA attorney general charges Beaver Falls man with 66 child-porn counts: A Beaver Falls man has been charged with 66 felony counts of possession of child sexual abuse material, including images he allegedly altered using artificial intelligence.

People: Another Country Just Banned Social Media for Kids Under 16: Malaysia will ban people 16 years and younger from using social media in 2026, following a similar move by Australia a year ago. The announcement was made on Sunday, Nov. 23, by Fahmi Fadzil, Malaysia’s communications minister, as part of an effort to protect kids from online harm such as cyberbullying and sexual abuse, according to The New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters and Malaysian newspaper The Star.

Reuters: Meta buried ‘causal’ evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege: Meta shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook after finding causal evidence that its products harmed users’ mental health, according to unredacted filings in a lawsuit by U.S. school districts against Meta and other social media platforms.

Games Hub: Roblox CEO Proposes Prediction Markets A ‘Brilliant Idea’ Sparks Gambling Concerns: Roblox CEO David Baszucki has created controversy by suggesting the addition of “prediction markets” to the platform, calling it a “brilliant idea” during a tense New York Times Hard Fork podcast interview.

POLITICO: ‘We’re basically pushers’: Court filing alleges staff at social media giants compared their platforms to drugs: Top Meta staff allegedly compared Instagram to a drug and worked for years to obscure the social media platform’s potential dangers from parents and children, even as they appeared to acknowledge their technology was harmful, according to newly unsealed internal communications cited in a court filing.

The Times: Some primary school pupils ‘can swipe a screen but can’t speak’: Children are arriving at primary school incapable of speaking properly but able to swipe screens on devices, while older pupils are self-diagnosing ADHD because of exposure to online content, research has found.

The New York Times: Malaysia to Bar Children Under 16 From Social Media, Echoing Australian Ban: Malaysia plans to bar children under the age of 16 from social media starting next year with a close eye to how Australia implements and enforces a similar ban that takes effect next month.

CBS News: Parents concerned about the dangers AI poses to children: President Trump is pushing to ban states from enacting their own laws governing artificial intelligence by putting it in the defense bill or signing an executive order.

The New York Times: Australia Adds Twitch to Social Media Ban for Teens: Australia’s internet regulator said on Friday that it would require Twitch, a video livestreaming service, to comply with a coming ban on social media users under 16 years old.

Forbes: How Social Media Impacts Kids’ Brains. 5 Things Parents Should Know, From A Doctor: For many families, the first smartphone or iPad has become a rite of passage. It also evokes a familiar fear: are kids being harmed by these devices, social media and short-form video apps that keep them glued to their screens? Parents worry about social media and mental health, specifically that TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms might be altering their children’s brains in ways that are damaging or irreversible.

BBC: Australia is banning social media for kids under 16. How will it work?: From 10 December, social media companies will have to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that under-16s in Australia cannot set up accounts on their platforms and that existing accounts are deactivated or removed.

River Reporter: PA Senate passes bill to protect young people from AI generated CSAM: On Wednesday, November 19, the Pennsylvania Senate voted to require all individuals who are classified as mandated reporters to notify authorities of all instances of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) they become aware of, including those produced by a minor. A mandated reporter includes teachers, childcare workers, health care providers, and others responsible for caring for children.

The Daily American: Somerset County man charged with AI-generated child porn under new Pa. law: A Somerset County resident became at least the fourth person in Pennsylvania to be charged under a law passed in December with child sexual abuse material that included counts dealing with accusations of AI-generated files.

WPMT-TV (FOX): State Senate passes bill requiring mandated reporters to notify authorities about A.I.-produced child sexual abuse materials: The Pennsylvania Senate on Wednesday voted unanimously to require all individuals who are classified as mandated reporters to notify authorities of all instances of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) they become aware of, including those produced by a minor.

Tri-State Alert: Bipartisan bill mandating reporting of sexually explicit AI deepfakes passes PA Senate unanimously: Legislation to protect minors from sexually explicit AI deepfakes passed the Senate unanimously as part of SB 1050, which addresses reporting of child sexual abuse materials generated by AI.

Allied News: Mandated reporting required for AI child porn under Pa. Senate bill: Pennsylvania state lawmakers continue work to advance legislation designed to protect kids from being sexually exploited by fake images and videos created with artificial intelligence.

Gettysburg Times: Senate passes bill to protect youth from AI generated CSAM: The Pennsylvania Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to require all individuals who are classified as mandated reporters to notify authorities of all instances of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) of which they become aware, including those produced by a minor, according to a PA Senate Republicans release.

PC Mag: Virginia Wants to Limit Kids to 1 Hour of Social Media Per Day. Big Tech Is Suing: Virginia’s effort to cap kids’ use of social media apps to one hour per day is being challenged by NetChoice, a group that represents Discord, Meta, Reddit, X, and others. Virginia’s SB 854 requires social media platforms to verify users’ age and limits those under 16 to one hour of screen time per app.

Time: The Lawyer Suing Social-Media Companies On Behalf of Kids: One afternoon last summer, Matthew Bergman sat on a bench outside a courtroom in downtown Manhattan. The founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) was there representing a client named Norma Nazario.

ABC News: ’10 minutes of murder’: Why one family is speaking out about the online extremist network 764: For more than three years, Colby and Leslie Taylor have quietly waited for the day that justice would be delivered for their 13-year-old son, Jay, who in early 2022 was allegedly pushed into killing himself — and streaming it live on social media — by an online tormentor associated with the extremist network known as “764.”

Psychology Today: When ‘Just One More Scroll’ Turns Dangerous: A new study arrives amid growing concern about social media’s role in the youth mental health crisis. While many recent studies have focused their attention on: How much screen time is too much?, Xiao and colleagues from Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University suggest that in addition to studying the impact of quantity of social media use, we need to look at the quality of engagement, and whether one’s relationship with social media also plays a vital role in driving mental health harms among children and youth.

PA Senate Republicans: Pennycuick, Miller Measure to Protect Children from Harmful AI Chat Interactions Approved by Senate Committee: Legislation designed to establish commonsense safeguards for artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots accessible by minors was approved today by the Senate Communications and Technology Committee, chaired by Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R-24).

Tri-State Alert: AI chatbot guardrail legislation passes PA Senate Committee, would establish standards and get ACTUAL help if juvenile is suicidal: Legislation designed to establish safeguards for artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots accessible by minors was approved this week by the Pennsylvania Senate Communications and Technology Committee, chaired by Sen. Tracy Pennycuick.

WFMZ-TV: Local survivor reacts to Epstein survivors and vote to release files: At our nation’s capital, survivors come together ahead of the vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. “We demand justice, accountability, and support for survivors,” said Sky Roberts, the brother of the Late Virginia Guiffre.

The Verge: NetChoice sues Virginia to block its one-hour social media limit for kids: The tech industry trade group NetChoice is suing Virginia over a new law that will restrict minors from using social media for more than one hour per day. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, asks the court to block the law over claims it violates the First Amendment by putting “unlawful barriers on how and when all Virginians can access free speech online.”

UC Davis: Risks of AI Mirror Social Media: Artificial intelligence is already blurring how we think about what is real, even when we know the truth. A recent study at UC Davis had AI chatbots send messages to people’s phones to remind them to get their steps in.

Fortune: We lost our kids to social media. Now AI wants their minds: Driving home from school, my 5-year-old asked, “Mommy, can we ask ChatGPT when dinosaurs went extinct?” I turned on voice mode. The car lit up like a fifth passenger had joined us, explaining the Cretaceous Period in cheerful detail.

CBS News: Facebook, Instagram users say accounts were wrongfully suspended for ‘child exploitation’: A Bucks County small business owner says she’s losing money after being locked out of her social media accounts. Monica Montone, who owns her own gym in Doylestown, Bucks County, said Meta suspended her Facebook and Instagram business accounts for one of its most serious violations — but she insists she did nothing wrong.

Dig Watch: Teenagers still face harmful content despite new protections: In the UK and other countries, teenagers continue to encounter harmful social media content, including posts about bullying, suicide and weapons, despite the Online Safety Act coming into effect in July.

The New York Times: The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education: The standardized test scores of American students had been rising for decades. Then they began to slide, dropping to their lowest point in two decades in 2023 and 2024. This is not a problem confined to the United States. Worldwide, the performance of 15-year-olds in math, reading and science reached a nadir in 2022.

WGAL: ‘It’s so scary’: Parents advocate for AI protection after teen daughter falls victim to attack: Communities are taking steps to prepare children for a future shaped by artificial intelligence, including parents like Ida Nady, who wants her family’s experience to serve as a cautionary tale.

BBC: Teens still exposed to harmful social media posts: Teenagers are still being exposed to social media content about bullying, suicide and weapons despite new safety rules being introduced, a BBC investigation has found.

Axios: AI chatbots loom over tech and social media lawsuits: Social media companies are heading to court over kids’ mental health — and a New Mexico judge has just demanded Meta produce chatbot records in one key lawsuit, Axios has learned.

WPXI-TV (NBC): Parents warned as child predators use deepfake technology to develop pornography from family photos: Child predators are using the advent of “deepfake” technology for disturbing purposes, and parents are being warned to use caution when they upload family pictures to the internet.

York Daily Voice: AI Child Sex Abuse Images Found In Pennsylvania Home: AG: Jeffrey L. Engel, 72, of Rockwood, was charged after agents from the Office of Attorney General’s Child Predator Section received a cyber tip that led them to his home last week, according to the release.

Concerned Women for America: Protect Pennsylvania Kids from Internet Pornography: It’s no secret that we live in a digital age where almost everything is at our fingertips. This has had both positive and negative impacts on our society and, more importantly, our children. While children have been able to learn, create, and stay in touch with friends online, there have also been some serious concerns about their safety in the unregulated digital world.

CBS News: Somerset County man accused of storing child sexual abuse material on personal devices: A Somerset County man is now facing charges after the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General said he had stored “dozens” of child sexual abuse material files, including artificially-generated videos and photos.

Kids Can’t Wait: Why Child Advocates Must Reclaim Social Media and How We Can Do It: There is something deeply broken about how we talk about public life and policy in America. Like so many things, social media can be used for good (e.g., providing information and education, building community, bringing voice to an issue) or for bad (e.g., spreading disinformation and misinformation, ramping up division, personal attacks).

USA Today: Opinion: I was a diligent parent and I still lost my son. Regulate Big Tech before it’s too late.: In September on Capitol Hill, while sitting across from the most recent survivor parents who bravely testified on the horrors unleashed by chatbots resulting in their children’s deaths, I suddenly felt ancient and obsolete. Five years ago, I lost my 16-year-old son, Carson, to suicide after he was viciously cyberbullied by his high school classmates over Snapchat’s anonymous app, Yolo.

The Washington Post: What happened when these parents finally took away their kids’ iPads: For Christina Dinur’s family, the catalyzing moment came a year and a half ago, on a beautiful spring morning when Dinur and her husband decided to take their two daughters to the park. But their 2-year-old threw a fit: She didn’t want to leave the house because she did not want to be separated from her tablet.

NCSL: As AI Tools Become Commonplace, so Do Concerns: As technology continues to transform society, expect more challenges to arise from the complex intersection of innovation, regulation and the public interest. Legislators will continue to respond to the rapid momentum of artificial intelligence across multiple sectors, the evolving challenges of consumer privacy, the impact of social media on children and the ongoing efforts to expand broadband infrastructure.

ReadWrite: Norwegian study identifies link between computer gaming and increase in gambling among adolescents: A recent study in Norway has identified a correlation between adolescents who play a lot of computer games with a higher risk of developing gambling problems. Games which rely on players buying things such as loot boxes and skins, while participating in skin betting could see teenagers aged between 12-17 encountering gambling problems later on in life.

WFMZ-TV: Bill seeks to close ‘loophole’ for AI-generated child sexual abuse materials: A two-hour state Senate committee hearing explored the use of artificial intelligence to create images and videos depicting children — sometimes real, sometimes “synthetic” — in sexually suggestive poses or acts.

Tri-State Alert: Bill mandating reporting of CSAM, including AI-generated child porn, sees powerful public hearing on Monday: Earlier this month, law enforcement officials and child advocacy organizations shared their support for strengthening laws and education about the harm artificial intelligence can bring to children during a public hearing of the Senate Majority Policy Committee hosted by Sen. Tracy Pennycuick.

Market Brief: California Implements New Laws Regulating AI and Social Media for Children: California has become the latest state to enact comprehensive artificial intelligence safety legislation aimed at protecting children online, as policymakers’ perspective increasingly shifts from, “What can AI do?” to “How safe is AI?”

Red Hot Cyber: Roblox: The Platform That Puts Children’s Safety at Risk: With over 100 million daily active users , Roblox attracts countless children around the world. Nearly half of its audience is under 13, and in Australia, young players spend an average of 137 minutes a day in the virtual world. However, behind the vibrant image of square avatars and millions of user-generated games lies a disturbing reality, as revealed by a Guardian journalist who decided to immerse herself in this world for a week, posing as an eight-year-old girl.

The New York Times: A Teen in Love With a Chatbot Killed Himself. Can the Chatbot Be Held Responsible?: Last February, Megan Garcia was putting her second-youngest son to bed when she heard what sounded like a mirror falling. She rushed down the hallway to the bathroom where her eldest son, Sewell, was taking a shower. Her husband, Alexander, was already standing in front of the locked door.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Bill seeks to close ‘loophole’ for AI-generated child sexual abuse materials: A two-hour state Senate committee hearing explored the use of artificial intelligence to create images and videos depicting children — sometimes real, sometimes “synthetic” — in sexually suggestive poses or acts.

USA Today: I was a diligent parent and I still lost my son. Regulate Big Tech before it’s too late.: In September on Capitol Hill, while sitting across from the most recent survivor parents who bravely testified on the horrors unleashed by chatbots resulting in their children’s deaths, I suddenly felt ancient and obsolete. 

The New York Times: Banning Social Media: Bullying. Sextortion. Body-shaming. Self-harm. Viral student-fight videos. Never-ending newsfeeds. Unhealthy relationships with A.I. chatbots. Teenagers who can’t seem to put down their phones.

Seeking Alpha: Denmark plans to ban social media for kids under 15 to guard from online harm: Denmark’s government unveiled plans to ban social media access for anyone under 15, in one of Europe’s toughest moves yet to curb young people’s exposure to harmful online content, the Associated Press reported.

Hoodline: Senate Committee in Atlanta to Scrutinize Social Media’s Impact on Children and AI Chatbot Risks in Fourth Hearing: The spotlight on the digital habitat of children intensifies as the Senate Impact of Social Media and Artificial Intelligence on Children and Platform Privacy Protection Study Committee announces its fourth hearing for November 12. According to a post from SenatePress.net, Senators Sally Harrell and Shawn Still are set to co-chair the public event which is slated to begin at 10 a.m. at the State Capitol in Atlanta.

6 ABC: Judge rules against Roblox, keeping alleged abuse case in the public eye: A father’s lawsuit against the online gaming platform Roblox will remain in the public eye after a California judge denied the company’s attempt to force the dispute into a private resolution process.

The New York Times: How A.I. and Social Media Contribute to ‘Brain Rot’: Last spring, Shiri Melumad, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, gave a group of 250 people a simple writing assignment: Share advice with a friend on how to lead a healthier lifestyle.

The Guardian: Roblox shocks: online gaming platform should be snared by Australia’s social media ban for under-16s, experts and MPs say: There are growing calls for the federal government to address the risks posed to children on the popular gaming platform Roblox after Guardian Australia published a report that documented a week of virtual sexual harassment and violence.

Phys.org: Don’t dismiss kids’ sadness or anger. How to minimize family conflict over the social media ban: In just over a month Australia’s social media ban will begin. From December 10, those under 16 will only be able to see publicly available content on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube. They will not be able to have their own accounts.

Storyboard 18: The emotional outsourcing generation: Why lonely kids are turning to AI instead of parents: Last year, the conversation was about ChatGPT in exams, plagiarism, and the death of homework. This year, the terrain has already shifted. Students are asking AI about their crushes, their identity, their anxieties, their parents, their insecurities, their future.

Bloomberg: How Will Australia’s Social Media Ban for Kids Under 16 Actually Work?: From Dec. 10, young teenagers in Australia will be banned, under new legislation, from social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok — in one of the toughest online crackdowns in the democratic world.

AP: Australia adds Reddit and Kick to social media platforms banning children under 16: Australia has added message board Reddit and livestreaming service Kick to its list of social media platforms that must ban children younger than 16 from holding accounts.

WTAJ-TV (CBS): Centre County parolee charged again after child porn found during search: A Centre County man is back behind bars after parole officers allegedly discovered child sexual abuse material on his phone during a parole check, according to a criminal complaint.

Tech Policy: The US Needs a New Suicide Prevention Plan That Tackles Social Media and AI: The United States is racing to roll out machines that don’t care if our kids live or die, but our strategy to combat the nation’s suicide crisis doesn’t adequately reflect it. Artificial intelligence and social media are not neutral tools. They are shaping how an entire generation sees itself and the world around it, with research linking heavy social media use to higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicide among young people.

The Conversation: Don’t dismiss kids’ sadness or anger. How to minimise family conflict over the social media ban: In just over a month Australia’s social media ban will begin. From December 10, those under 16 will only be able to see publicly available content on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube. They will not be able to have their own accounts.

The Guardian: Reddit targeted by Australia’s under-16s social media ban as list of platforms grows: Reddit and video streaming platform Kick will join the likes of Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok in being required by the Australian government to ban users under the age of 16, the federal communications minister has revealed.

Bloomberg: Roblox Faces Scrutiny in Malaysia After Child Stabbing Case: Roblox Corp. pledged to boost safety measures and is prepared to share data with the Malaysian government, according to a minister, as officials weigh action over the popular video game after it was linked to a stabbing case in the Southeast Asian nation.

Phillyburbs: Bucks County mom sues Roblox alleging app enabled sexploitation of her son: A Bucks County mom alleges that an online game company maintained an environment on its app that enabled the sexual exploitation of her 14-year-old son. The lawsuit filed Oct. 28 in California against Roblox Corp., maker of the interactive online game platform popular with kids and teens, accuses the company of fraudulent concealment and negligence for failing to reasonably protect minors who use the platform and warn parents of the risks.

Financial Times: UK regulator threatens tech giants with algorithm audits to protect children: Tech companies will be subject to audits of the social media algorithms used to promote what children can see on their feeds in the next phase of a crackdown under the UK’s Online Safety Act.

Biometric Update: California seeks input on bill applying age assurance rules to social media: The California Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced a public meeting to solicit public comment to inform its policy on SB 976, also known as the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act.

NorthcentralPA.com: Pa. Senate committee passes bill addressing AI-generated child porn: The Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to better protect young people against the serious threats posed by child sex abuse material generated using artificial intelligence (AI).

Spectrum News: Dangers of showing your child’s face on social media: Augustus Otterstedt is your typical 18-month-old, full of energy and curiosity. He loves to play, walk and laugh. His parents, Mckenna and Tyler, love to show him off, but not to the online world. “My child can’t consent to being a public figure,” Mckenna said. “Kids can’t consent to that. So, me being a public figure, that’s something I can choose whether or not to do. But my child doesn’t have that ability.”

European Gaming: GambleAware Warns Outdated Gambling Advertising and Marketing Regulations are Leaving Children at Risk of Gambling Harm: Regulations for online gambling marketing must urgently be brought into the digital age, a new report from the charity GambleAware has warned. The report reveals that despite gambling being an age-restricted product, children are being exposed to gambling marketing online, before they reach an age at which they can critically evaluate it.

NorthcentralPA.com: Hughesville man’s guilty plea exposes online pedophile ring of over 230 users: Christopher Stout displayed a preference for underage masturbation content and bestiality when preying on young children online, according to federal prosecutors. The 49-year-old Stout will no longer have opportunities to abuse children online after pleading guilty to producing child pornography in federal court earlier this month.

EducationHQ: Better the devil you know: tech giants agree to teen ban but give dark warning: Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok will comply with Australia’s looming social media ban for children under the age of 16 but claim the restrictions will push young people into “darker corners” of the internet.

CTV News: Parents concerned with impact of social media on financial literacy of youths: survey: A new survey by TD Bank uncovers the pressures and impacts the digital age is having on financial literacy among young people. According to the survey, 61 per cent of Canadian parents are concerned with how social media is shaping their children’s attitudes towards money.

CNN: You haven’t screwed up your kids by letting them use social media. An expert has tips for what to do: Parents tell me all the time that they’ve screwed up their kids because they allowed them to use smartphones and social media too young. Not true, says Dr. Kaitlyn Regehr, associate professor and program director of digital humanities at University College London and author of “Smartphone Nation: Building Digital Boundaries When Offline Isn’t an Option.”

WCAU-TV (NBC): Bucks County man accused of sextorting teens on social media, D.A. says: A Bucks County man is facing charges after allegedly sextorting a Colorado teen for years and making money from posting her sexual material to social media, a criminal complaint revealed.

Bloomberg: Big Tech Falls in Line in Australia as Social Media Ban Nears: Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok said they’ll comply with Australia’s looming social-media ban for under-16s, setting aside their opposition just weeks before it comes into force.

New York Post: Popular YouTube personality ‘Mr. Crafty Pants’ busted for child porn: A popular influencer and YouTube creator known as “Mr. Crafty Pants” was busted for allegedly possessing and trading disturbing sexual images of children on social media, according to reports.

WPXI: Butler County man accused of posting AI-generated child pornography online: A Butler County man is accused of posting AI-generated child pornography online, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.

My Ches Co: Butler County Man Charged in Alleged Creation and Distribution of Artificial Child Sexual Abuse Images: Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced Friday that a Butler County man has been charged with multiple felony offenses related to the alleged creation and online dissemination of digitally manipulated child sexual abuse material, as well as the alleged stalking and harassment of a former partner.

Penn Watch: Butler County Man Charged with Disseminating A.I.-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material on Social Media: Attorney General Dave Sunday announced charges against a Butler County man who allegedly used the internet to disseminate artificially-generated child sexual abuse material, as well as stalk a former partner by repeatedly posting intimate photos of them.

The Cut: Is the End Nigh for Family Photos on Instagram? For many parents, even posting to a private account is no longer worth it.: Carrie, a mother of three in Northern Virginia, has an old-school mentality when it comes to sharing her family’s life on social media. She regularly posts photos and videos of her kids, ages 19, 16, and 13, on her private Instagram grid for the same benign reasons most parents start doing it: to keep family and friends in the loop and to document the passing years.

Reuters: New Zealand parliament to debate teen social media ban: A bill to restrict social media for children under 16 will be introduced in the New Zealand parliament, officials said on Thursday, building momentum for parliament’s efforts to prevent young people from being harmed while online.

Trib Live: Social media’s impact on children topic of panel discussion on ‘Anxious Generation’: University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg communications professor Jessica Ghilani likens the design of social media platforms to casinos without windows.

WGEM-TV (NBC): Social media, gaming platforms become recruitment centers for violent groups enlisting youth: Social media and gaming platforms have become a digital home away from home for many youth – but the FBI says violent groups are infiltrating many online spaces and radicalizing children, teens and young adults.

Kidsburgh: State education committee hears testimony on the need for phone-free schools: The Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee heard testimony on Tuesday, Oct. 21 about a proposed law to mandate all schools in Pennsylvania be phone-free. A group of concerned parents from Western Pennsylvania who are part of PA Unplugged traveled to Harrisburg to show support for the bill.

Sun Gazette: Williamsport man jailed on multiple counts of possessing child pornography: When city police arrived at Steven Carter-Hicks’ eighth-floor apartment at 798 W. Edwin St. to execute a search warrant on the morning of Sept. 20, officers seized the 69-year-old’s laptop computer, according to an affidavit. The computer was on and an image that was “readily apparent (to be) child sexual abuse material was on the screen,” an officer wrote in the document.

The Center Square: Putting the cat back in the bag: Senate talks school phone bans: School cell phone bans are sweeping the nation, and with a Senate bill waiting for a vote, Pennsylvania may be the next state to act. The Senate Education Committee convened Tuesday for a hearing with educators, policymakers, and even students to discuss the practicality and wisdom of taking tech out of kids’ hands throughout the school day.

Lehigh Valley Live: Lehigh Valley men charged in Bucks County child sex sting operation: A Bethlehem man and a Slatington man are among 17 alleged sex offenders charged through an internet crimes initiative this year in Bucks County, according to the district attorney. David Sheregi, 31, of Bethlehem, and Warren Batz, 38, of Slatington, are each accused of driving from the Lehigh Valley to Bensalem to have sex with 13-year-old girls.

The Guardian: Opinion: Instagram keeps flubbing on teen safety. Will its new ‘PG-13’ guidelines make a difference?: For months, Instagram has been struggling to convince parents, advocates and officials that it’s a safe place for kids, even though there’s a mountain of evidence to show quite the opposite. Now, the company is introducing yet another set of guardrails that will supposedly keep teens on the platform safe. But going by their track record, parents shouldn’t be smiling yet.

Parents: How To Help Your Teen Use Social Media Safely: If you’re a parent, the idea of letting your child use platforms like TikTok and Instagram likely gives you serious pause. After all, there’s a ton of harmful content on these sites, and young people don’t typically have the maturity to figure out what to pay attention to and what to scroll past.

Bioengineer.org: How Social Media Shapes Kids’ Cognitive Growth: In today’s hyper-connected world, social media platforms have transformed how individuals, particularly children and young adults, communicate, learn, and develop cognitive skills. As the prevalence of these digital platforms continues to rise, concerns regarding their potential impact on the cognitive development of younger generations become increasingly pertinent.’

KQED-FM (NPR): Should Joining Social Media Be Treated Like Getting A Driver’s License?: In 2017, psychologist and researcher Jean Twenge published iGen, a book about the first generation to grow up with smartphones. An excerpt in The Atlantic ran under the headline, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” which drew some backlash for sounding alarmist. “I always point out that it was a question,” Twenge said about how her goal was to explore the issue rather than declare a conclusion.

Politico: The 3 fault lines emerging on kids’ social media ban: Getting kids to spend less time on social media is now a major priority for politicians across the European Union. But countries are far from being on the same page as to what protections should look like.

KWTX: Family digital detox helps reconnect parents and children: Tabetha Koerth and her daughters spend time outdoors exploring the land around their home, walking along the creek nearby to find arrowheads and see wildlife. The family has turned to regular digital detoxes as a way to reconnect away from smartphones and social media. Once a month, Koerth likes for herself and her daughters to separate from their devices for a weekend.

Amnesty International: France: TikTok still steering vulnerable children and young people towards depressive and suicidal content: New Amnesty International research has found that TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed is pushing French children and young people engaging with mental health content into a cycle of depression, self-harm and suicide content.

The Guardian: Parents will be able to block Meta bots from talking to their children under new safeguards: Parents will be able to block their children’s interactions with Meta’s AI character chatbots, as the tech company addresses concerns over inappropriate conversations. The social media company is adding new safeguards to its “teen accounts”, which are a default setting for under-18 users, by letting parents turn off their children’s chats with AI characters.

Time: America Must Regulate Social Media: America’s tech companies invented social media. Now, the rest of the world is jumping at the chance to regulate platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, and Reddit. From the EU to the UK, India to Brazil, Thailand to Australia, new laws of many kinds are attempting to tame Silicon Valley’s platforms.

Casino Guardian: Rising Trend of Teen Gambling Poses Challenges for New York Schools: The participation of high school students in sports betting has grown significantly across New York, with teenagers reportedly dipping into personal savings to fund their bets. As highlighted by a New Yorker report, gambling has now taken root within some school communities, raising alarms for educators, parents, and gambling prevention advocates.

PennLive: Guard at state prison in Camp Hill arrested in online child predator sting: police: A York County man who works as a correctional officer at the state prison in Camp Hill was charged with five felonies Wednesday after he tried to meet who he believed was a 14-year-old girl for sex, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

WGAL-TV (NBC): State attorney general urges parents to protect children from online predators: The Pennsylvania attorney general is urging parents to become more involved in their children’s online activities to protect them from potential predators, following the arrest of Geoffrey Ottens, a 59-year-old from Mount Joy, Lancaster County, who is accused of sending inappropriate messages to an undercover agent he believed was an 11-year-old girl.

WGAL-TV (NBC): Lancaster County teen charged with sharing child sexual abuse material on Snapchat, police say: A 14-year-old boy from Mount Joy, Lancaster County, has been charged after police said he possessed and disseminated seven pieces of child sexual abuse material to a group on Snapchat. The Mount Joy Borough Police Department said the boy attempted to interfere with the investigation by intimidating two witnesses into giving false information to police.

KYW-TV (CBS): How Is AI Being Used To Create Disturbing Images Of Children? A Philadelphia Professor Explains: There’s a reason to think twice before you post a picture of your child online now that artificial intelligence, or AI, is making it all too easy to transform that photo into something very disturbing. Recently, a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty to having AI-generated child sex abuse material. It’s one of the state’s first convictions for a crime like this, and the Lehigh County District Attorney says a Bethlehem man altered pictures he saw on social media using AI to make two girls appear without any clothes on.

WFMZ-TV: Pa. Senate introduces bill addressing AI-generated CSAM: Pa. Senators Pennycuick, Martin, and Baker have introduced S.B. 1050, a bill intended to protect Pennsylvania’s young people against the threats posed by child abuse materials, particularly child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), generated using AI. The senators noted an alarming increase in AI-generated CSAM being created and shared in recent years.

The Baltimore Sun: States turn to warning labels to address mental health issues tied to social media use: California has become the latest state to require social media companies to add warning labels about its risks to mental health amid a national debate on how to confront its effects on youth and society.

The Conversation: As social media age restrictions spread, is the internet entering its Victorian era?: A wave of proposed social media bans for young people has swept the globe recently, fuelled by mounting concern about the apparent harm the likes of TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat can cause to vulnerable minds.

ABC 27: Repairman allegedly downloaded Dauphin County teen’s explicit photos while fixing laptop: A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing a Dauphin County girl’s login information and allegedly downloading hundreds of sexual images onto his personal device, court documents show.

The News-Item: Pa. senators introduce legislation to address rise of AI-generated child sexual abuse material: State Sens. Tracy Pennycuick, R-24, Scott Martin, R-13, and Lisa Baker, R-20, have introduced a bill to better protect young people against the serious threats posed by child abuse materials generated using artificial intelligence.

Franklin County Free Press: Bill Introduced to Strengthen Protections Against AI-Generated Child Abuse Materials: Senators Tracy Pennycuick (R-24), Scott Martin (R-13), and Lisa Baker (R-20) have introduced legislation aimed at strengthening protections for minors against child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) created using artificial intelligence (AI).

CBS News: How is AI being used to create disturbing images of children? A Philadelphia professor explains.: There’s a reason to think twice before you post a picture of your child online now that artificial intelligence, or AI, is making it all too easy to transform that photo into something very disturbing.

The Guardian: ‘Gruesome videos’: social media pushes distressing news to children, experts say: More than half of children who get news from social media are left worried and upset after seeing content that involves war, violence and death, according to new research that found social media companies are “pushing” distressing news to children who are not seeking it.

The New York Post: Social media is rotting kids’ brains — and especially hurting their memory and vocabulary: study: It might finally be time to set those parental controls. New research suggests that social media isn’t just feeding your kid the latest memes — it may actually be messing with their brainpower. The study out of UC San Francisco found that children who spend more time on the apps scored lower on reading, vocabulary and memory tests.

WTVD-TV (ABC): Wake Co. parents praise Instagram teen restrictions, study shows social media impacts on the brain: Tougher restrictions are coming for teen users on Instagram as a new study is highlighting the impact of social media on teen brain function. Instagram announced a new PG-13 content setting for teens – similar to content ratings for movies – restricting posts containing violence, nudity, or graphic language.

Lebanon Daily News: ‘Retired Sith Lord’ faces multiple charges of soliciting sex from agent posing as child: A 59-year-old Lancaster County man is facing more than 130 sexual abuse charges for allegedly attempting to soliciting an undercover agent he believed was an 11-year-old girl, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.

WTXF-TV (FOX): Trial scheduled for Parkland School District ex-administrator charged with secretly recording student: Francis Anonia, 44, of Allentown, the ex-Parkland School District administrator charged with secretly recording a student during theater rehearsals and performances, is set to face trial on Dec. 1, according to a news release from the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office.

KYW-AM: Bucks officials credit national task force with key role in catching, convicting 17 child predators in Bensalem this year: The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office and Bensalem police say they’ve caught and convicted more than a dozen men for crimes against children this year through their participation in the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force.

WCAU-TV (NBC): Bucks County officials announce arrests of 17 alleged child predators: Officials in Bucks County announced the arrests of 17 alleged child predators as part of the Bensalem Police Department’s ongoing investigation into internet crimes against children. The investigation – which has gone on for months – involved Bensalem detectives posing as children in order to crack down on child predators.

Local News 1: Pennsylvania senators propose bipartisan bill to ban cellphones during school hours: Citing the steep decline in youth mental health and academic performance during the past decade, Sens. Devlin Robinson (R-37),  Vince Hughes (D-7) and Steve Santarsiero (D-10) have announced the introduction of bipartisan legislation requiring Pennsylvania schools to adopt policies prohibiting student cellphone use during the school day.

PhillyVoice: Social media use hurts preteens’ development of reading and memory skills: In case parents needed another reason to police their children’s screen time, new research shows that social media use is hurting preteens’ memory and reading skills.

The Guardian: Parenting advice on social media is often poor quality, says Phillipson: Parents who turn to TikTok influencers and Instagram gurus for advice on everything from potty training to childhood vaccination are at risk of falling victim to misleading and poor quality information, the education secretary has warned.

Iowa News Now: Iowa joins coalition backing Tennessee law to protect children from social media: Iowa joins a coalition of 34 states and the District of Columbia in support of a Tennessee law that aims to protect children from social media harm.

The Guardian: Instagram to bring in version of PG-13 system to protect children, says Meta: Instagram is to adopt a version of the PG-13 cinema rating system to give parents stronger controls over their teenagers’ use of the social media platform.

Los Angeles Times: Gov. Newsom signs AI safety bills, vetoes one after pushback from the tech industry: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed multiple artificial intelligence safety bills and vetoed one of the more controversial ones Monday, as lawmakers’ attempts to protect children from AI met with strong opposition from the tech industry.

Politico: Social media must warn users of ‘profound’ health risks under new California law: Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a law mandating health warning labels for social media, making California the latest U.S. state to wield a rule originally designed to curb tobacco addiction as a digital safety feature.

NPR: Kids who use social media score lower on reading and memory tests, a study shows: Preteens using increasing amounts of social media perform poorer in reading, vocabulary and memory tests in early adolescence compared with those who use no or little social media.

State Affairs: Lawmakers dial up another cellphone ban: Bills banning students from using their cellphones in school have been introduced in both chambers of the General Assembly. A bipartisan group of state senators announced Friday they are introducing legislation requiring students to store cellphones and other personal electronic devices during the school day.

Patch: Philly Man Traded Child Porn Of Infants In Secret Online Groups: Police: A Philadelphia man was found with hundreds of images and videos of children, some of them infants and toddlers, being sexual abused, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office announced. John S. Stachecki, 55, of Center City, faces more than 200 felony charges.

Government Technology: Why Parents Are Sending Kids to Pa.’s Fastest-Growing Cyber Charter: Nikisha Martin has been sending her four kids to cyber school for the past decade. Her local school in Pittsburgh had low test scores and she couldn’t afford to send her kids to a private school.

Gant News: Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Prohibit Student Cellphone Use in Pennsylvania Schools: Citing the steep decline in youth mental health and academic performance during the past decade, Sens. Devlin Robinson (R-37), Vince Hughes (D-7), and Steve Santarsiero (D-10) recently announced the introduction of bipartisan legislation requiring Pennsylvania schools to adopt policies prohibiting student cellphone use during the school day. Each individual school district will be responsible for crafting a policy that works best for their community.

CNN: Kids are getting smartphones at much younger ages than many experts recommend. How to handle it: Most kids are getting smartphones at much younger ages than many experts recommend, according to new research. A majority of parents of kids ages 11 to 12 said their child has a smartphone, a Pew Research Center survey published October 8 found.

Rolling Stone: There’s Now a Casino in Everyone’s Pocket. For Some Young Men, It’s a Near-Fatal Gamble: For Andrew Douglas, bottom was seven cops banging on the door of his apartment. He’d sharpened the knife “good,” filled the bathtub with water, and downed a vial of Coumadin to bleed out faster. Had his dad not sensed something and dialed 911, Andrew, a star baseball player turned gambling addict in college, would have quietly checked out at age 33, leaving his twin infant sons, his guilt-crippled parents, and many thousands of dollars in gambling debts behind.

ABC News: Harry and Meghan ask families to join fight against predatory social media policies: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle urged parents to stand against social media companies that they said prey upon children with exploitative algorithms as the “explosion of unregulated artificial intelligence” adds to their concerns that technologies’ benefits are inseparable from its dangers.

The Street: Denmark wants to ban social media for children under 15: Denmark is taking aim at social media – and it could mean a total ban for kids under 15. Denmark’s Prime Minister says her government will propose new rules blocking kids under 15 from using social platforms – unless parents give the green light starting at 13.

Telecompaper: Danish govt proposes minimum age of 15 to use social media: The Danish Minister of Digitisation has made five proposals to improve children’s lives in the digital age, including setting a minimum age of 15 to use social media. Teenagers of 13 and 14 would be able to create a profile with parental consent, it says. Minister Caroline Stage says young people have the right to a childhood that is not governed by notifications and “likes”, but by curiosity and healthy communities.

WTAJ: AG: AI generated child porn leads to Pennsylvania man’s arrest, 95 charges: A Mifflin County man was charged by the Office of the Attorney General for having child porn, including files generated using artificial intelligence.

Reuters: New York City sues social media companies for allegedly addicting children: New York City filed a new lawsuit accusing Facebook, Google, Snapchat, TikTok and other online platforms of fueling a mental health crisis among children by addicting them to social media.

Gambling Insider: Japan: Teen referred to child centre after 7,000 visits to online casino: A 13-year-old boy from Kanagawa Prefecture has been referred to a child guidance centre after allegedly accessing an overseas online casino website about 7,000 times, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

CNN: Denmark plans to ban social media for users under 15, as PM says platforms are ‘stealing childhood’: Denmark will move to ban social media for children under 15, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday, saying the online platforms are “stealing our children’s childhood.” Speaking at the opening of the Danish parliament, Frederiksen said her government would propose a ban that also gives parents the option to approve social media use from age 13.

Digital Watch Observatory: The global struggle to regulate children’s social media use: Social media has become a defining part of modern childhood. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube offer connection, entertainment and information at an unprecedented scale. Yet concerns have grown about their impact on children’s mental health, education, privacy and safety. Governments, parents and civil society increasingly debate whether children should access these spaces freely, with restrictions, or not at all.

CBS News: Philadelphia man facing 200 felonies, accused of using online groups to gather child sexual abuse material: A Philadelphia man allegedly possessed hundreds of forms of child sexual abuse material, many involving babies and toddlers, that were traded through online groups, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office announced Tuesday.

CNN: What your teenage son is really seeing on social media, according to new survey: If your adolescent son is online, he’s almost certainly seeing content that promotes masculinity and suggests troubling things about girls, according to research published on Wednesday. Most boys — 73% — see content about “digital masculinity” regularly, which includes posts about fighting, building muscles and making money, according to a new Common Sense Media survey.

The Guardian: News Corp Australia chair says social media platforms are ‘true monsters’ and ‘torment our children’: Social media is to blame for social cohesion issues across the globe, News Corp Australia’s executive chair, Michael Miller, has said, as he calls for media to present a united front against the platforms and AI companies seeking content for free.

WXIA-TV (NBC): Georgia Senate committee studying social media and AI impact on children meets again today: A Georgia Senate committee studying the impact of social media and artificial intelligence on children will meet again Wednesday. It’s the third meeting of the Senate Study Committee on the Impact of Social Media and AI on Children and Platform Privacy Protection. They last met in September

.Tri-State Alert: PA Senator looks to close loophole in mandated reporter law as AI deepfakes of children become terrifyingly common: This past week, Pennsylvania State Senator James Andrew Malone announced that he introduced legislation to protect minors from sexually explicit AI deepfakes by requiring mandated reporters, such as school personnel, to report all incidents of minors sharing sexually explicit material of other minors. State Representative Nikki Rivera has introduced companion legislation in the PA House.

Politico: Denmark aims to ban social media for children under 15, PM says: The Danish government wants to introduce a ban on several social media platforms for children under the age of 15, as Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced Tuesday.

Reuters: Italian families target Facebook, Instagram and TikTok over child safety: A group of Italian families has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, accusing the platforms of failing to enforce age restrictions and using addictive features that harm children’s mental health.

Telecompaper: Regulator says children and young people at risk from gore content: Australia’s eSafety Commissioner said 22 percent of children between the ages of 10-17 have seen extreme real-life violence online. Growing exposure to and accessibility of gore has led to the popularisation of dedicated gore websites with searchable libraries of content, follower tools, chat functions and recommendation loops.

Politico: An EU age limit for social media? Get the lawyers in: Ursula von der Leyen is so set on getting her grandkids off social media she forgot to do her homework. The European Commission chief made waves in recent weeks when she came out in favor of a European Union minimum age for using social media — twice.

CBS News: Colorado family sues AI chatbot company after daughter’s suicide: “My child should be here”: A recent survey found 72% of teens have used AI companions. But a Colorado family says using them can end in tragedy. The Social Media Victims Law Center has filed three lawsuits against chatbot platform Character.AI. Two of them are in Colorado.

BBC News: TikTok recommends porn to children, says report: TikTok’s algorithm recommends pornography and highly sexualised content to children’s accounts, according to a new report by a human rights campaign group.

WTAJ-TV (CBS): PA Senator looks to protect children as AI-generated sex abuse material increases: A Pennsylvania Senator is looking to protect children in the Commonwealth during the “alarming rise” of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI). The legislation, authored by Sen. Tracy Pennycuick, argues that there has been a “startling increase” in AI-generated CSAM being created and shared, with schools being far from immune to the issue.

Pittsburgh’s Public Source: What is your school’s AI policy?: School districts across Allegheny County agree on one thing: AI is here to stay. As education-focused AI tools become increasingly common, many districts are working to enact policies and issue guidelines on the use of AI within classrooms.

Social Media Today: Google Partners With Sesame Street on Digital Literacy Training for Kids: Fresh off of announcing a new partnership with Sesame Workshop, which will see YouTube become the online home of Sesame Street content, Google has also announced a new digital education initiative, which will see popular Sesame Street characters present online learning lessons about healthy web use.

American Psychological Association: Many teens are turning to AI chatbots for friendship and emotional support: Most youth friendships today span both digital and physical spaces, rendering the distinction between “online” and “offline” friendships increasingly obsolete. Nearly all U.S. teens (95%) ages 13 to 17 have access to a smartphone, nearly half (47%) report they are constantly online, and 85% play video games, according to the Pew Research Center. Artificial intelligence (AI) has opened a perplexing new frontier in modern friendship, with many teens turning to AI chatbots for academic help, entertainment, and even emotional support with few boundaries and protections.

KQED-TV (PBS): What Every Parent Should Know About Online Gambling: Sports were always central to Rob Minnick’s life. While growing up, children’s birthday parties were celebrated on Sundays so that the adults could watch the Eagles game while the kids ate cake. “Sports were consistently present throughout my life,” Minnick, now 26, told me. When online sports gambling became legal, and television ads encouraging the practice aired regularly during games, Minnick got the idea that he could profit from his vast sports knowledge by making smart bets. At 18, he started gambling daily on fantasy sports sites that allow players to create fantasy teams made up of professional athletes; players make wagers on the athletes’ performances for a single game at a time.

The Washington Post: Parents are bringing back the landline: There were eight children among the four close-knit families in their Seattle neighborhood, and by last fall, the oldest child — who was almost 9 — had already started asking for a smartphone. But the group of parents had made a communal agreement: They would keep their children away from smartphones for as long as possible.

PennLive: ‘The internet’s a scary place’: Gov. Shapiro, Pa. lawmakers call for media literacy: The rise of social media use is not surprising. But the playing field has grown more complicated with the spread of artificial intelligence. The Trump administration has leaned heavily on social media, and at times AI to announce policy changes in unprecedented ways.

The Center Square: Pennsylvania students taught media bias through information literacy: Alongside the rise of political violence and tense social discourse, many observers point to the rise of misinformation and disinformation on the internet, the use of “rage-baiting” algorithms, and the proliferation of media created using artificial intelligence.

Time: Kids Need Rules About Screen Time: Ask a parent today what they worry about, and many will mention screen time. Teens can’t put down their phones, TikTok becomes pervasive by sixth grade, and is my kid really doing homework on their laptop, or have they been watching YouTube for four hours?

Government Technology: Pennsylvania Schools Take Differing Approaches to Phones in Class: As lawmakers debate banning cellphones in classrooms, schools across Northeast Pennsylvania take different approaches to phones in their buildings.

People: Dangerous Social Media Challenges Leave 17-Year-Old Dead and 20-Year-Old with Permanent ‘Catastrophic Head Injuries’: Authorities: Two Pennsylvania teens have been charged after a 17-year-old was killed and a 20-year-old was left with permanent “catastrophic head injuries” while attempting dangerous social media challenges with their cars, authorities said.

CBS News: Florida fights for Snapchat restrictions, appeals federal ruling on social media law: Attorneys for the state Wednesday told a federal appeals court that a judge erred when he rejected a preliminary injunction to force the operator of Snapchat to comply with a 2024 Florida law aimed at keeping children off certain social media platforms.

Politico: EU Commission to ‘leave doors open’ for social media ban: The European Commission is “leaving all doors open” to shield children from the harmful effects of social media platforms including age restrictions at the EU level, spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters today.

The Hill: Hillary Clinton: AI, social media ‘supercharging lies’: Hillary Clinton said in remarks on Tuesday that artificial intelligence (AI) and social media have “broken” how information spreads. “Our information ecosystem is broken,” Clinton said at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. “AI and social media are supercharging lies.”

The Guardian: Instagram still poses risk to children despite new safety tools, says Meta whistleblower: Children and teenagers are still at risk from online harm on Instagram despite the roll-out of “woefully ineffective” safety tools, according to research led by a Meta whistleblower.

Center for Digital Education: Pennsylvania Lawmaker Proposes AI Instructors Ban in Charters: A newly proposed piece of state legislation in Pennsylvania would ban charter schools from using artificial intelligence as the primary instructor.

Euractiv: EU and Australia to work together on social media bans for kids: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc and Australia would collaborate on protecting children on social media by implementing bans or age limits during a speech at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday.

Hunton: Ninth Circuit Upholds “Addictive” Social Media Feed Ban and Default Privacy Settings for Minors in California’s Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act: On September 9, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in an interlocutory ruling, upheld key provisions of California’s Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act (SB 976) (the “Act”), allowing enforcement of the Act’s “addictive” social media feed provisions to proceed.

CBC: Privacy commissioners find TikTok collected sensitive data from Canadian children: The immensely popular social media app TikTok has been collecting sensitive information from hundreds of thousands of Canadians under 13 years old, a joint investigation by privacy authorities found.

WCAU-TV (NBC): Teens charged in ‘TikTok challenge’ crashes that led to death, permanent injury: Two teen drivers who, police say, caused traumatic incidents — including death and permanent injuries — while engaged in the creation of “Tiktok challenge” videos have been charged by law enforcement officials in Northampton County.

The Washington Post: I tried to protect my kids from the internet. Here’s what happened.: Like many parents, I do not want my children to access pornography online. I also do not want them to use social media until they are at least 16. These may seem like simple requests, but they have been extremely difficult to achieve. In most states, including California, where I live, Pornhub can be accessed by simply clicking on “I am 18 or older — Enter.” Children can open social media accounts by simply choosing an earlier birth year. Age is not verified, and parental permission is not required.

New York Post: Anguished parents who’ve lost kids — like me — demand Congress act to rein in social media firms: The former Meta employees were shockingly calm as they laid it all out: The company that owns Facebook and Instagram knows its platforms are exposing children to serious dangers. It knows the videos its services distribute to children have damaged their self-esteem and left many of them anxious, depressed, even suicidal.

BBC News: Lib Dems want health warnings on teens’ social media: The Liberal Democrats say children using social media apps should be shown cigarette-style health warnings to help protect their mental health. The party says the move would protect youngsters from “addictive algorithms”, citing concerns over excessive phone usage.

USA Today: I grew up too online. More states must follow New York’s example to protect kids. | Opinion: On Sept. 15, New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced proposed regulations for TikTok, Instagram and other social media companies that would require some form of age verification on sites for users under 18. Although it seems that the attorney general’s office is underestimating how easy it is to skirt social media rules, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

Government Technology: Neb. School Safety Director: ‘Algorithms Are Constructing Our Future’: “It’s all about people making lots and lots of money off you and your kids.” That’s how Jay Martin, a retired law enforcement officer, described artificial intelligence, social media algorithms and platform manipulation and their impact on the mental health and behavioral development of today’s youth.

Rolling Stone: Grieving Parents Tell Congress That AI Chatbots Groomed Their Children and Encouraged Self-Harm: Three grieving parents delivered harrowing testimony before Congress on Tuesday, describing how their children had self-harmed — in two cases, taking their own lives — after sustained engagement with AI chatbots.

WTXF-TV (FOX): Pennsylvania man used ‘innocent vacation photos’ to A.I. generate explicit images of children: DA: A Pennsylvania man is facing years in prison after prosecutors say he admitted to using artificial intelligence to create explicit images of at least two children.

The Conversation: Viral violent videos on social media are skewing young people’s sense of the world: When news broke last week that US political influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot at an event at Utah Valley University, millions of people around the world were first alerted to it by social media before journalists had written a word.

BBC: Calls for more help for young gambling addicts: More needs to be done to protect young people from gambling harms, according to researchers who found them at greater risk of mental health issues.

Independent: Children being robbed of wellbeing by social media, campaign warns: The UK’s largest teaching union has said “students are being robbed” of their wellbeing by social media, as it calls for the digital age of consent to rise from 13 to 16.

Lehigh Valley Live: Bethlehem man is among the first in Pa. to be convicted of making AI-generated child pornography: A Bethlehem man is among the first people to be convicted under a Pennsylvania law passed last year, making it a crime to possess AI-generated child pornography, according to a news release.

AP: New York’s ban on addictive social media feeds for kids takes shape with proposed rules: New York’s attorney general on Monday proposed regulations for its crackdown on addictive social media feeds for children, including rules for verifying a user’s age. The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, passed last year, prohibits social media companies from showing feeds personalized by algorithms to users under 18 unless they have a parent’s consent.

The New York Times: Opinion: The Unexpected Upside of Phone Bans in Schools: The Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky this month announced a surprising unintended consequence of a new statewide cellphone ban. In many of the district’s schools, the number of books checked out in the first few weeks of class had skyrocketed compared with last year, before the ban was instituted.

The Washington Examiner: It’s time to study what the internet has done to young people: In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk‘s assassination, one thing is clear: We need a “Kirk Commission.”

ABC News: Australia warns social media over age checks as child ban plan moves forward: Australian authorities said Tuesday that social media platforms should not demand age verification for all account holders starting from December, when a ban on children under 16 having accounts goes into effect in the country.

Go Erie: Employees’ social media posts lead to school districts’ response after Charlie Kirk’s death: Posts by employees on social media led two school districts in the Erie region to issue statements the day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing in Utah. Neither the statement from the North East School District in Erie County nor the statement from the Crawford Central School District in Crawford County mentions Kirk.

Psychology Today: When Violence Goes Viral: Political and interpersonal violence is not new. What is unique to this generation is the proliferation of graphic content online. Raw footage of political assassinations, war crimes, racialized violence, and sexual assault can spread quickly in the wake of acts of violence, popping up in young people’s social feeds without warning or context.

Associated Press: FTC launces inquiry into AI chatbots acting as companions and their effects on children: The Federal Trade Commission has launched an inquiry into several social media and artificial intelligence companies about the potential harms to children and teenagers who use their AI chatbots as companions.

BBC: Ban social media for under-15s, says French report warning of TikTok risks: French children under 15 should be banned from social media and there should be an overnight “digital curfew” for 15-18 year olds, a parliamentary commission has recommended. The six-month inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on minors has found that the short video-sharing platform “knowingly exposes our children, our young people to toxic, dangerous and addictive content”.

WGAL: Multiple school districts in south-central Pa. comment on staff members’ social media posts about Charlie Kirk: Multiple school districts in the Susquehanna Valley have released statements after staff members took to social media to voice their opinions on Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Newsweek: California Steps Closer to Tobacco-Style Warnings for Social Media: California lawmakers last week passed Assembly Bill 56, a measure that would require tobacco-style public health warning labels on major social media apps when minors log on and use them. The bill authored by Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan in 2024 and sponsored by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with nonprofit organization Common Sense Media, seeks to display a U.S. Surgeon General–referenced warning on apps including TikTok and Instagram.

The Washington Post: ‘My kid has seen this. Now what?’: Parents reel as Charlie Kirk video goes viral: Alissa Wright’s 13-year-old daughter arrived home from her Los Angeles school Wednesday with an announcement: Charlie Kirk was dead, and she had watched a video of it happening. Wright’s stomach dropped, she said. The 47-year-old stay-at-home mom had seen the gory video of the conservative commentator’s killing at a Utah speaking event earlier that day as it spread on TikTok and Reddit.

WFMZ: ‘Violence is difficult to see’: Local counselors offer advice on dealing with traumatic social media content: With the recent rash of violence flooding social media, local counselors are encouraging people struggling to deal with those images to create a space for themselves. When information is at your fingertips, it can be difficult to unplug.

Euractiv: France floats ‘digital curfews’ for teens in parliamentary report: In a report issued on Thursday by a parliamentary commission looking into the psychological effects of the video-sharing app TikTok on minors, French MPs called for nighttime social media ‘curfews’ for older teens.

CBC News: Location sharing leaves teens at risk of sextortion, coercive control, child protection experts warn: Child safety experts are warning parents and teenagers to carefully consider the risks of sharing their real-time location as the practice becomes increasingly common for youth on social media.

The Telegraph: Omaze prize draws ‘fuelling gambling addiction’: Prize draws, such as Omaze and McDonald’s Monopoly, are fuelling gambling problems and even addiction among adults and even children, a charity has warned.

Reuters: California limits on ‘addictive’ social media feeds for children largely upheld: A federal appeals court largely upheld a California law on Tuesday making it illegal, absent parental permission, for social media companies to provide children with “addictive feeds” that the state fears could damage their mental health.

The Washington Post: Ex-Meta workers tell Congress tech giant stifled research on youth harm: Two former Meta employees told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday the social media giant suppressed critical research about the risks children face while using the company’s virtual reality devices and apps, in what they said was an effort to avoid bad publicity and regulatory scrutiny.

Bloomberg: Europe Will Study Social Media Bans for Children Under 16: The European Commission said it would examine possible restrictions on social media for children under 16 years old following similar rules planned in Australia.

New York Times: For Nepal’s Protesters, Wealthy ‘Nepo Kids’ Are a Source of Outrage: In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s violent protests in Nepal, photographs purporting to show the ritzy lifestyles enjoyed by the children of the country’s political elite were shared widely on social media.

Time: What to Know About the Deadly ‘Gen Z’ Protests Over a Social-Media Ban and ‘Nepo Kids’ in Nepal: At least 19 people died in protests in Nepal’s capital and other cities, after rage over a social-media shutdown and corruption led to violent clashes between the police and young demonstrators. The so-called “Gen Z” protests are considered the most widespread in Nepal’s modern history.

Aljazeera: Nepal Gen Z protests amid social media ban, clashes kill 19: All to know: At least 19 people were killed and over 100 injured in clashes with security forces after thousands of young people in Nepal took to the streets on Monday to protest against corruption and a government ban on social media websites.

Gizmodo: Meta Whistleblowers Allege Company Buried Info on Child Safety: Whistleblowers allege Meta has suppressed research on risks for young children involving virtual reality devices and apps, including information about child predators, according to a new report from the Washington Post.

Tech Crunch: Meta suppressed children’s safety research, 4 whistleblowers claim: Two current and two former Meta employees disclosed documents to Congress alleging that the company may have suppressed research on children’s safety, according to a report from The Washington Post. According to their claims, Meta changed its policies around researching sensitive topics — like politics, children, gender, race, and harassment — six weeks after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents that showed how Meta’s own research found that Instagram can damage teen girls’ mental health.

The New York Times: She Started the Debate About Kids and Phones. Now She Wants to End It.: Jean Twenge’s three teenage daughters aren’t exactly Luddites, but they’ve put up with stricter technology rules than most of their friends have had to follow. Julia, Twenge’s 13-year-old, has a Pinwheel — a “kid’s phone,” Julia calls it — with no internet and limited apps. And Kate, now 18, had a flip phone until she was 16½. Her friends were boggled by how long it took her to plunk out simple texts, but Kate says she learned skills her peers have never had to master. Like, how to find her way without GPS. Or how to have an actual phone conversation.

The Washington Post: Meta suppressed research on child safety, employees say: At her home in western Germany, a woman told a team of visiting researchers from Meta that she did not allow her sons to interact with strangers on the social media giant’s virtual reality headsets. Then her teenage son interjected, according to two of the researchers: He frequently encountered strangers, and adults had sexually propositioned his little brother, who was younger than 10, numerous times.

Psychology Today: Social Media Use, ADHD, and Early Trauma: Much has been written about the relationship between social media use and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It requires no citations to state that social media use has increased over the last 20 years, as have diagnoses of ADHD. The question is whether there is any kind of meaningful relationship between the two.

The Wall Street Journal: Paying Kids to Stay Off Their Phones: Incentive or Bribe?: Parents are getting so fed up trying to keep their teens off phones that some are bypassing the usual lectures and parental controls and are instead offering cash, and even cars. Jennifer Abbott, a small-business owner in Brooklyn, N.Y., said she made a deal with her two kids to each get $1,800 when they turn 18—if they can stay off social media until then. “It’s all or nothing,” Abbott says. “They’re both pretty pumped about it.”

NBC 10: After child dies and 2 others at ‘high risk of death,’ concerns raised over cyber charters: Robert Beecham has been trying to recreate the father-son bonds he once had with his twin boys. “We play basketball here,” Beecham said, pointing to the courts at Quakertown Memorial Park. “There’s baseball fields on the other side where they test out their baseball gear. They have a lot of fun.”

The Washington Post: FTC fines Pornhub for failing to police child sex videos: The operator of Pornhub will pay a $5 million fine to settle charges that it failed to stop child sexual abuse videos from being published on its websites, the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Utah announced Wednesday.

Miami Herald: Should kids use social media? Global opinion has shifted, new poll finds: Support for banning young children from social media is growing worldwide, according to a new survey.

New Scientist: We have let down teens if we ban social media but embrace AI: If you are in your 70s, you didn’t fight in the second world war. Such a statement should be uncontroversial, given that even the oldest septuagenarian today was born after the war ended. But there remains a cultural association between this age group and the era of Vera Lynn and the Blitz.

USA Today: The teen social media crisis is here. What now?: Whether reconnecting with old friends, sharing life’s milestones with loved ones or networking among work colleagues, social media has become indispensable for many adults and can be both a convenient and powerful way to maintain relationships and grow professionally. Teenagers, however, log on more frequently, engage more intensively and increasingly define their social identity through online interactions. That level of immersion comes with heightened risks alongside any benefits.

National Review: Republican Senators Press Meta on Restricting Minors’ Access to Online Content: A group of Republican Senators is pressing Meta for more information on the company’s child protection efforts and whether it targeted teenage users with content geared towards their emotional state.

Wall Street Journal: Disney to Pay $10 Million to Settle FTC Allegations on Collection of Children’s Data: Walt Disney will pay $10 million to settle allegations from the Federal Trade Commission that claim the company unlawfully collected children’s data for targeted advertising.

Broad and Liberty: Op-Ed: Pennsylvania needs an age verification law: For years, many felt that it was simply impossible to fight childhood porn exposure. The most that Pennsylvania has done was pass an actionless resolution in 2017, declaring it a public health crisis. Even parental controls, such as content filters, have proven to be ineffective.

The Conversation: ‘What you feel is valid’: Social media is a lifeline for many abused and neglected young people: As a teen growing up in an abusive household, Morgan coped daily with physical and emotional harm from her mother. However, she felt safe and supported when she posted about her experiences on a fake Instagram account – widely referred to as a Finsta – which disguised her true identity.

The Guardian: Children as young as 11 tempted to try betting after being ‘flooded’ by celebrity endorsement: Children as young as 11 feel tempted to try betting after being “flooded” by celebrities and sports stars promoting it, according to two reports that found nearly 90% of children aged 13-17 are exposed to gambling content online.

The Washington Post: Instagram’s chatbot helped teen accounts plan suicide — and parents can’t disable it: The Meta AI chatbot built into Instagram and Facebook can coach teen accounts on suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, a new safety study finds. In one test chat, the bot planned joint suicide — and then kept bringing it back up in later conversations.

Associated Press: Online age checks are proliferating, but so are concerns they curtail internet freedom: Online age checks are on the rise in the U.S. and elsewhere, asking people for IDs or face scans to prove they are over 18 or 21 or even 13. To proponents, they’re a tool to keep children away from adult websites and other material that might be harmful to them.

The Washington Post: ‘Sammy’s Law’ would help parents monitor kids online. It’s gaining steam.: Sammy Chapman was 16 years old when a drug dealer sent him a private message on Snapchat to offer free drugs that turned out to be fentanyl, an addictive and powerful opioid. On Feb. 7, 2021, his younger brother entered Sammy’s room to find him dead on the floor of fentanyl poisoning.

Bloomberg: Opinion: The Age Verification Fallout on Free Speech Is Starting: The Supreme Court is asleep at the wheel when it comes to protecting free speech. The latest sign is the decision by the social media app Bluesky to block its service in Mississippi because the decentralized, public benefit corporation can’t afford to require age verification for all its users as required by a clearly unconstitutional state law.

The Wall Street Journal: How Tech Is Tackling the New Age-Verification Rules: Lawmakers want technology companies to limit young people’s access to social media by verifying their age. It’s no easy feat. U.S. law already prohibits social media and other ad-supported platforms from serving content to children under 13 without parental permission. Now lawmakers and advocacy groups are taking it a step further, with a patchwork of new rules that also prohibit kids under 18 from engaging in certain online activities.

Fox 43: Pennsylvania highlights social media dangers as school year begins: Thousands of children are heading back to school across Pennsylvania this week, but experts and parents warn that the dangers kids face aren’t limited to the classroom. For Tricia Maciejewski, the risk became real after she lost her 13-year-old son, Levi, to suicide after he was extorted on social media. She says the platforms children use everyday are not meant to be safe for children.

Patch: Parents Worry Most About These 10 Things As Kids Go Back To School: Back-to-school stress isn’t just for kids. Seventy-five percent of parents of children 1-18 who responded to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health said they worry about the effect social media will have on their kids’ wellbeing. Two closely related topics also weigh heavily on their minds — too much screen time and use of devices (75 percent) and internet safety (66 percent), according to the poll.

Hoodline: Georgia Senate Committee to Examine Social Media and AI Impact on Children’s Well-being and Privacy: The Senate Impact of Social Media and Artificial Intelligence on Children and Platform Privacy Protection Study Committee, co-chaired by Sen. Sally Harrell (D–Atlanta) and Sen. Shawn Still (R–Johns Creek), is set to hold its inaugural session on August 27. This meeting will focus on digging into the effects social media and AI have on the young minds that use them, as well as probing how privacy can be beefed up to make these digital spaces safer.

Politico: Rural kids do social media differently: There’s been a lot of recent research showing how social media platforms are affecting young people’s mental health. But it tends to look at teens broadly, rather than considering where they live. A new survey suggests there may be differences in the ways kids interact with social media depending on whether they live in urban or rural areas.

Fast Company: Companies have a role in stopping school shootings: At first glance, preventing school shootings, gun violence, and youth suicide may seem like the responsibility of parents, educators, or law enforcement. But a closer look—backed by research—reveals a much bigger truth: The marketing, media, and tech industries play an outsized role in shaping the narrative of how children view and engage with firearms. That influence can be used for good—or remain a dangerous force accelerating one of our most urgent public health crises. 

The Center Square: Ohio appeals stoppage of social media parental consent law: Four months after a federal court stopped Ohio’s social media parental consent law, Attorney General Dave Yost asked an appeals court to overturn the permanent injunction. In a brief to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Yost said the group that filed the original suit lacked standing.

Government Technology: Sonoma County Joins Social Media Lawsuit Over Harms to Kids: Sonoma County has joined a growing number of jurisdictions, filing a federal lawsuit under the Racketeering Act against a host of social media companies alleging their actions — and inactions — are harming local youth through unfair business practices. The lead defendant in the case is Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook. But also targeted are Instagram (owned by Meta), TikTok, Snap, Google, Discord, YouTube and Roblox, among other defendants.

The Conversation: The social media ban is coming, whether families like it or not: 5 ways to prepare kids and teens: In less than four months, world-first legislation will ban Australian under-16s from certain social media platforms. Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, X, Reddit and YouTube will all be off limits for children and teens.

Fast Company: Landline phones are back—and they’re helping kids connect safely with friends: In today’s world, communication is largely done through one of two methods: smartphones or social media. Young children, however, rarely have access to either—and experts say they shouldn’t have any access at all until age 13 or later.

WSAW: Practicing healthy social media habits for children transitioning to summer vacation to school year: A child’s transition from summer vacation to the school year comes with many adjustments, one of which is their social media use. According to experts from Aspirus Health, excessive use can interfere with their sleep, focus, and overall well-being.

The Washington Post: Britain’s online safety law is running amok: British users of the X social media platform got a shock last month when they discovered they weren’t able to read certain posts. Instead, they were confronted with the following message: “Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age.”

Politico: Kids are addicted to social media. No one can agree on a solution.: Children and teens can’t stop scrolling — and it’s hurting their health. The time young people spend on social media networks has more than doubled since 2010 to around three hours a day. More than 1 in 10 teenagers showed signs of problematic and addictive social media use in 2022 — including struggling to control their use and experiencing withdrawal, according to the World Health Organization.

BBC: Meta investigated over AI having ‘sensual’ chats with children: A US senator is opening an investigation into Meta after a leaked document reportedly showed the tech giant’s artificial intelligence (AI) was permitted to have “sensual” and “romantic” chats with children. The internal document, obtained by Reuters, was reportedly titled “GenAI: Content Risk Standards”. Republican Senator Josh Hawley called the document “reprehensible and outrageous” and has asked to see the document alongside a list of products it relates to.

Delaware Valley Journal: PA Legislators Lead Effort to Protect Kids from Online Exploitation: A group of Pennsylvania legislators is taking action to address the alarming rise in online child exploitation by introducing a resolution that designates the week of August 17 through 23, 2025 as “Social Media Safety and Parental Awareness Week” in Pennsylvania.

WGAL: PA launches first-ever ‘Social Media Safety Week’ to protect kids online: Pennsylvania legislators, including Lancaster County’s Senator Scott Martin, have designated Aug. 17-23 as “Social Media Safety and Parental Awareness Week” to address the growing concerns of online threats such as sextortion.

Associated Press: Supreme Court allows Mississippi to require age verification on social media like Facebook and X: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused for now to block enforcement of a Mississippi law aimed at regulating the use of social media by children, an issue of growing national concern. The justices rejected an emergency appeal from a tech industry group representing major platforms like Facebook, X and YouTube.

NBC News: Supreme Court allows Mississippi social media law requiring age verification for children: The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block a new Mississippi law that imposes age verification and parental consent restrictions on social media platforms. In a brief order with no dissents, the court rejected an emergency request filed by the industry group NetChoice on behalf of nine of its members, including Facebook, X and YouTube.

The New York Times: Supreme Court Allows Mississippi Law on Children’s Use of Social Media, for Now: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to block a Mississippi law barring minors from using social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, YouTube and X without their parents’ consent. The court’s brief order was unsigned and gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The order was not the last word in the case, which will proceed in a federal appeals court and may again reach the justices.

NPR: Supreme Court allows Mississippi social media law to go into effect: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to intervene in a lower court decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring users to verify their ages before using social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

New York Post: Instagram ‘Map’ feature poses ‘significant’ safety and privacy risks that could endanger kids, state AGs warn: Instagram’s controversial new “Map” feature carries “significant public safety and data privacy concerns” that could endanger kids, a bipartisan group of 37 state attorneys general warned in a letter on Wednesday.

The Independence: Pennsylvania legislators lead effort to protect kids from online exploitation: A group of Pennsylvania legislators is taking action to address the alarming rise in online child exploitation by introducing a resolution that designates the week of August 17 through 23, 2025 as “Social Media Safety and Parental Awareness Week” in Pennsylvania.

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Suburban parents say they’ve been sucked into smartphone ‘whirlpool.’ Now, they want the devices out of schools.: It didn’t take long for Alex Becker to become disillusioned with her tech job. Becker worked as a Teach for America corps member and public sector researcher before taking a job with a tech company a few years ago, researching how to get users to spend more time looking at its platforms.

The Conversation: Feeding kids can be a daily battle. But you wouldn’t know it looking at Instagram: Many families find feeding children a constant challenge. A favourite food is suddenly refused, someone is grumpy after a long day, siblings fight at the table. But if parents and caregivers are turning to social media for advice, it may do more harm than good. Because here, feeding kids looks downright easy.

The Atlantic: A Tech Rule That Will ‘Future-Proof’ Your Kids: As a mom, my news feed is flooded with cautionary tales about all the ways technology will ruin my kids—and all the ways I must protect them. Social-media bans. Screen-time limits. The “Wait Until 8th” pledge. Analog technology. Read their texts. But wait, give them privacy! Add in the eye-roll-inducing reminder that “every kid is different,” and the guidance will suck the joy out of parenting faster than your kid can download TikTok.

The New York Times: Why A.I. Should Make Parents Rethink Posting Photos of Their Children Online: Last summer, my wife and I beat the odds of middle age and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Thousands of people who follow me on Instagram and other apps have yet to notice. That’s not because I’ve ghosted everyone. I have just opted against posting photos of my child on social media, a parenting move that is becoming increasingly popular because of artificial intelligence.

New York Post: Bipartisan senators call for Instagram to shut down its new map feature, citing children’s safety concerns: Lawmakers want Mark Zuckerburg to end an Instagram feature that allows people to see users’ locations in real time – arguing it exposes children to “pedophiles and traffickers,” among other dangers. US Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote the billionaire Facebook founder a strongly worded letter with the request to “immediately abandon” the feature Friday, accusing Meta of having an “abysmal” track record of protecting its youngest users.

Psychology Today: The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act: United States Senator Josh Hawley announced on May 8th that he intends to introduce a bill to ban “‘pay-to-win’ and ‘loot box’ monetization schemes” in video games. What does this mean and why would a US senator use his time to regulate video games?

The Conversation: A parents’ guide to keeping kids safe online in the summer holidays: Parenting over the summer holidays, especially when juggling work and childcare, comes with significant challenges. One of those is screen time and staying safe online. Children’s time online has the potential to soar in the summer, and when you’re doing your best to work from home with the kids around, it’s pretty difficult to monitor what they’re doing on the tablet or TV. Devices help us get through the day, but they also open the door to risks we may not fully see.

WGAL: Back-to-school photos on social media could pose identity theft risks: As the school year approaches, parents are reminded to be cautious when sharing back-to-school photos on social media due to potential security risks. WGAL 8 On Your Side Consumer Investigator Brian Roche has some helpful tips for parents.

Medscape: Doctors Warn of Rising Risks From Viral Medicine Challenges: The rise of social media has transformed how people — especially children and adolescents — access information, interact with their surroundings, and make decisions about their health and well-being. It is within this digital context that viral challenges have emerged. These social media trends encourage users to perform unusual, risky, or extreme actions to attract attention.

The Guardian: ‘Children are entering a hellscape’: the terrifying film about grieving parents taking on social media giants: In 2020, Amy Neville found her 14-year-old son Alexander dead in his bedroom. He had taken what he thought was an oxycodone pill, bought – according to Neville – from a drug dealer he met on Snapchat. The pill was a fake, laced with fentanyl. Four years later, his mum stood up in the California high school where Alex would have been a student to warn other parents and teenagers about social media.

Bloomberg: Banning Teens From YouTube Won’t Keep Them Safe: Keeping young people safe online is a rallying cry we can all get behind. But the furor in Australia over plans to ban children under 16 from social media shows it’s not as simple as it sounds.

Altoona Mirror: Pennsylvania Senate floats ban on phones for school students: A bipartisan group of state senators are calling for a state ban on cellphone use by students in school. In their cosponsor memo, the lawmakers point to research released earlier this month that found that when children get smartphones before age 13, they are more likely to experience serious mental health issues. An industry survey found that the average age at which youth in Pennsylvania get a phone is younger than 11.

NBC News: Who should keep kids safe on smartphones? Many point at Google and Apple: Age verification is coming for app stores. Laws requiring Google and Apple to check people’s ages before they can download apps are gaining momentum in the United States and around the globe in what could be a radical shift for how people access content on their phones. While age checks have become increasingly common across the internet, the focus of attention has usually been on individual websites and app makers, not app stores. That’s shifting as some politicians and tech companies argue it would be more efficient and uniform for app stores to check people’s ages in the name of child safety.

Washington Examiner: The harrowing effects of screen time on children’s brains: A new, large-scale study published in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities reveals how smartphone ownership in childhood may be derailing young people’s mental health. The study included data from more than 100,000 18- to 24-year-olds living around the globe. Owning a smartphone before the age of 13 was associated with poorer mental health, including diminished self-image, self-worth, and emotional resilience. Additional symptoms included increased aggression toward others, reduced empathy, hallucinations, and feeling detached from reality.

WPXI: Pennsylvania lawmakers propose bill to ban phones in schools: Pennsylvania lawmakers have proposed a bill that would make schools across the state “phone-free.” If the bill is passed, Pennsylvania would join 27 other states that already restrict cell phones in schools.

ABC 8: Video: New national study reveals negative impacts of social media on children: A new national study highlights significant negative effects of social media on children’s mental health, especially after they receive their first smartphones. The research links early access to phones and social platforms with declines in well-being, increased anxiety, attention issues, and disruptions in mood and sleep. Experts note that young brains are particularly vulnerable to the addictive cycle of social media, driven by dopamine rewards from notifications like likes and comments. That overuse can undermine focus and real-world interaction as well as impair sleep quality and cognitive rest.

New Mexico Political Report: Snapchat faces legal battle in New Mexico over child exploitation allegations: New Mexico is suing Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, for allegedly enabling child exploitation through features like disappearing messages and Snap Map. The state claims Snap ignored employee warnings and failed to protect minors. Snap denies wrongdoing and sought dismissal under Section 230 protections, but a court allowed the case to move forward. The lawsuit could set key legal precedents for tech accountability and child safety.

Modern Diplomacy: Under the influence: how digital media affects teens: In today’s world, the line between online and offline is increasingly being blurred, especially for children and teens. Navigating this space safely can be a challenge. Klavdija Berginc, a maths and computer science teacher at a primary school in Kobarid, Slovenia, has witnessed this struggle up close over more than a decade in the classroom. “I remember a 12-year-old student who simply couldn’t function without a screen,” she said. “He demanded screentime as a reward for everything – from studying for a few minutes to visiting the dentist.”

Psychology Today: Does Social Media Cause Depression and Anxiety in Kids?: In my previous post, we discovered that the teen mental health crisis might not be as dramatic as The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt’s book, claims. Today, we’re diving deeper into the research that’s supposed to prove social media harms our teens and why that research isn’t as convincing as it first appears.

Business Insider: Sam Altman is worried about one kind of tech messing with kids’ brains — and it’s not AI: Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is worried the kids won’t be alright. Altman was speaking to podcaster Theo Von in an interview that aired Wednesday when he was asked how parents could prepare their children for the AI age. Altman said what really worried him was the psychological impact addictive social media platforms could have on children.

Tech Crunch: Instagram adds new protections for accounts that primarily feature children: Meta is introducing additional safeguards for Instagram accounts run by adults that primarily feature children, the company announced on Wednesday. These accounts will automatically be placed into the app’s strictest message settings to prevent unwanted messages, and will have the platform’s “Hidden Words” feature enabled to filter offensive comments. The company is also rolling out new safety features for teen accounts.

ABC News: Kids who own smartphones before age 13 have worse mental health outcomes: Study: Children, especially girls, who own smartphones before they are 13 years old may have worse mental health outcomes when they’re older, a new study suggests. The study, published Sunday in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, analyzed self-reported questionnaire results from more than 100,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24.

Reuters: US Supreme Court urged to block Mississippi law restricting children’s social media use: An internet trade association whose members include Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to block a Mississippi law that imposes age-verification and parental-consent requirements on social media sites.

The Citizens’ Voice: Senate Education Committee advances two cyber-charter bills: The state Senate Education Committee advanced two bills last week that will place new regulations on cyber-charter education. Together, the bills impose new school district residency-check and wellness-check mandates.

CNN: Don’t give children under age 13 smartphones, new research says: Parents should avoid preteens’ use of smartphones and social media, according to new research. A study released Monday found that using smartphones before age 13 could damage kids’ mental health. Smartphone use by children younger than 13 was associated with suicidal thoughts, worse emotional regulation, lower self-worth and detachment from reality, especially among girls, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of the Human Development and Capabilities.

US News & World Report: The Kids Are Not Alright. But Don’t Blame Social Media.: No, the kids are not alright. More young people are reporting higher rates of sadness and hopelessness than ever before. The latest comprehensive federal survey of youth behavior found that 40% of high school students reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” with even higher rates among girls. One in five kids said they had seriously considered suicide, and 1 in 10 attempted it.

The Washington Post: With PBS funding cut, will the next generation be raised by ‘Skibidi Toilet’?: Gen X and millennial parents grew up on the gentle rhythms of “Sesame Street” and “Between the Lions.” But sweeping cuts to public broadcasting could leave their children facing a different entertainment landscape.

WAPT: Children’s mental health summit tackles post-COVID and social media challenges: A spotlight was put on the mental health of children only weeks before they return to school. Canopy Children’s Solutions hosted its 11th Children’s Mental Health Summit. The theme was responding to an anxious generation.

Washington Times: With parents lost to their phones, children pay the price: Parents increasingly are scrolling through social media with one hand, feeding their children with the other and keeping their eyes on their screens while doing both. Social scientists call it “technoference,” or digitally distracted parenting. Researchers speaking at the Digital Media and Developing Minds conference in the District this week warned that it’s on the rise as artificial intelligence improves.

Levittown Now: New PA Law Cracks Down On AI Deepfake Scams: A new Pennsylvania law will impose penalties for creating and distributing forged digital likenesses using artificial intelligence with the intent to defraud or injure. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, signed Senate Bill 649 into law last week after bipartisan approval in the Pennsylvania House and Senate.

Psychology Today: How Social Media and Cultural Pressure Are Harming Our Girls: Psychologists rightfully blame girls’ high stress levels and poor mental health outcomes at least partly on social media. The average girl today starts using social platforms by age 12, and they are particularly vulnerable to what happens there.

Supporting Pa. grandparents and kinship caregivers: New webinar tackles online safety: Thursday, the PA Family Support Alliance is offering a webinar for grandparents and kinship caregivers to learn more about family digital wellness.

Carlisle joins list of high schools banning cell phones during class time: In what it hopes will be an academics-first step, Carlisle Area School District will implement a classroom cell phone ban at Carlisle High School this year. Carlisle students in grades 9-12 will be required to place their silenced phones in a common “storage locker” at the start of class periods.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Creating deepfakes with malicious intent will soon be a crime in Pennsylvania: Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro signed legislation to classify deepfakes in Pennsylvania as digital forgeries, making non-consensual digital impersonation punishable by law. Deepfakes are images or videos generated by artificial intelligence, typically for malicious use or to spread misinformation. Now, anyone engaging in digital impersonation will be subject to a misdemeanor of the first degree, while anyone doing so with fraudulent intent will be subject to a felony of the third degree.

CNN: Cell phone use affects parent-child interactions, even when adults aren’t online: Many people try to limit the time they spend on social media when they’re with their kids. But new research suggests social media use has a significant effect on interactions with children — even when adults aren’t looking at their screens.

ABC11: Parents, social media experts weigh in on new bill restricting phones in NC classrooms: Parents and social media experts are weighing in on new legislation that restricts phone use in North Carolina’s public schools and requires schools to teach social media literacy to students. That bill, HB 959, was passed last month and signed into law by Governor Josh Stein on July 1st. It takes effect at the beginning of 2026.

The Conversation: School smartphone bans reflect growing concern over youth mental health and academic performance: The number of states banning smartphones in schools is growing. New York is now the largest state in the U.S. to ban smartphones in public schools. Starting in fall 2025, students will not be allowed to use their phones during the school day, including during lunch, recess or in between classes. This bell-to-bell policy will impact almost 2.5 million students in grades K-12.

ACLU: ACLU of Texas, Partners Argue Texas Social Media Law Violates First Amendment: The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, and several other legal advocacy groups filed an amicus brief today in CCIA v. Paxton, arguing that a Texas law that restricts social media content for minors violates the First Amendment.

WFMZ: Students in Pennsylvania may soon learn how to spot ‘fake news’: Amid a flood of online mis- and disinformation, lawmakers in both chambers of the Pennsylvania General Assembly have proposed legislation to help students evaluate the credibility of their sources and empower them with critical thinking skills to distinguish fact from fiction.

The Guardian: Children limiting own smartphone use to manage mental health, survey finds: Children are increasingly taking breaks from their smartphones to better manage their mental health, personal safety and concentration spans, research has revealed. They are reacting to growing concerns that spending too much time online can be harmful by taking control of their own social media and smartphone use rather than relying on parents to enforce limits, according to experts.

WFMJ: Pennsylvania governor signs bill against AI-based scams: Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a new law aimed at stopping the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create fake voices, images, or videos used in scams and financial crimes. The new law makes such actions a third-degree felony.

Government Technology: Computer Games Help Students Discern Fact From Fiction: Students need to learn how to separate fact from fiction online, and that includes elementary students. But there is a shortage of resources for teaching digital citizenship skills to young learners, said Judy Keller, a technology specialist for the Penn Manor School District in Pennsylvania, who was scheduled to deliver a presentation on this topic at the ISTELive 25 + ASCD Annual Conference 25 in San Antonio, June 29 to July 2.

USA Today: Former child influencer shares story of exploitation, abuse – and a lesson for parents: Growing up, all of Rosalee Eichstedt’s childhood memories happened at “Rosalee’s Diner,” the family business. Eichstedt learned to walk on the diner’s countertops and recalls every major life moment — birthdays, milestones, memories — taking place at the establishment.

Variety: ‘Born to Be Viral: The Real Lives of Kidfluencers’ Doc Reveals the Scary, Fairytale Life of Child Influencers: Director Ines Novačić spent five years following first generation of kid influencers for the docuseries “Born to be Viral: The Real Lives of Kidfluencers.” The ABC News Studios six-part series explores the lives of the Fisher family, Mormon bloggers with five kids; the McClure family and their Forbes-rated top kid influencer twins, Ava and Alexis; current kid influencer powerhouse Like Nastya and novice kid influencer Ethan Rodriguez.

USA Today: How much screen time is OK for kids this summer? A judgment-free guide for parents: As the almost-too-catchy theme song to Disney Channel favorite “Phineas and Ferb” goes, there are 104 days (ish) of summer vacation, and the problem is finding a good way to spend them. As schools close, temperatures rise and child care becomes expensive and difficult, parents might be looking for additional entertainment for their kids this summer. And for many families, that could involve a bit more time spent in front of a screen each day. Choosing how much, what type of screen and what type of content is right for your kids and family isn’t as easy as it was back when most parents were young, and they clicked their TV sets to Nickelodeon or Disney Channel and called it a day.

WESA: Screen time or bedtime? New Pitt research shows links between depression, sleep, and screen use: A new study published by JAMA Pediatrics is bringing more insight into the connection between screen time, sleep, and mental health in early adolescence. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that white matter in the brain is key to understanding these relationships.

The New York Times: Australia Wants to Bar Children From Social Media. Can It Succeed?: Australia has long been one of the most proactive countries in the world in trying to police the internet. It has clashed with Elon Musk over violent videos and child exploitation on X, forced Google and Facebook to pay for news, and tried to filter out large swaths of online content.

WBOC: Virginia Enacts Social Media Time Limit Law for Minors: New Virginia legislation requiring social media platforms to limit screen time for minors took effect Tuesday. The law, signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in May, mandates that social media companies set a default limit of one hour per day for users under 16 years old.

Georgia Recorder: Judge blocks Georgia’s new social media age verification law just before it was set to start: Georgia kids can continue liking, commenting and subscribing without notifying their parents this summer after a federal judge put a temporary hold on the state’s new social media age verification law while the case moves forward – but the bill’s author says a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling bodes well for the ban.

Fast Company: Colombian gangs are using social media to recruit children, the U.N. warns: Colombian gangs are using social media to reach and recruit children, the United Nations has warned. Gangs and rebel groups are enticing children to enlist by posting videos on platforms like TikTok and Facebook that showcase the “perks” of the lifestyle. Some clips promise money, mobile phones, and, in some cases, cosmetic surgery, according to Scott Campbell, Colombia’s representative for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

Axios: Utah sues Snap in latest youth social media battle: Utah sued Snapchat’s parent company Monday, alleging the app intentionally designs features to “hook” children to the platform and endanger youth. Why it matters: The complaint targeting Snap Inc. is the state’s fourth lawsuit against a major social media company in recent years, all of them alleging harm to children and teens.

ABC7: SF supervisor hosts educational workshops as scams targeting teens on the rise: In San Francisco’s Sunset District, workshops to help the senior community spot online scammers are helping a younger demographic. “Almost 500 scams last year totaling nearly $7 million in the Sunset District and other Western District of San Francisco, so we have been doing a lot of workshops to address seniors scams but we have realized the youth, teenagers have also being scammed,” said Joel Engardio, San Francisco Supervisor.

The Washington Post: Young people show addictive behavior with phones, social media, video games: Nearly half of young people in a recent study displayed strongly addictive use of mobile phones, a trend that the study results suggest raised the risk of suicidal behaviors. Researchers looked at data from surveys of almost 4,300 children from 2016 through 2022. The children were ages 9 to 10 at the start and were contacted four times over a six-year period. The surveys included questions about mobile phones, video games and social media and assessed the children for compulsive use, difficulty disengaging and distress felt when not using the various items.

BBC: Thousands of parents support under-14 phone ban: Thousands of parents across Kent have agreed to ban their children from social media until they turn 16 years old. Six primary schools and more than 5,000 parents or caregivers in the county have signed up to national initiative Parent Pact, run by charity Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC). The pact promises to delay smartphone use in teens until Year 9 and access to social media until two years later.

ABC News: Judge blocks Georgia’s social media age verification law, citing free speech concerns: Georgia has become the latest state where a federal judge has blocked a law requiring age verification for social media accounts. Like in seven other states where such laws have been blocked, a federal judge ruled Thursday that the Georgia law infringes on free speech rights.

Axios: Pennsylvania struggles to connect with 988 crisis line: Pennsylvania ranks 31st in the nation for 988 calls, texts and chats per capita, a new analysis finds. Why it matters: Public awareness of the 988 national suicide prevention and mental health hotline is growing, but remains low.

The Washington Post: Scanning technology is coming to detect child porn. Here’s what it means: Smartphones, social media and secret chat apps helped fuel an unimaginable internet flood of sexually explicit images of children, with more than 60 million such photos, videos and files reported circulating online last year. A common technology used by law enforcement agencies now says it can help fight fire with fire, by using new software to speed up the identification of child exploitation images from accused people’s phones and computers.

The Washington Post: Parents rally, LGBTQ+ groups push back on online child safety bill: Momentum is building behind a bill that would reshape how young people experience the internet, even as it faces renewed opposition from some LGBTQ+ groups that say it could lead to censorship of marginalized groups.

Reuters: Australia regulator and YouTube spar over under-16s social media ban: Australia’s internet watchdog and YouTube exchanged barbs on Tuesday after the regulator urged the government to reverse a planned exemption for the Alphabet-owned video-sharing platform from its world-first teen social media ban.

Undark: The Challenges of Tackling Too Much Screen Time: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supports banning students’ cellphone use in schools. The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services chairs the commission behind a recently released a report on “Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addresses, among other things, the negative mental health effects of too much screen time.

Reuters: Australia social media teen ban software trial organisers say the tech works: Some age-checking applications collect too much data and no product works 100% of the time, but using software to enforce a teenage social media ban can work in Australia, the head of the world’s biggest trial of the technology said on Friday.

The New York Times: The Smartphones Haven’t Defeated Us. Yet.: Since the dawn of the television age, parents have struggled to limit or guide their children’s screen time. But with the arrival of smartphones that can — and do — go everywhere and with social media apps that teenagers now use for an average of five hours every day, many parents feel a sense of resignation. The struggle has been lost. Parents who try to delay giving a smartphone until high school or social media until 16 know that they’ll face the plaintive cry from their children: “But I’m the only one!”

USA Today: Online sexual abuse of kids is getting worse. But vigilantes aren’t the answer. | Opinion: The FBI recently announced that it has launched more than 250 investigations into a loosely organized network of online predators who coerce minors into sharing sexually explicit images, acts of self-harm, the abuse of family pets and even suicide. Every one of the bureau’s 55 field offices is handling a case related to the network − a disturbing sign of the growing scale and severity of child exploitation in the digital age.

Government Technology: Pennsylvania Senate Passes AI Deepfake Bill: The Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would make it a crime to pass off “deepfake” AI images as real – just in time for the federal government to potentially spike the measure, were to become law.

Global News: Screen time trapping kids in ‘vicious cycle’ of bad behaviour: study: Kids are facing a “vicious cycle” when it comes to screen time, new research has found, and it may explain both why children who are glued to their devices act out and why they turn to the same devices when they’re struggling with social or emotional challenges.

Reuters: Macron to push for ban on social media for under-15s after school stabbing: French President Emmanuel Macron said he would push for European Union regulation to ban social media for children under the age of 15 after a fatal stabbing at a school in eastern France, the latest such violent attack that left the country reeling. Macron said in an interview late on Tuesday that he hoped to see results within the next few months.

The Washington Post: New study shows social media use predicted future depression in tweens: As American adolescents experience both declining mental health and rising exposure to social media, parents and researchers alike have tried to better understand the link between the two: Does social media fuel mental health struggles? Or are struggling kids more likely to turn to social media?

Washingtonian: Can Virginia Really Ban Kids From Social Media?: Last week, Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a bill prohibiting cellphones in the state’s public schools. (DC Public Schools just announced that it will implement its own cellphone ban starting in the 2025-26 academic year.) While Virginia joins a considerable list of states that have already restricted cellphone use in classrooms, the Commonwealth is gearing up to regulate youth screen time in a unique way: Starting January 1 of next year, residents under the age of 16 will be limited to one hour of social media scrolling per day.

Engadget: Florida’s social media law has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge: A federal judge has temporarily blocked Florida’s new law that bans some children from using social media and requires parental consent for others, according to court documents. Judge Mark Walker ruled in favor of two tech organizations (NetChoice and the CCIA) representing social media organizations like Meta, Snap and X, saying that the state’s bill HB3 signed into law in March this year is “likely unconstitutional.”

Associated Press: Federal judge blocks Florida from enforcing social media ban for kids while lawsuit continues: A federal judge has barred state officials from enforcing a Florida law that would ban social media accounts for young children, while a legal challenge against the law plays out. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued the order Tuesday, blocking portions of the law from taking effect.

Ars Technica: Florida ban on kids using social media likely unconstitutional, judge rules: A federal judge ruled today that Florida cannot enforce a law that requires social media platforms to block kids from using their platforms. The state law “is likely unconstitutional,” US Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida ruled while granting the tech industry’s request for a preliminary injunction.

Reuters: Judge blocks Florida law banning social media accounts for children: A Florida federal judge has halted enforcement of a law in the state that would have barred most social media platforms from allowing youth to have accounts, saying it is a violation of the First Amendment’s protections on free speech.

WUSA9: Virginia limits social media to an hour daily for kids under 16: Virginia is tightening restrictions on cell phone use among children, as Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently signed a bill limiting social media use to just one hour per day for kids under 16. This came just weeks before he signed another bill banning cell phone use in schools from bell to bell.

WFAA: Texas legislators sought to pass laws limiting minors’ social media use, legal experts say they may not hold up: Many Texas legislators said online child safety was a top priority during this recent legislative session, but will their efforts hold up in court? During the last session, legislators passed age verification legislation called the App Store Accountability Act, requiring Google and Apple to verify app store users’ ages. Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law at the end of May.

Politico: TikTok bans ‘unhealthy’ SkinnyTok hashtag after pressure from regulators: Efforts to protect kids online are gaining traction in Europe. Social media platform TikTok has banned worldwide a popular hashtag linked to weight-loss videos following scrutiny from policymakers in Brussels and Paris.

Bucks County Beacon: Democratic State Lawmakers Want to Mandate K-12 Media Literacy in Pennsylvania to Combat the Rise of Online Misinformation: A revived effort to mandate educators teach K-12 online literacy is the goal of Pennsylvania Senate Bill 496, co-sponsored by state Sen. Katie Muth, (D-44) who represents constituents in Chester, Montgomery and Berks counties and Bucks County state Sen. Steve Santarsiero (D-10).

WUSF NPR: Snapchat snaps back on Florida’s 2024 law aimed at keeping children off some social media platforms: The law was one of the highest-profile issues of the 2024 legislative session, with supporters saying it targets addictive features of social-media platforms — a key argument in Uthmeier’s lawsuit against Snapchat. The company that operates Snapchat asked a federal judge this week to put on hold — or reject — a lawsuit filed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier alleging violations of a 2024 state law aimed at keeping children off some social-media platforms.

The Washington Post: Parents are discovering the secret to keeping kids off smartphones: It’s hardly a shocking idea among parents that smartphones and social media have been highly detrimental to kids. Many families fear they are driving a crisis of loneliness, anxiety and depression among teens, along with more severe outcomes including suicides from sextortion, eating disorders from dangerous dieting advice, and deepfake pornography and other child sexual exploitation online.

Associated Press: Texas lawmakers fail to pass ban on social media for those under 18: A push in Texas to ban social media accounts for children under 18 has failed after lawmakers did not take a key vote on creating one of the nation’s toughest restrictions aimed at keeping minors off platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.

The Washington Post: A new Texas law mandates age checks on phones. It may be just the start.: A new Texas law mandates age checks on phones. It may be just the start. Texas passed a law this week forcing Google and Apple to check the ages of mobile app store users and require parents’ permission before a teenager or child can download an app or use it to buy something. It became the second and largest state to do so after Utah passed a similar law in March.

Psychology Today: What Texas’s Age-Gating Law Gets Wrong About Kids and Tech: Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas recently signed legislation requiring age verification and parental consent for all app downloads by users under 18. The Texas state legislature is seriously considering further regulation to ban children from social media.

The Texas Tribune: Bill that would have banned Texas minors from social media misses key deadline: A bill that would have banned minors from having a social media account has missed a deadline to pass in the Texas Senate. House Bill 186, filed by Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, sailed through the House 116-25 in May, but never received a vote in the Senate several days after a slew of teenagers spoke against it during a Senate committee hearing. The contents of the bill could still be attached to another as an amendment or as part of a budget stipulation, but it is unlikely this late into the legislative session, which ends Monday.

Government Technology: School Superintendents Among 140 Groups Against Banning AI Regulation: Having seen positive uses of artificial intelligence in classrooms, a top education leader in Pennsylvania was baffled to learn Thursday that federal lawmakers want to block states from acting against AI’s negative possibilities.

The New York Times: Texas Requires Apple and Google to Verify Ages for App Downloads: The governor of Texas signed a bill on Tuesday requiring Apple and Google to verify the age of app store users, placing new burdens on the tech giants in a bid to give parents more control over the apps their children download.

NBC10: Texas moves forward with expansive social media ban for minors, reigniting debate over platform restrictions: Texas is poised to become the second state to enact an across-the-board ban on social media for minors before its state legislative session ends in a little over a week. Advocates on both sides of the issue have said the bill would be the strictest state-level regulation yet on social media platforms if enacted. And it comes as other states across the country are considering similar restrictions amid fierce debates over free speech and whether these sorts of policies are the most effective way to achieve supporters’ primary goal: improving young Americans’ mental health.

PBS News: New study finds link between pre-teen use of social media and depression: Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have found a link between use of social media by pre-teens and future depression. The study, published this week in the American Medical Association’s journal JAMA, said more time spent on social media “may contribute to increased depressive symptoms over time.” Ali Rogin speaks with lead researcher Dr. Jason Nagata to learn more.

NBC News: Former surgeon general says Congress has failed to protect children’s mental health: Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy accused Congress of failing “in its responsibility to protect our kids” from the harms of social media and called on lawmakers to “step up and act now” in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday.

Time: What to Know About the Kids Online Safety Act and Where It Currently Stands: Congress could potentially pass the first major legislation related to children’s online safety since 1998, as the Kids Online Safety Act, sometimes referred to as KOSA, was reintroduced earlier this month after stalling last year.

Neuroscience News: More Social Media, More Depression: Study Links Cause and Effect: Summary: A new study has found that as preteens increase their social media use, depressive symptoms also rise—but not the other way around. Researchers tracked nearly 12,000 youth over three years and discovered that increased screen time predicted later depression, while depressive symptoms did not predict more social media use.

The New York Times: 4 Key Takeaways from a New White House Report on Children’s Health: In a sweeping new report, the White House outlined what it sees as the drivers of disease in American children. “To turn the tide and better protect our children, the United States must act decisively,” reads the report, which was produced by a presidential commission tasked with combating childhood disease. “During this administration, we will begin reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis by confronting its root causes — not just its symptoms.”

Contemporary Pediatrics: Social media potentially linked to depression in children: A new longitudinal study published in JAMA Network Open suggests that increased social media use may contribute to the development of depressive symptoms in early adolescents, rather than being a byproduct of existing mental health issues.

The New York Times: Deepfake Laws Bring Prosecution and Penalties, but Also Pushback: Pennsylvania’s attorney general recently accused a police officer of taking photos in a women’s locker room, secretly filming people while on duty and possessing a stolen handgun. But he was unable to bring charges related to a cache of photos found on the officer’s work computer featuring lurid images of minors created by artificial intelligence. When the computer was seized, in November, creating digital fakes was not yet considered a crime.

ABC8: Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signs school cellphone ban, social media age limit into law: Legislation intended to protect children online was signed into law Tuesday in Nebraska. Gov. Jim Pillen put his signature to two bills that were introduced in the Legislature on his behalf. One of them, Legislative Bill 140, bans students from using cellphones on school property.

KBTX: Texas lawmakers look to ban minors from social media; bill passes in the House & heads for Senate: Texas lawmakers are tackling the dangerous effects social media can have on youth. Already in this legislative session, one bill requiring age verification to download apps is heading to Governor Abbott’s desk. There’s another bill that would ban minors from social media platforms.

Government Technology: Connecticut Lawmakers Push for New AI Protection for Youth: Connecticut lawmakers on the state and national level are pushing for new internet-related legislation aimed at protecting children, citing a CT Insider investigation into state students’ sexually explicit relationships with AI chatbots.

Gizmodo: Texas Lawmakers Consider Legislation to Ban Minors From Social Media: Texas is set to lead the nation in restrictive legislation. Under a proposed bill, minors would be banned from social media, while platforms would also be required to introduce age verification methods. While supporters say the change would make children safer, critics argue that such legislation may do the exact opposite.

The Texas Tribune: Texas lawmakers are poised to ban minors from social media: The Texas Legislature is poised to impose sweeping restrictions on how minors use social media, from banning them from signing up for accounts and requiring parental consent to download applications, to placing warning labels about their dangers.

The Washington Post: Gen Z users and a dad tested Instagram Teen Accounts. Their feeds were shocking: Instagram promises parents that its Teen Accounts shield kids from harm “by default.” Tests by a Gen Z nonprofit and me — a dad — found it fails spectacularly on some key dimensions. This spring, Sacramento high school senior Saheb Gulati used a burner phone to create a test Instagram account for a hypothetical 16-year-old boy. As of this past fall, all accounts used by teens are supposed to automatically filter out “sensitive” content, among other protections, for mental health and safety.

WRIC-TV (Richmond): New Virginia law limits kids’ social media use, sparks mental health conversations: A new law in Virginia will soon limit the amount of time kids can spend on social media. Mental health experts say the change may come as a much-needed intervention. “Kids are spending an exuberant amount of time on screens right now,” said Anna McChesney, a therapist and CEO of the Center for Creative Healing. Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, kids under the age of 16 will be restricted to just one hour per day per social media platform.

The New York Times: Students Are Short-Circuiting Their Chromebooks for a Social Media Challenge: Across the country, students are short-circuiting their laptops at school in a new and sometimes dangerous social media trend. The “Chromebook challenge” involves students jamming objects into their laptops until they spark and smolder. Students then record the smoking laptops and share the footage on TikTok and Instagram, sometimes set to music, as viewers react with heart and thumbs-up emojis

The Dallas Express: Texas House Passes Bill Requiring Social Media Warning Labels For Minors: The Texas House passed a bill last week requiring social media platforms to display warning labels about the link between minors’ usage and significant mental health issues, a measure now advancing to the Senate with bipartisan support.

Northcentral PA: Williamsport police warn parents about ‘764’ network targeting kids: The Williamsport Police, Pennsylvania State Police, and FBI have issued statements warning parents about the sharp increase in online networks promoting violence and harmful activities, particularly the “764” network.

Scripps News: Virginia enacts law limiting social media use for kids under 16 to one hour daily: Virginia has enacted a law banning children under 16 from using social media for more than one hour per day. The new law requires social media apps to verify users’ ages and limit underage children to one hour of use daily.

WHRO: Youngkin signs Democratic-backed law to limit social media for kids: Henrico County State senator and high school civics teacher Schuyler VanValkenburg says he has seen firsthand the damage caused by social media. Among the bills Governor Glenn Youngkin signed in the last week was a Democrat-led effort to add new limits to social media for kids. Similar laws have faced legal challenge.

ABC 25: Inside 764: Online terror group targets children through gaming apps and social media: Imagine your 10-year-old is in their room, playing an online game like Roblox. Now imagine the “child” they think they’re chatting with is actually an adult with deviant, disturbing, and dangerous intentions — ranging from abuse to encouraging suicide.

Unicef: We must work together to address children’s access to violent content online: “Pornographic content can have a profound impact on children’s well-being and safety, and we are deeply alarmed by the massive amount of pornography available online, including increasingly graphic and extreme content that is easily accessible to children.

The New York Post: Online networks like ‘764’ target children for chilling violence:  Parents, do you know what your kids are doing online? If not, the answer may terrify you. Last month, the FBI issued a warning about the growing threat of violent online networks targeting minors. Lurking on gaming platforms, social media or self-help forums, members of these networks lavish attention on their targets.

ABC7: FBI: Online group “764” preying on children: The FBI has an urgent warning for parents. A terrifying criminal network of people is targeting children online in new and disturbing ways. They’re calling it the number one digital threat against kids.

ABC27: More proposals, rallies call for educational reform in Pennsylvania. Could change actually happen?: A school choice bill that would allow low-income students in poorer-performing districts to use tax dollars to attend private school passed out of committee in the Republican-controlled State Senate. There was also a rally in support of vouchers on the Pennsylvania Capitol steps. Bills and rallies aren’t new, but something passing would be.

ABC 11: North Carolina House to vote on social media restrictions, medical confidentiality for children: North Carolina House of Representatives is set to vote on 30 bills, including legislation on social media protections for minors, children’s medical records and school calendar flexibility. Two of the proposed legislation stand out for their impact on families and kids.

Bloomberg: New Zealand’s National Party Seeks Social Media Age Restrictions: New Zealand’s governing National Party wants to restrict access to social media for those aged under 16 years, mirroring a move in Australia that sparked criticism from global tech giants. A so-called members’ bill was put forward Tuesday by National parliamentarian Catherine Wedd, with endorsement from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Such a bill has to be selected from a ballot to be formally introduced into parliament, and would require the support of National’s coalition partners or the opposition to become law.

WUSA9: Virginia bill to limit social media usage for kids signed into law: The bill, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2026, would require parents to give “verifiable” consent if they want to decrease or increase these daily time limits.

The Associated Press: Rebels in Colombia are recruiting youth on social media. The UN wants TikTok and Facebook to do more: Rebel groups in Colombia are using apps like Facebook and Tik Tok to recruit children and young adults, and social media companies must do more to moderate content, the United Nations says. The U.N.’s top human rights official in Colombia, Scott Campbell, in an interview with The Associated Press said more investment is needed in both automated tools and human moderators to take down videos posted by gangs and rebel groups that are targeting youth from marginalized communities.

CBS News: Texas House votes to ban social media for children: In a bipartisan vote, the Texas House of Representatives on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill that would require social media platforms to legitimately verify users’ ages and forbid minors from opening or maintaining an account. It could radically change the social media landscape in Texas.

Time: How to Teach Kids the Importance of Digital Privacy: If you haven’t seen it, there’s an unsettling two-minute video circulating online called “A Message from Ella.” A young girl stares anxiously into the camera as she explains to her parents how identity thieves destroyed her credit, scammers cloned her voice to commit fraud, and an AI-generated deepfake featuring her face swept through her school, wrecking her reputation. Ella isn’t real—the clip is part of a European online privacy-awareness campaign—but it’s profoundly uncomfortable.

WALB News: State of Georgia sued over new social media law: Georgia is one of the newest states to get sued over its parental consent laws for children using social media. Georgia recently passed a law that requires parental consent for children under the age of 16 to use social media. AP News reported that Georgia is the eighth state to be challenged over its parental consent laws in court.

Los Angeles Daily News: Children on social media face a “Bad Influence” — from their parents:  Child social media influencer Piper Rockelle began her online career at just eight years old, skyrocketing to fame alongside her group of tweenage friends known as “The Squad.” But behind the scenes of playful videos, Rockelle’s mother, and manager, Tiffany Smith allegedly created an environment rife with emotional, physical, and even sexual abuse, according to Netflix‘s shocking new docuseries “Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing.” Unfortunately, what Piper and her friends experienced isn’t an anomaly. Every day, thousands of parents exploit child “influencers” too young to run their own social media accounts. Many of these adults may not realize, or simply don’t care, that some of the children’s most committed and lucrative followers have perverse intentions.

Government Technology: Pennsylvania Sheriff Urges State to Fight Cyber Crime Aimed at Kids: Organized groups of Nigerian cybercriminals are contacting American kids via social media and gaming, befriending them, and exchanging nude photos with them. When they have the American child’s likeness, they blackmail them, demanding money. That was just one of the disturbing revelations during a hearing on cybersecurity in Northampton Monday, convened by Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran.

ABC 27: Pennsylvania bill proposes establishing media literacy school curriculum:  A new bill proposed in the Pennsylvania State Senate would establish a media literacy curriculum for students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade to combat the rise of “fake news” in today’s world. The bill, proposed by Senator Katie Muth (D-144), intends to help students learn about the credibility of news sources and how to discern facts versus fiction amid the rapid spread of information.

The Verge: Whatever happened to the Kids Online Safety Act?: 2024 was shaping up to be the year Congress regulated how kids engage with social media, particularly through one bill, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). A debate about its risks to free expression still raged, but the voices of the bill’s advocates seemed to ring loudest in senators’ ears. The momentum was there. The Senate vote was virtually unanimous. Then, unexpectedly, House Republican leadership — worried KOSA would make Silicon Valley giants remove more conservative content — let it fade away.

6 ABC Action News: House passes bill aimed at protecting victims of deepfake and revenge porn: The US House of Representatives on Monday passed the “Take It Down” Act, which aims to protect Americans from deepfake and revenge pornography. Lawmakers voted 409-2 to pass the bill – which boosts protections for victims of non-consensual sharing of sexual images, including content generated by artificial intelligence known as deepfake porn – and it will go to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature.

New York Post: Meta allows Facebook, Instagram AI bots to engage in sick sex talk with kids — including in voices of Disney characters, celebs: report: Meta’s AI-powered chatbots on Facebook and Instagram are able to engage in graphic sex talk with users, even children, with the voices of Disney characters and celebrities, according to a bombshell report. AI using the personas of popular stars like John Cena, Kristen Bell, and Judi Dench were all capable of acting out sick fantasy chat with its users regardless of age, the Wall Street Journal found in tests of the software.   

BBC: Harry and Meghan call for stronger social media protections for children: Prince Harry and Meghan have been supporting families who say social media played a role in the deaths of their children. They have backed calls to technology firms that say parents should be able to gain access to information on the phones of children who have died, despite arguments about privacy. The prince said tech firms were “getting away with it” by arguing they didn’t need to disclose information to UK families because of privacy considerations.

South Florida Sun Sentinel: Florida accuses Snapchat of violating state’s social-media law aimed at kids: The lawsuit, filed Monday in Santa Rosa County circuit court, came after a federal judge last month rejected a request by tech-industry groups for an injunction to block the law. In a federal-court filing Monday, attorneys for the state said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier “expects that additional investigations and enforcement actions will commence soon.” The law (HB 3) seeks to prevent children under age 16 from opening social-media accounts on platforms that meet certain criteria — though it would allow parents to give consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to have accounts. Children under 14 could not open accounts.

KCRA: California Assembly bills aim at kids’ use of AI and social media apps: The bill’s author and sponsors say Assembly Bill 1064 aims to make sure school-age kids have a safe experience when they engage with emerging AI technologies. The bill is called the Leading Ethical AI Development (LEAD) for Kids Act.

Telecompaper: Meta adopts AI to verify ages on social media: The move is part of a wider expansion of protections for minors on Meta platforms, as the company faces new legislation as well as lawsuits around the world over the safety of social media for children. Countries such as Italy, France, the UK and Australia have passed laws in recent months requiring online platform

CBS: Instagram uses AI to crack down on teens posing as adults online: If it is determined that a user is misrepresenting their age, the account will automatically become a teen account, which has more restrictions than an adult account. Teen accounts are private by default. Private messages are restricted so teens can only receive them from people they follow or are already connected to. “Sensitive content,” such as videos of people fighting or those promoting cosmetic procedures, will be limited, Meta said. Teens will also get notifications if they are on Instagram for more than 60 minutes and a “sleep mode” will be enabled that turns off notifications and sends auto-replies to direct messages from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m.

Quartz: Instagram will use AI to catch teens using adult accounts: Instagram said Monday that it will begin using AI to catch teenagers using its platform with adult settings as it works to remedy its many child safety issues. Teen accounts are private by default and include restrictions on who teens can message. They also have tighter sensitive content restrictions, limits on tagging and mentions, and time controls. Teens under 16 need parental approval to make changes to their settings.

Politico: How Mark Zuckerberg is flipping the script on kids’ safety online: To protect kids online, Mark Zuckerberg says Congress should focus on Apple and Google — not Facebook and Instagram. The Meta CEO, owner of the two social media sites, is flooding Washington with ads aimed at convincing lawmakers to require his rivals’ app stores to verify shoppers’ ages and require parental consent for kids to download social media apps.

CBS 17 Raleigh: NC bill banning social media for children moves forward: A bill moving through the state house would ban children younger than 14 from having social media accounts and require parental permission for 14 and 15-year-olds. Bill sponsors say they’re concerned about online predators as well as the effect of social media on mental health

The Plain Dealer: Judge strikes down Ohio law requiring parental permission for kids to get social media accounts: Under the state law, passed as part of the 2023 state budget, when Ohioans age 15 or younger create an account with a website or platform that “targets children, or is reasonably anticipated to be accessed by children” — including social-media or online gaming sites – the site operator must verify that a parent or guardian consents to it.

PennLive: Opinion: Parents need tools to protect children from the dangers of the internet: Supporting parents with resources and tools to protect their kids from online dangers on the front end will help ensure that we don’t wind up seeing these very same children in our emergency rooms. It will help ensure they don’t suffer mental, emotional and behavioral health issues that are only made worse by unfettered exposure to online materials. The App Store Accountability Act would protect kids from danger while also ensuring the elements of the internet that benefit children continue to exist.

Bloomberg: Social Media’s ‘Big Tobacco Moment’ Is Coming: The new Bloomberg Originals documentary Can’t Look Away, which follows parents suing tech companies after the deaths of their children, is difficult to watch. It should be. The film lays bare what many parents already know: Social media is rewiring their children’s brains, creating a generation of short attention spans and social anxiety. While viewing the film, what became clear is that tech platforms aren’t doing nearly enough to stop it — and probably never will.

Institute of Family Studies: Government Action To Protect Kids Online Is Long Overdue: Congress convened a hearing late last month to discuss the harms kids face online and what lawmakers can do to better protect them. On Wednesday, March 26, the witnesses who testified before House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade told the country in harrowing detail what, in its heart of hearts, Congress already knows: that growing up in the synthetic world of social media, online porn, smartphones, and now, AI friends and sexual relations, has devastated a generation. But will Congress finally do something about it?

The DO: Breaking down social media use in children: Is it time for a warning label?: In his 2023 landmark report, Vivek Murthy, MD, the then-U.S. Surgeon General, sounded the alarm on the many risks of social media use among young people. On the heels of this, in June 2024, he amplified this distress signal when he published a powerful New York Times (NYT) opinion piece. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said, mentioning how social media use is negatively affecting our youth, with large social media corporations not being transparent about sharing data and parents feeling tremendous anxiety about their children being on social media platforms.

Fortune: Meta’s new rules block teenagers from livestreaming on Instagram: Meta’s continuing battle to shed criticisms about how it handles young users has resulted in new rule for teens on Instagram. People under the age of 16 will be blocked from livestreaming on the social network unless they first get parental approval. Parents will also be the only ones who can turn off a feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in direct messages sent to young users.

Reuters: Meta expands ‘Teen Accounts’ to Facebook, Messenger amid children’s online safety regulatory push: Meta’s expansion of safety features for teens comes as some lawmakers say they plan to press ahead with proposed legislation, such as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), seeking to protect children from social media harms. Meta, ByteDance’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube already face hundreds of lawsuits filed on behalf of children and school districts about the addictive nature of social media.

Bloomberg: Teens Blocked From Instagram Livestreaming as Meta Boosts Safety: Teens under age 16 will no longer be able to host live videos without a parent’s permission or share images containing suspected nudity through direct messages, the company said Tuesday. Meta is also rolling out “Teen Accounts” with more stringent privacy settings to users on Facebook and Messenger after releasing them first on Instagram last September.

BBC: Meta expands restrictions for teen users to Facebook and Messenger: Meta is expanding Teen Accounts – what it considers its age-appropriate experience for under 18s – to Facebook and Messenger. The system involves putting younger teens on the platforms into more restricted settings by default, with parental permission required in order to live stream or turn off image protections for messages.

Bloomberg: Social Media Victims Are Ready to Be Heard: Over the past two years, more than 2,000 lawsuits have been filed against Meta Platforms Inc., TikTok Inc. and Snap Inc., alleging the platforms have addicted children to screens, connected them to online predators, fed them harmful content and coaxed them to suicide. In congressional hearings in the US, senators have called for the companies to be held legally accountable for these harms — telling CEOs that they have blood on their hands. (None of those cases have yet come to trial, and the companies dispute the accusations, arguing that their platforms and algorithms were designed to build human connection and unlock creativity.)

Dallas Morning News: Will Texas ban kids from TikTok, social media? Bill aiming to limit digital access advances​: HB186 would require social media platforms to verify a user’s age when they try to create accounts. Tech companies such as Snap, X and Meta all have age requirements, but those safeguards are inadequate, Patterson said. He suggests social media be regulated in the same way as other adult-oriented products such as cigarettes, alcohol and tanning beds.

WUSA: Virginia bill to limit social media usage for kids awaits governor’s signature: A Virginia bill that would require social media companies to limit children under 16 to one hour per day on their apps was sitting on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk Thursday night, after passing in the General Assembly. The bill, which would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026, would also require apps to enforce a “neutral age screen mechanism” that would determine the age of its users.

San Antonio Express News: Bill banning kids from social media platforms advances to full Texas House: House Bill 186, filed in November by Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, advanced out of the Trade Workforce & Economic Development Committee on Wednesday and is headed to the full House for consideration. The bill would work toward “protecting minors online, in schools, and empowering parents to do the same” by restricting social media use through age verification for new users, preventing social media companies from conducting business with minors, as well as providing parents with the ability to remove a child’s account from a platform.

Bloomberg: Don’t Look Away From This Doc on Social Media and Teens: The film, which is streaming today on Jolt, is about a generation of children who have become so addicted to social media they quite literally can’t look away from their screens. It follows a small and scrappy group of attorneys fighting to hold social media companies accountable for causing devastating harm to kids. They represent cases where teens have killed themselves after being fed suicidal methods by algorithms or subjected to ruthless blackmail by international gangs of cyber-sextortionists or—like Neville’s son—sold deadly counterfeit pills by drug dealers who market to them online and deliver through bedroom windows.

Bloomberg: Social Media Bans for Children Ignore the Reality of Digital Life: On the one hand, the media tells parents that too much screen time compromises their children’s development, and by extension, their future wellbeing. On the other, a utopian narrative about the emancipating potential of digital technologies frames them as a necessary ingredient for young people’s education and success.

The Hollywood Reporter: Bloomberg Doc Reveals Social Media, Teen Drug Deaths Link: “This Is a Public Health Crisis” (Exclusive): A Bloomberg News feature documentary, Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media, set to premiere April 4 on Jolt, has spotlighted a link between online drug dealers and social media algorithms that allow the sale of fake pills to young people online, and a resulting epidemic of drug overdose deaths.

Philly Voice: For teens, strong friendships outweigh impact of social media on mental health: The new study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found healthy peer relationships to be the most powerful predictor of positive mental health among teens and that the type of social media use — like browsing or posting — had “little influence.” The link between strong friendships and positive mental health was nearly three times larger than the association between social media use and poor mental health.

Tech Times: TikTok Brings New Family Features for Parents, Teens for a Balanced, Safe Social Media Experience: Chinese social media platform TikTok has introduced new features that are looking to help make the experience better for everyone, especially the family. The new update from TikTok assures that all members of the family will get a “balanced” and “safe” experience on social media. While the big aspect of this latest update from TikTok is expanding parents’ control over their kids’ social media access, teens are also given the chance to get more out of the platform, which needs their parents’ consent.

The Times: TikTok gives parents power to block children’s use at dinnertime: Most social media apps have been introducing parental controls over the past few years in response to concerns. However, research has shown that the take-up of the controls has been low. TikTok does not publish the proportion of parents who use its Family Pairing features. Child protection groups have criticised platforms for shifting the burden of responsibility to parents instead of making their products safer.

Politico: Opinion: Our obsession with technology is failing our children: For too long, our society has celebrated technological innovation without asking fundamental questions about its effect on us. From social media to online dating and e-learning, digital tech’s rapid acceleration is driving a colossal cultural shift in how people interact, all while promising to unleash human potential and improve connectivity. And just last month, DeepSeek astonished investors as China challenged the U.S. over AI dominance, sending shock waves through the market.

Route Fifty: Social media companies applaud Utah’s latest bill aimed at teen social media use: The Utah Legislature passed a bill on Wednesday that would require app stores to verify the age of their customers, the latest attempt by the state to rein in teen social media use. And unlike some other social media bills passed by lawmakers, SB142 received positive feedback from some of the country’s biggest tech companies.

AP: UK data protection watchdog investigating how TikTok uses children’s personal data: The Information Commissioner’s Office said that there are growing concerns around how social media platforms were using data generated by children’s online activity to power their recommendation algorithms, and the potential for young people to see inappropriate or harmful content as a result. The regulator said that it wanted to ensure the robustness of TikTok’s safety procedures when it comes to using the personal information of teens ranging in age from 13 to 17.

Reuters: Big tech opposes YouTube exemption from Australia’s ban on social media for children: YouTube stands to be exempted from the ban set to take effect by the end of the year as it is considered a key educational tool and is the only service allowed for children as part of a family account with parental supervision rights. But Meta said a young person with a YouTube account experiences the features outlined by the government to justify the ban, including algorithmic content recommendations, social interaction features and exposure to harmful content.

Reuters: UK launches investigation into TikTok, Reddit over children’s personal data practices: Britain’s privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, on Monday launched an investigation into how TikTok, Reddit and online image sharing website Imgur safeguard children’s privacy. Social media companies use complex algorithms to prioritise content and keep users engaged. However, the fact that they amplify similar content can lead to children being influenced by increasing amounts of harmful material. The watchdog said it is probing how Chinese company ByteDance’s short-form video-sharing platform TikTok uses 13–17-year-olds’ personal information to suggest content in their feed.

WBTW: South Carolina House passes social media consent bill: Lawmakers said the bill would keep children safe and hold large social media corporations accountable for making billions of dollars while putting children at risk. Rep. Travis Moore, R-District 33, said the bill would require companies to verify users’ ages and ban people younger than 18 from social media sites unless they have parental approval. The bill would also block adults from messaging children unless they are already connected. Despite the bill passing 113-1 in the last legislative session, there was support and opposition on Thursday from lawmakers on both sides.

Telegraph: Social media is biggest risk to children’s mental health, parents say: Social media and excessive screen time were ranked top by 45 per cent of parents in a list of issues affecting their children’s mental wellbeing, ranging from ill health, smoking and alcohol to financial problems, bullying and low self-esteem.

The Carlisle Sentinel: An antidote for teen smartphone fever? High school service clubs: The internet and social media platforms have dramatically changed what it means to be a teenager, let alone an adult. The endless scroll of quick and colorful content sucks you inside the digital world and out of the physical world. But at some Cumberland County schools, students are fighting their self-described phone addiction, not through a trendy time-limit app or an impractical cold-turkey boycott. Instead, they’re volunteering.

The Verge: Meta wants to teach kids how to spot predators online: Meta says the curriculum consists of lesson plans, interactive classroom activities, and videos to help kids “navigate both the online and offline world safely.” It was developed with child safety experts from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Department of Homeland Security, the nonprofit organization Thorn, Purdue University, and the Crimes against Children Research Center.

Politico: Bill banning social media for youngsters advances: The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Wednesday to ban children under 13 from social media. By limiting access, the bill hopes to address youth anxiety and depression linked to social media.

The Washington Post: Meta pledged not to thwart a ‘kids code’ law. Its lobbyists sued anyway.: Meta pledged not to thwart Maryland’s “Kids Code.” Its lobbyists sued anyway. A lobbying group representing Meta, Google and other tech companies on Monday sued to block the Maryland “Kids Code,” one of several state laws passed in recent years meant to expand protections for children on social media and other platforms.

Bloomberg Government: Senators Advance Bill to Ban Children Under 13 From Social Media: Senators are moving forward with a sweeping proposal aimed at keeping young children off social media, but the measure faces an uphill battle as the technology industry lobby rails against it. The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved the Kids Off Social Media Act, or KOSMA (S. 278), which would ban children under the age of 13 from accessing social media platforms and prohibit algorithmically driven content to teens under 17.

The Conversation: Teens on social media: Red, blue and purple states are all passing laws to restrict and protect adolescents: Some of the new laws in places such as Maryland, Florida, Georgia and Minnesota include provisions that require parental consent before a child or teenager under the age of 18 can use a social media app, for example. Other new laws prevent targeted marketing to teens based on the personal information they share online. Others recognize child influencers who have active social media followings as workers.

Washington Post: Senators revive bill to ban kids under 13 from social media: Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Tuesday are reintroducing the Kids Off Social Media Act, or KOSMA, one of several major proposals aimed at expanding protections for children online that has been vying to build up support on Capitol Hill.

The Independent: Meta’s ‘bonfire’ of safety policies a danger to children, charity says: Earlier this month, boss Mark Zuckerberg announced sweeping changes to Meta’s policies in the name of “free expression”, including plans to scale back content moderation that will see the firm ending the automated scanning of content for some types of posts, instead relying on user reports to remove certain sorts of content. Campaigners called the move “chilling” and said they were “dismayed” by the decision, which has been attributed to Mr Zuckerberg’s desire to forge a positive relationship with new US President Donald Trump.

USA Today: Tablets, screen time aren’t ‘parenting hacks.’ They’re killing kids’ attention spans.: There are many questions and concerns to consider when it comes to how our children interact with technology – including whether or not they should. We asked how you handle it. Here’s what you said.

The New Yorker: Is Social Media More like Cigarettes or Junk Food?: In recent years, experts have been warning that social media harms children. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist who became a whistle-blower, told a Senate subcommittee that her ex-employer’s “profit optimizing machine is generating self-harm and self-hate—especially for vulnerable groups, like teenage girls.” A growing number of parents worry that their children are perpetually distracted and obsessed with their phones, and a mounting body of research supports these concerns. “It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents,” Vivek Murthy, whose second term as the U.S. Surgeon General ended on Monday, wrote in an opinion piece last year.

USA Today: Opinion: Parents, do you limit access to social media and technology or let it fly? Tell us.: It can be a blessing to let our kids sit quietly with technology when they’re young, but it’s frightening to watch them enter their teenage years with smartphones in their hands in a world of evolving social media. This is why we’re asking you, the readers, parents and caregivers, about your decision regarding technology and social media.

AdAge: Opinion: How Marketers Can Make Social Media Safer for Children: Social media isn’t just part of the digital landscape—it’s woven into the fabric of our daily lives. As a parent of two pre-teens, I see the effects up close. It’s in the beauty tutorials my daughter watches, the trends she follows and even the way she talks to the camera. At the same time, as a leader of a social agency, I’m part of the machine. I create content that competes for attention in this crowded, relentless space.

WHTM: Lancaster County teens arrested for school shooting threat on social media: Francy Brisma, 19, of Willow Street, is accused of uploading a picture of Garrett Swayne, 19, of Willow Street, who was holding a gun, with the caption “close the schools” and “time to play,” State Police out of Lancaster said in charging documents. A song called “Mask Murder” was also playing in the post.

Vox: Why we shouldn’t ban kids from social media: Rather than relying on parents to limit kids’ phone time (which, as many parents can attest, is sometimes easier said than done), a growing number of lawmakers are taking matters into their own hands by passing legislation that seeks to keep kids off social media entirely.

CNN: There’s going to be even more harmful content on social media as Meta drops fact-checkers. What to tell your kids: On Tuesday, Meta announced it’s ending its fact-checking partnerships for Instagram and Facebook in the United States. Instead, users will be able to write “community notes” on problematic posts. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that, as a result, the company will catch less “bad stuff” posted on its platforms.

Dallas Morning News: Texas lawmakers weigh strategies for protecting minors from social media: Proposals discussed included teaching students about digital literacy, limiting screen time on school-issued devices, taking students’ phones during instructional time, requiring users to opt in to data collection rather than having to opt out and strengthening Texas Education Association guidelines for school districts to force complianc

Philadelphia Tribune: Helping Children Develop Healthy Device and Media Habits: A new parent tool, the Glossary of Digital Media Platforms, offers the answers and will be handy for parents of children trying out new phones or other tech-related holiday gifts. The American Academy of Pediatrics Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health developed the free resource, which contains detailed information on popular digital platforms, including Apple, Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok and X, with more to come.

Florida Minors Under 14 Now Banned From Using Social Media Platforms: House Bill 3, the “Online Protections for Minors,” had received overwhelming, bi-partisan support from state legislators, and Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law last year. However, the state’s Attorney General Ashley Moody has said she will delay enforcing the law until late February, pending a judge’s ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction. Depending on how the court rules, social media companies could face significant challenges in abiding by the law.

Proposed Indiana bill could ban social media for minors: A new bill authored by State Senator Mike Bohacek would require social media platforms to have parents upload their credit card information and give annual consent for their children to access social media until their child turns 16 years old.

The New York Times: The Men Who Use Instagram to Groom Child Influencers: For the past year, The New York Times has been investigating how a drive for online fame has created a marketplace on Instagram of girl influencers who are managed by their parents — Instagram does not allow children under 13 to have their own accounts — and frequently draw an audience of men.

ChildLine

• ChildLine provides information, counseling, and referral services for families and children to ensure the safety and well-being of the children of Pennsylvania. The toll-free intake line,1-800-932-0313, is available 24/7 to receive reports of suspected child abuse.

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NCMEC CyberTipline

• The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline is the nation’s centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children. The public and electronic service providers can make reports of suspected online enticement of children for sexual acts, child sexual molestation, child sexual abuse material, child sex tourism, child sex trafficking, unsolicited obscene materials sent to a child, misleading domain names, and misleading words or digital images on the internet. Reports may be made 24/7 online at www.cybertipline.org OR by call the 24-Hour Hotline: 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678)