Parents WiredIn News: Online Safety Updates for Parents

Gaming

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Gaming

US state sues Roblox and Discord over a 'predatory pipeline'

Arkansas has become the latest US state to take Roblox to court — and this time it has pulled Discord in alongside it. The state's Attorney General, Tim Griffin, argues the two apps together form a 'two-stage predatory pipeline': a predator first makes contact with a child inside a game on Roblox, then moves the chat across to Discord, where private messages are far harder for parents to see. The filing claims Roblox didn't put strong enough age checks or grooming warnings in place, and points to reports of suspected child exploitation linked to Roblox rising from 675 in 2019 to more than 13,000 in 2023. Both companies dispute the claims and say they are investing heavily in safety; several other US states have already sued or settled with Roblox.

22 June 2026 · Gaming

Source: Biometric Update

Gaming

Roblox brings in age-based accounts and face-scan age checks

Roblox is rolling out a big set of changes to how it handles younger players. Everyone now gets sorted into age groups — using either an AI facial age estimate or ID — and you can generally only chat with people in a similar age band. The change landed first in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands and is now spreading to more countries. It's partly Roblox trying to get ahead of Australia's under-16 social media rules, though Roblox isn't on the official ban list at this stage.

12 June 2026 · Gaming

Source: The Nightly

Gaming

FBI warns predators are using game chats to reach kids

The FBI has warned that the real danger in online gaming isn't the games themselves — it's the people using game chats, social feeds and private apps to get to children. Agents describe a pattern where someone befriends a child in a normal-looking chat, then moves things into private messaging where kids can be pressured, threatened or blackmailed. They singled out one network (known as '764') that's being treated as seriously as domestic terrorism. The FBI's advice is reassuringly down-to-earth: set up parental controls and privacy settings, and keep talking with your kids about who they're actually chatting to.

8 June 2026 · Gaming

Source: WIS News (FBI Columbia)

Social

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Social

Instagram and Facebook tighten 'Teen Account' settings worldwide

Meta has announced a batch of changes to Teen Accounts across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. The headline is a new '13+' content setting now rolling out globally — modelled on movie-style age ratings — which by default hides content that isn't suitable for teens in places like Feed and Reels, and limits the kinds of profiles, pages and groups they can interact with. Meta is also leaning harder on AI to catch accounts that really belong to under-age kids: as well as reading profiles for clues like birthday posts or mentions of school grades, it now scans photos and videos for general visual hints about a person's age (Meta says this isn't facial recognition and doesn't identify the individual). And parents who use supervision will start getting an alert if their teen repeatedly searches for suicide or self-harm terms in a short space of time. A revamped Family Centre pulls the controls into one place.

17 June 2026 · Social

Source: Meta Newsroom

Social

A close look at what an hour on TikTok actually does to kids

Researchers at Revealing Reality, working with the 5Rights Foundation, did something clever — instead of just asking kids about their screen time, they recorded what was actually happening on 21 children's phones, minute by minute. The picture is sobering. On average the kids watched around 708 videos a day, with about half given five seconds or less before the thumb flicked on. Three in four (76%) were on TikTok at some point between midnight and 6am, ads turned up about one in every five videos, and sexualised content showed up regularly in some feeds. The kids themselves called it addictive and said it left them feeling guilty, flat and tired — and that it actually ate into time with friends rather than adding to it.

12 June 2026 · Social

Source: 5Rights Foundation

AI

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AI

Nearly 9 in 10 kids now use AI — and many turn to it before a parent

A new Common Sense Media survey of 1,204 children found that almost 9 in 10 kids aged 9 to 17 are using or chatting with AI, and about 1 in 4 do it every day. A lot of them now reach for AI before a parent or teacher — for homework, questions about their health and body, and personal worries. What stood out for me: nearly half had never talked about AI safety with a grown-up, only about a third realised AI can't reliably tell what's true from what's false, and of the roughly 1 in 6 who'd been shown something inappropriate by a chatbot, most never told a trusted adult. The researchers also flagged that heavier use lined up with feeling lonelier and less happy, and called the findings a 'wake-up call'.

13 June 2026 · AI

Source: Common Sense Media

AI

UNICEF: when a chatbot becomes a child's 'friend', the rules need to catch up

UNICEF has put out a policy brief, 'When AI becomes a friend', looking at chatbots and AI companion apps through a children's-rights lens. It found kids are leaning on these bots for more than homework now — for advice, support and something that can start to feel like friendship. UNICEF compared how six countries are handling it and concluded the rules are mostly reacting after harm happens rather than preventing it. It's calling for a shared-responsibility approach across governments, companies, parents, teachers and communities so AI can grow up without trampling kids' safety and wellbeing.

9 June 2026 · AI

Source: UNICEF

Scams

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Scams

New study: financial sextortion is hitting teen boys hardest

Researchers at the University of South Florida have taken a close look at one of the fastest-growing online crimes — financial sextortion — and found teenage boys and young men are now the main targets. The pattern is grimly simple: someone strikes up a flirty chat on a dating app or social platform, coaxes the conversation somewhere private, gets an image shared, then flips to threats and demands for money. The lead researcher, Roberta O'Malley, found scammers increasingly use AI-generated photos and fake avatars to seem real, and dig up details like a victim's school or workplace to make the threat feel more frightening. Boys and men described intense shame, anxiety and self-blame; an earlier study by the same author found more than half had experienced some level of suicidal thoughts.

22 June 2026 · Scams

Source: University of South Florida

Scams

Google's latest scam warning: fake QR codes, dodgy invites and 'guaranteed' money

Google's Trust & Safety team put out its June scams update, walking through the tricks they're seeing most right now. The list includes QR-code phishing (a dodgy code in a surprise email), fake calendar and meeting invites made to look official, crypto schemes promising 'guaranteed' returns, finance apps that quietly demand access to your contacts and photos, and scammers pretending to be police or government chasing urgent payment. To put the scale on it, they point to global fraud losses of nearly $580 billion in 2025, with around one in five adults getting caught by a scam. Their simple advice: don't scan QR codes from unexpected emails, type a company's web address in yourself rather than tapping links, be wary of anything 'guaranteed', and only install apps from the official stores.

8 June 2026 · Scams

Source: Google (The Keyword)

Screen time

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Screen time

Scottish study: less screen time, more sleep and movement for kids' brain health

A new report card on Scottish children's activity — led by the University of Strathclyde with the University of Stirling and others, and funded by Brain Health Scotland — found fewer than one in five teenagers there keep their screen time under the recommended two hours a day, and around half aren't getting the sleep they need (nine to 11 hours for younger teens, eight to 10 for older ones). The researchers' point is that all those hours on screens crowd out the movement and sleep that help young brains build skills like reasoning, planning and problem-solving, and that this 'displacement' tends to start as young as four or five and grows year on year. It isn't framed as panic — the team also noted Scotland has good policies in place, and that the habits we set early shape brain health for decades to come.

17 June 2026 · Screen time

Source: University of Stirling

Screen time

Big EU survey links heavy screen time to how kids feel

A Europe-wide survey from the European Commission has put numbers to something a lot of us already feel in our bones. On school days, young people are spending about 4.5 hours online, and more than 6 hours a day on weekends. Nine in ten teens reported at least one downside they put down to screens — tired eyes, headaches, trouble concentrating or eating less well — and nearly one in three said social media had left them feeling stressed, sad or left out. Around 45% said they compare themselves to others online. It wasn't all doom, mind you: more than half of parents said they'd back extra limits on social media. The findings landed as the EU's expert panel wrapped up its advice to the Commission on protecting kids online.

16 June 2026 · Screen time

Source: European Commission

Screen time

Apple's new parent controls: ask-to-browse, time limits and a tidier Screen Time

Apple has shown off a batch of new parental controls coming with its software updates later this year. A few stood out as actually useful. 'Ask to Browse' means your child has to get your okay before opening a new website in Safari, which pairs with the existing 'Ask to Buy' for app downloads. 'Time Allowances' let you set limits by category — games, entertainment, social — with suggested starting points based on your child's age, and you can set schedules so apps switch off during school or dinner. Screen Time itself has been redesigned to show at a glance how long kids are on their devices and which apps they use most. Apple also said its Communication Safety feature, which already blurs nudity, will now step in on violent or gory images too.

8 June 2026 · Screen time

Source: Apple Newsroom

Policy

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Policy

UK Parliament weighs up the evidence on banning social media for under-16s

The House of Commons Library — the UK Parliament's independent research service — has published a plain-English briefing weighing up the plan to bar under-16s from social media, following the government's announcement on 15 June. It sets out what's proposed (the UK would follow Australia's model but go further, also blocking livestreaming and contact with strangers for under-16s, with the law expected by early 2027) and walks calmly through the arguments on both sides. It acknowledges the genuine harms — content pushing eating disorders, self-harm, suicide and unhealthy body image, plus design features built to keep kids scrolling — while also flagging the open questions about whether a ban is the right fix and how age would actually be checked. Australia's early figures get a mention: its March 2026 update reported a 'significant number' of under-16 accounts removed or restricted.

25 June 2026 · Policy

Source: House of Commons Library

Policy

From this week, more Aussie sites must check age before showing adult content

Here in Australia the next stage of eSafety's Age-Restricted Material Codes kicks in on 27 June, and the net is cast wide — app stores, search engines, social media, gaming services and even AI companion chatbots. In plain terms: app stores have to stop under-18s downloading R18+ apps, search engines will blur pornography and high-impact violence for people who aren't logged in, and a search for suicide or eating-disorder content will return a helpline first. AI companion bots that can produce sexual, violent or self-harm material now have to confirm you're an adult before going there. eSafety says any age checks have to be accurate, fair and privacy-respecting, and are run by the service itself — not handed over to the government.

22 June 2026 · Policy

Source: eSafety Commissioner

Policy

UK moves to ban under-16s from social media — and puts the blame on the platforms

The UK has announced plans to stop children under 16 from using TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook and X, with the law expected to start in spring 2027. Messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal, and YouTube Kids, are left out. The big shift is who's held responsible: instead of leaning on parents to police it, the rules put the duty on the platforms themselves, with fines that could reach 10% of a company's worldwide revenue if they don't keep under-16s out. It goes a bit further than Australia's own under-16 ban, which started in December 2025 — the UK also wants to block livestreaming and stranger contact for under-16s and restrict 'romantic companion' AI chatbots to over-18s. The honest catch everyone keeps circling back to is age checks: there's still no proven way to confirm someone's age without either weak results or handing over ID and face scans.

16 June 2026 · Policy

Source: Tech Times

Policy

UK regulator tells tech firms: keep underage kids off your platforms

Over in the UK, the online safety regulator Ofcom has put tech companies on notice that they need to actually keep under-age children off services that aren't built for them — not just rely on a tick-box that asks for a birthday. It's part of the Online Safety Act's child-protection duties coming into force, with platforms expected to assess the risks and show what they're doing about them. The children's charity NSPCC has welcomed the direction but says there's still a long way to go.

8 June 2026 · Policy

Source: Ofcom