Parents WiredIn News: Online Safety Updates for Parents

Parents WiredIn News

The online-safety stories worth knowing about, in plain English — what changed and what it means for us.

Last updated 5 August 2026

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PolicySocial Media Ban

US Senate takes up a kids-online-safety package — including a push to keep under-13s off social media

3 August 2026 · Policy

After years of stop-start, the US Senate is finally moving on kids' online safety: this first week of August the Senate Commerce Committee is set to mark up a bundle of bills, reportedly on August 5. The centerpiece is the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would force social media companies to switch minors' accounts to the strongest privacy and safety settings by default, hand parents real controls, and — through a 'duty of care' — make platforms legally answerable when their design pushes kids toward harm. Bundled alongside it is Chairman Ted Cruz's Kids Off Social Media Act, which would bar under-13s from social media outright and rein in the algorithms aimed at teens, plus a measure requiring AI companies to offer family accounts so parents can keep an eye on chatbot use. It has rare cross-party backing — Republicans Cruz and Marsha Blackburn alongside Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Maria Cantwell — and the Senate once passed an earlier KOSA 91-3, only for it to stall in the House over free-speech worries.

What this means for us

It's a real sign the US is inching toward its own rules, and worth keeping half an eye on — but 'marked up in committee' is a long way from becoming law, and even then it won't quietly log any kid off tomorrow. So this is one to watch, not wait on: the age settings and parental controls we put on the devices at home, plus the ordinary conversations, are still doing the real work today — our family plan at /start is the place to start.

Source: The Washington TimesRead the ban guide →

PolicySocial Media Ban

Australia's world-first under-16 ban has barely moved the needle — 8 in 10 kids are still on social media

31 July 2026 · Policy

The world's first under-16 social media ban has its first real report card, and it's a sobering one for anyone hoping a law alone would fix things. Australia's eSafety Commissioner found that three months in, 81.5% of 10-to-15-year-olds were still using an age-restricted platform — down only slightly from 85.9% before the ban took effect in December — while the share with their own account slipped from about 52% to 42%. The reason is blunt: more than half the kids surveyed said a platform never once asked them to prove their age, some were simply waved through as 16-plus, and many just self-reported an older age or kept browsing while logged out, which the rules still allow. eSafety is now investigating the big platforms — Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube among them — over whether they're really trying to comply. One unexpected twist: with kids quietly migrating to corners like Reddit and Pinterest, parents' awareness of what their children were actually using went down, not up.

What this means for us

Australia is the test case the US and UK are both watching, and the honest lesson is that a ban without working age checks barely dented things — and may even have pushed some kids somewhere harder for parents to see. That's not a reason to shrug; it's the reason the settings and conversations at home still matter most. Set accounts to a child's real age, switch on the controls, and keep the everyday check-ins going — our family plan at /start walks you through it.

Source: Tech Xplore (The Conversation)Read the ban guide →

PolicySocial Media Ban

New York finalizes its SAFE for Kids Act rules — no 'addictive' feeds or midnight pings for under-18s without a parent's OK

28 July 2026 · Policy

New York put the finishing touches on its SAFE for Kids Act on July 28, releasing the final rules that spell out how the 2024 law will actually work — and they take aim at the very features that keep kids glued to their phones. Under the rules, social media companies won't be allowed to show under-18s an algorithm-driven 'addictive' feed by default; instead young users get a plain, in-order feed of the accounts they follow, unless a parent opts them in. Platforms also can't ping under-18s with notifications between midnight and 6am without a parent's say-so. To do any of that, a company first has to reasonably work out who's under 18 — using something other than just a government ID — and get a parent's verified consent, and crucially a child can't be locked out of the app for saying no. The rules are formally published July 29 and take effect January 25, 2027, with fines of up to $5,000 per violation.

What this means for us

This is one of the first US laws to go after the design tricks — the endless feed and the late-night buzz — rather than just who's allowed on, and other states are watching. But it's a while off yet (2027) and it only covers New York, so it won't quietly fix things in your house tomorrow. The good news is you don't have to wait for a law: most phones and apps already let you switch off notifications overnight and turn off autoplay right now, on any device — our family plan at /start walks you through it.

Source: New York State (Governor's Office)Read the ban guide →

PolicySocial Media Ban

Vietnam's twist: let under-16s keep their accounts, but switch off posting

24 July 2026 · Policy

A TechCrunch roundup on July 24 flagged Vietnam as the newest country weighing rules for kids on social media — with an unusual twist. Rather than locking under-16s out altogether the way Australia and France have, a draft decree from Vietnam's culture ministry would let them keep their accounts but strip away the ability to post, comment or react — so they can look, but not join in. Parents would have to register their child's account, and platforms would be expected to work out who the young users are and steer them toward age-appropriate content; a deputy minister framed it as aiming for 'an age-appropriate environment' rather than a blanket ban. The same push also floated capping under-16s at an hour a day per game. It's still only a draft, but it lands on a fast-growing list — Australia's under-16 ban is already live, France's under-15 law passed this month, and Denmark, Greece, Malaysia and others are drafting their own somewhere between ages 14 and 16.

What this means for us

The interesting part here isn't Vietnam specifically — it's that countries are trying different shapes of the same idea, from a hard lockout to this 'read-only for kids' halfway house. None of it, though, reaches into our own living rooms. Wherever we live, setting a child's account to their real age, switching on the parental controls and keeping up the ordinary conversations is still what does the real work — our family plan at /start is a good place to begin.

Source: TechCrunchRead the ban guide →

PolicySocial Media Ban

France becomes the first EU country to ban under-15s from social media

21 July 2026 · Policy

On July 21 both houses of France's parliament passed a law banning children under 15 from social media — the first blanket ban of its kind anywhere in the European Union. The same law also switches off cell phones in high schools, and it carves out exceptions for things like online encyclopedias and educational or scientific sites. President Macron, who made this one of his signature causes, wants it in force by the start of the new school year in September, though a constitutional review could push that back — and lawmakers openly admit the hard part is still age verification and what to do about the accounts under-15s already have. France's own health watchdog reported that around 90% of 12-to-17-year-olds use a smartphone every day and nearly six in ten use it for social media. It's the latest domino to fall after Australia's world-first under-16 ban.

What this means for us

Europe's biggest countries are now drawing a line, and France has gone furthest by writing it into law — but as their own officials admit, actually keeping under-15s logged out is the tricky part, and no ban reaches into our own living rooms. Wherever we live, the age settings and controls we put on the devices, plus the ordinary conversations, are still what do the real work — start with our family plan at /start.

Source: NPRRead the ban guide →

PolicySocial Media Ban

The catch with checking kids' ages: everyone may end up proving theirs

21 July 2026 · Policy

As country after country moves to keep under-16s off social media, Fortune laid out the quiet trade-off on July 21: to check that a user isn't a child, a platform has to check everyone — so age rules aimed at kids are nudging the whole internet toward proving ID. It's not theoretical. Australia banned under-16s back in December, yet six months on more than 60% of those teens still had access, slipping past the checks with everything from makeup to fake IDs, VPNs and a family member's account. The UK's Ofcom has opened an investigation into TikTok's age-guessing and is pushing platforms toward stricter face- or ID-based checks, while France's new under-15 ban is stuck choosing between privacy-invasive ID scans and face scans that are easy to fool. Here in the US, Congress is advancing the Kids Online Safety Act and an App Store Accountability Act that raise the very same privacy questions. The honest bottom line: no age-check method yet is both hard to fool and easy on privacy.

What this means for us

It's worth understanding the bargain buried in these laws — the price of reliably checking kids' ages tends to be everyone handing over more proof of who they are, and none of it is watertight yet anyway. That's not a reason to wait for the rules to catch up. Whatever the law does, the age settings and parental controls we put on the devices at home — plus the ordinary conversations — are still doing the real work, and our family plan at /start is the place to begin.

Source: FortuneRead the ban guide →

PolicySocial Media Ban

UK regulator opens a formal investigation into TikTok's age checks

16 July 2026 · Policy

A day after its big age-assurance report, Ofcom announced on 16 July that it is formally investigating TikTok over whether the app is doing enough to keep children safe under the UK's Online Safety Act. The specific worry is age-estimation: Ofcom says the kind of models TikTok leans on may be failing to correctly spot a sizeable share of the children using the app, which means kids could be seeing content that was never meant for them. It is not a slap on the wrist — if Ofcom finds TikTok fell short, it can levy fines of up to £18 million or 10% of the company's worldwide revenue, whichever is bigger, and in the very worst cases even ask the courts to have the service blocked in the UK. The investigation is expected to run at least three months, with an update due in October.

What this means for us

It's a useful reminder that even the age checks the big platforms are proud of don't reliably tell a 12-year-old from an adult — the regulator itself isn't convinced. So it's worth setting your own child's account to their real birth date and switching on the family/teen supervision tools rather than trusting the app to sort ages out on its own.

Source: Digital Watch ObservatoryRead the ban guide →

PolicySocial Media Ban

UK plans a midnight-to-6am social media 'curfew' for 16- and 17-year-olds

16 July 2026 · Policy

On July 16 the UK government set out plans to give 16- and 17-year-olds a built-in overnight break from social media — a default lockout from midnight to 6am on apps like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, with 'keep scrolling' tricks like autoplay and infinite feeds switched off by default for that age group too. It's meant as a gentler step than an outright ban: teens would be able to turn the settings back off, but the government points to trials where more than nine in ten teenagers left the safer defaults switched on. It sits alongside Britain's bigger plan to bar under-16s from social media altogether, which is expected around 2027. Not everyone is convinced — the child-safety charity NSPCC called an opt-out curfew a 'sticking plaster' — and it still has to be written into law before anything actually changes.

What this means for us

There's a nice idea buried in here for any of us: a phone that quietly winds down at bedtime helps kids actually sleep. We don't have to wait for a UK law to do it — most phones and parental-control apps let you set 'downtime' overnight and turn off autoplay right now, on any device, wherever you live.

Source: Al JazeeraRead the ban guide →

PolicySocial Media Ban

UK regulator: age checks are spreading fast — but sites still let too many kids through

15 July 2026 · Policy

Ofcom, the UK's online-safety regulator, published its first big 'age assurance' report on 15 July, taking stock of how well websites and apps are actually checking who is a child. The encouraging part: proper, hard-to-fool age checks are being rolled out at a scale we haven't seen before, and the share of children asked to prove their age who met a genuinely effective check climbed from about 25% to 43% in six months. The blunt part: the social platforms are still doing a poor job of enforcing their own minimum ages, and Ofcom said they will have to get a lot better if any under-16 rules are going to mean anything. It also ruled out one popular shortcut — quietly guessing a user's age from how they behave after they have signed up — as not good enough on its own for the sites that must keep children out. Ofcom has been asked to report back by the end of October on how a reliable 'are you over 16?' check could actually work, to feed into the UK's planned ban.

What this means for us

The honest headline is that the tech is getting better but still isn't watertight, so plenty of kids are still getting through the front door. Until it catches up, the age settings and parental controls we put on the devices at home are still doing most of the real work — that's where our family plan at /start comes in.

Source: OfcomRead the ban guide →