Online safety for kids and teens
A Vys biweekly brief | Apr 15, 2025
In this edition: the EU conducts enforcement actions against a gaming company, while Arkansas’s social media parental consent law is struck down. Roblox and Meta expand their controls for minors. School phone bans are still in the spotlight, with commentary and news in The BMJ, The New York Times, The Times (UK) and from the Cyberbullying Research Center and Full Fact.
Regulatory updates
Judge declares Arkansas social media age verification law unconstitutional. A US state law requiring social media platforms to verify the ages of users and obtain parental consent was blocked by federal court, both on First Amendment grounds and as unconstitutionally vague. The legislature is already at work on a replacement bill.
NJ teen wins fight to put nudify app users in prison, impose fines up to $30K. New Jersey enacted a state law imposing civil and criminal penalties for a variety of deceptive uses of deepfake technology, including deepfake CSAM. Francesca Mani, now a national teen advocate, is pushing for stronger school policies nationwide, warning that inaction from educators often worsens harm and allows abuse to spread unchecked.
EU Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) launches child safety enforcement action against Star Stable Entertainment. Coordinated by the European Commission, the CPC claims Star Stable used manipulative and non-transparent tactics in their game that could exploit children, including pressure to buy in-game items and unclear pricing. The company has one month to respond and propose fixes. CPC has also released a new set of guidelines regarding virtual currencies in gaming.
Industry news
Smart technologies are increasingly misused to abuse children. A Tech Policy Press article describes a growing awareness of the ways in which children are at risk from smart devices, including location trackers, smart assistants, and toys. This includes harms like stalking and surveillance, exacerbated by children’s limited autonomy and understanding of technology.
T-Mobile glitch reveals the names, pictures, and exact locations of random children. A temporary bug in the network provider’s SyncUP GPS tracking system for parents displayed the live location of other children to users, instead of their own. One parent described logging in and seeing eight random children’s locations, raising serious concerns about data security and child privacy.
Roblox announces three additional parental controls. The new functionalities for parents include the ability to block individuals on children’s contact lists; granular control over access to specific experiences; and more detailed data about how their children spend their time on the platform.
GenNomis’ (AI image generator) exposed database includes significant amounts of CSAM. A security researcher discovered a cache of GenAI prompts and output imagery that included significant quantities of CSAM. GenNomis left its AI image database publicly accessible without encryption or password protection. It also did not adequately moderate content, allowing explicit and illegal AI-generated images to persist. The company also lacked transparency and a timely response, compounding the harm caused by these security and safety lapses.
Meta is introducing new built-in restrictions for Instagram teen accounts, and expanding to Facebook and Messenger. Building on the Instagram teen accounts announced last year, Meta has added new restrictions, including switching off Instagram Live and requiring parental action to turn off blurring for detected nudity in DMs. Teen accounts with similar settings will also be rolling out for Facebook and Messenger.
Research and civil society
New findings from four EU countries link excessive social media usage with negative mental health outcomes in adolescents. A European Commission report analysing 2022 survey data from over 40,000 teenagers in Ireland, Hungary, Slovenia and Spain indicates that excessive social media usage is associated with depression and anxiety. The authors highlight gender disparities, with young females seemingly at significantly higher risk for negative mental health outcomes.
Cyberbullying Research Center suggests no conclusive link between student phone use at school and mental health or academic outcomes. Professor Sameer Hinduja analyzed studies regarding cellphone usage and bans in school, finding mixed results overall. He emphasizes the need for nuanced approaches, suggesting that blanket phone bans may not address underlying issues and that further research is necessary to inform effective policies.
Phone bans in UK schools:
A group of academics from the UK and other countries penned an analysis for the BMJ that pointed out the shortcomings of bans (in school and on social media) to protect children from online harms and highlighted the importance of a rights-respecting approach, combined with education and age-appropriate design. One of the authors, Cambridge University’s Amy Orben, is the lead on a large government-backed effort to study tech and adolescent mental health and some MPs and activists have now complained that the BMJ article reveals her as unacceptably biased. The New York Times has also reported on the UK grassroots campaign to ban phones in schools, despite the government stepping back from the proposed policy. Meanwhile, Full Fact investigated the Prime Minister’s claim that most British schools already ban phones, concluding that “there isn’t a completely clear answer.”
The risk to children from sexual abuse continues to increase, aggravated by evolving online environments and technology adoption, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency’s 2025 National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime. Elsewhere in the Assessment, the agency warns of a concerning increase in online groups pressuring young people into committing crimes and harming themselves.
Gen Z and their encounters with misogyny online. Amnesty International UK commissioned a poll of UK respondents aged 16-25 on their experiences and perceptions of online misogyny. Notable amongst the findings: more than half of both male and female respondents expressed comfort with taking action against harassment that they encounter online.
The “segregate-and-suppress” approach to regulating child safety online (preprint). Internet law expert Prof. Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University writes for Stanford Technology Law Review, systematically reviewing the pitfalls of legislation that requires age assurance and other mandates for platforms to treat children differently to adults.
Online Safety Monitor reviews children’s rights online and how they have been implemented. Irish NGO the Children’s Rights Alliance presents an inaugural annual report focused on children’s rights, the EU and national legislative environment, and educational and preventative measures. Recommendations include establishing “best interests of the child” as the key consideration in legislation, regulation of platform design, and prioritizing enforcement of existing laws where children are implicated.