The hottest Child safety Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top U.S. Politics Topics

Meta's Legal Team Abandoned Its Ethical Duties

After Babel • 1743 implied HN points • 20 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Child safety
  1. Meta’s in-house lawyers allegedly hid and destroyed research showing harm to children and used attorney-client privilege to suppress evidence, mirroring tactics once used by Big Tobacco. This behavior shows lawyers abandoning their duties to the court and the public in order to protect a powerful client.
  2. Existing accountability tools — like state bar investigations, judges piercing privilege, disbarment, and legislative reform of privilege rules — could and should be used to punish and deter such conduct. Holding individual lawyers and leaders responsible is presented as a necessary step to stop ongoing harm.
  3. If corporate lawyers are allowed to enable cover-ups, public trust in the legal system and the safety of children are at grave risk. Restoring and enforcing legal ethics is framed as essential to preserve the rule of law and prevent wealthy actors from corrupting justice.

How Instagram Broke Its Promise to Protect Teens

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 162 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
🕹 Technology Child safety
  1. Instagram publicly promised to remove graphic self-harm content from searches, hashtags, and recommendations.
  2. Despite that promise, its algorithm kept surfacing self-harm and eating‑disorder content, leaving teens exposed to vast amounts of harmful posts like many tagged #weightloss.
  3. Newly unsealed internal documents show executives knew the platform was still failing and were worried about being exposed, suggesting the company focused on damage control rather than fully fixing the problem.

It’s Not Just a Game Anymore

After Babel • 3082 implied HN points • 21 Jul 25
🕹 Technology Child safety
  1. Online gaming has changed a lot, with many games designed to keep players engaged and spending money all the time. This makes it important for parents to be aware of how their children interact with these games.
  2. User-generated content can be a double-edged sword; while it allows kids to play creatively, it can also expose them to harmful or inappropriate material that isn't well monitored.
  3. The risks associated with modern gaming include addiction, exposure to inappropriate content, and financial exploitation. Parents should take steps to understand the games their kids are playing and set rules around gaming.

TikTok Is Harming Children at an Industrial Scale

After Babel • 3575 implied HN points • 09 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Child safety
  1. TikTok is known to harm kids by being highly addictive, making them spend hours on the app, which can lead to mental health issues.
  2. The platform exposes users to harmful content like drugs, violence, and sexual exploitation, often without proper moderation.
  3. Many young people actually wish TikTok didn't exist due to its negative effects, but feel stuck using it to keep up with trends.

Searching for Soul in Roblox

Off-Topic • 209 implied HN points • 09 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Child safety
  1. Roblox often links players to Discord and other off-platform chats, and those links are inconsistently enforced, which pushes children into spaces with far less moderation and higher risk.
  2. Roblox leans on Discord so older players can have uncensored chat. But Discord doesn’t verify ages and depends on volunteer moderators, creating opportunities for predators, scams, and exploitative labor practices that target young users.
  3. Roblox’s safety tools — heavy filters, AI moderation, and proposed facial age checks — are imperfect and under-resourced, and the company often seems to prioritize growth and PR over thorough protection, which has driven community members to take vigilante action out of frustration.
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How to Legislate in a Half-Known World

After Babel • 654 implied HN points • 18 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Child safety
  1. Lawmakers should act on available evidence even if it isn't perfect. Waiting for absolute proof can delay important decisions that affect people's lives, especially kids.
  2. Policymaking often requires balancing what's known with the unknown. Legislators face various pressures and must make decisions with limited information in a timely manner.
  3. It's important for lawmakers to demand safety from companies before allowing their products. Just like with drugs and food, firms should prove their products are safe for children, not the other way around.

Britain's Berlin firewall

Wrong Side of History • 394 implied HN points • 09 Aug 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Child safety
  1. Technology has changed how we learn from older generations. Now, younger people often teach their parents about tech instead of the other way around.
  2. Many lawmakers don’t fully understand technology, which can lead to bad laws like the Online Safety Act. This law started with good intentions but might limit freedom and hurt the tech industry.
  3. There are concerns that new internet regulations could have unexpected negative effects. Experts warned about this, but their advice wasn't taken seriously because there weren't enough past examples to learn from.

Congress Must Pass KOSA By Christmas. The Only Obstacle Seems to be Meta’s Influence

After Babel • 1221 implied HN points • 12 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Child safety
  1. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) aims to protect children online by introducing stronger privacy settings and reducing harmful features on social media platforms.
  2. There is significant concern over the current impact of social media on kids, including issues like sextortion and mental health problems, which KOSA seeks to address.
  3. The bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress, but its progress is hindered by lobbying from major social media companies that fear regulation.

The Tech Industry’s Playbook To Prevent Regulation

After Babel • 647 implied HN points • 11 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Child safety
  1. The tech industry often blames users for any harm their products cause. They argue that it's up to individuals to control their usage rather than taking responsibility themselves.
  2. Tech companies have developed tools like parental controls, but these often fail to make a real impact on screen time. Instead, they shift the responsibility to parents, making it seem like it's their job to manage their kids' online behavior.
  3. Legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) tries to hold tech companies accountable while also giving parents some control. This is important because it recognizes that tech companies have a duty to ensure their products don't harm kids.

Fixing the Web without the Stanford Internet Observatory?

Unmoderated Insights • 39 implied HN points • 14 Jun 24
🕹 Technology Child safety
  1. The Stanford Internet Observatory did important work to study online abuse and misinformation, helping inform lawmakers and create tools for research.
  2. Unfortunately, it closed after facing legal troubles, which affected its ability to continue funding and operations.
  3. Despite the closure, some projects and research from the Observatory are being handed over to other organizations to keep the work going.

Problems at Roblox (RBLX) #5

The Bear Cave • 513 implied HN points • 17 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Child safety
  1. Roblox has been linked to serious issues like school shooting games and child abuse, raising concerns about children's safety on the platform.
  2. Many Roblox developers admit the site isn't safe for kids, often referring to its content as harmful and emphasizing the lack of proper moderation.
  3. Roblox's current sign-up process allows easy access for predators, as it only requires a username and password, and there are serious suggestions for improving safety measures to protect children.

AI and child safety

Tech + Regulation • 59 implied HN points • 13 May 24
🕹 Technology Child safety
  1. The internet was not originally designed to be safe for kids, but improvements have been made over the years. Now, with new technology like generative AI, there's a chance to build better protections for children right from the start.
  2. Generative AI poses new risks for kids, especially with issues like deepfake pornography. These risks can lead to harmful impacts on their mental health and safety, as they might encounter misleading or abusive content online.
  3. Organizations like NCMEC play a crucial role in reporting and managing child exploitation content online, but they are underfunded. New laws need to ensure that these organizations receive the necessary resources to effectively combat these growing threats.

KOSA is back. Or is it?

Tech + Regulation • 39 implied HN points • 26 Feb 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Child safety
  1. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) aims to improve online safety for children and teens. It includes new rules for social media platforms to protect young users from risks like bullying and harmful content.
  2. KOSA introduces a 'duty of care' that requires platforms to actively prevent online harm to minors. This means they have to find a balance between allowing access to information and not promoting harmful content.
  3. The bill also changes how advertising works for younger users. Platforms will need to inform them why they see certain ads and limit certain design features that encourage excessive use.

Meta Blocker

Technically Optimistic • 19 implied HN points • 02 Feb 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Child safety
  1. Reports of online child abuse have significantly increased over the years, showcasing a concerning trend that AI technology might exacerbate.
  2. Tech companies, like Snapchat and X, are starting to agree to support legislative acts like KOSA to enhance online protections for children, signaling a potential positive shift in the industry.
  3. There is a growing call for tougher legislation, transparency, and accountability in the tech sector to protect users, especially children, from harmful content online.

Rolling Back Child Labor Laws--Enabling Child Predators

The View from Rural Missouri by Jess Piper • 0 implied HN points • 11 Mar 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Child safety
  1. Rolling back child labor laws can create situations that put children in danger from sexual predators in the workplace.
  2. States like Arkansas and Iowa have rolled back child labor laws and defunded public schools, prioritizing corporate interests over child safety.
  3. Child labor laws are important not just for preventing exploitation, but also for protecting vulnerable children from abuse and danger.