Welcome back to your regularly scheduled issue of Quire — we hope you missed us! June was a busy month as we grappled with increasingly complex age-related product and policy work across a range of clients, a reflection of how central this topic has become to platforms of every kind. Some more public-facing engagements you may have missed:
We hosted our first New York Tech Week workshop on unlocking age-aware design at the new Cinder offices in SoHo
We hosted an interactive workshop on the product safety frameworks required to ship responsible AI applications, in partnership with the Singapore Global Network
Vys consultant Jen Weedon joined Ben Whitelaw on the Ctrl+Alt+Speech podcast for a wide-ranging discussion of the week’s online speech and safety news, including the UK’s move to stop children from circumventing its under-16 social media ban and how it stacks up against Australia’s approach, AI slop and its effect on the information ecosystem, and India’s temporary block of Telegram. Give it a listen.
We’ll also be at TrustCon in two short weeks! Catch us at the following sessions:
Beyond Hash Matching: Engineering and Data Science Frontiers in CSAM Detection — July 21, 2:50 PM PT, Grand Ballroom C
Designing AI for Youth: Where Development, Law, and Product Collide — July 22, 1:30 PM PT, Grand Ballroom A
Finally, we’re excited to welcome our next cohort of high school summer interns to the Vys team! This issue of Quire was drafted by Amelia Farrell, one of our interns in the Editorial track. Vys consultants reviewed and made minor edits to these entries. Learn more about our summer interns here.
Regulatory Updates
US Congress continues debates over the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act
House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie and Ranking Member Frank Pallone have announced the creation of a 115 page document outlining the rules which will be implemented regarding child safety in online experiences, otherwise known as the KIDS Act. The document intends to create safe experiences by enlisting websites with over a third of their content being “harmful” or inappropriate material to minors, to require age verification. The KIDS Act also applies to social media apps which will be required to enlist features that stop adults from messaging children. Although this act would be beneficial, it is missing a key feature: duty of care because of this lacking point, it is unlikely that this bill will pass the Senate.
EU expands criminal law framework on child sexual abuse to include AI-generated material.
The European Union’s implementation of this framework renders creators of AI-generated material at risk as they can be prosecuted on charges of sexual abuse. This piece of legislation, in expanding the term of child sexual abuse, proves the constant need to update terms to include new, modern AI. This law will ensure that companies are held accountable.
Australia strengthens ban on social media use for those under 16.
The Australian government has introduced legislation to double fines for companies who fail to prevent children under 16 from accessing social media platforms. This not only affects those who aren’t implementing these measures but also those who are as they must give evidence of their compliance. This crack-down was in response to companies not complying with the ban and not taking the appropriate measures to keep children safe. Another reason for this was because the companies who did follow the appropriate steps did not create strong enough safeguards, and children were able to work around them.
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is continuing to be discussed in the US Congress.
KOSA is one of the most significant proposals to Congress as it ensures “duty of care,” a concept in which companies must prevent children from seeing material that isn’t appropriate for their age. If passed, this concept expects companies to input software to ensure that children aren’t seeing sensitive material. The House and Senate have created a new deal which combines KOSA into the KIDS Act, although it removed the duty of care portion of KOSA, among other important sections.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) states that they will not enforce the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act age verification (COPPA)
The FTC issued a policy statement claiming that they would not enforce COPPA, an important safeguard in youth online safety that protects the privacy of children under 13 online. The Federal Trade Commission stated that they will not bring enforcement actions to platforms in violation of this act, meaning many websites can examine a child user’s data and private information. The reason for this lack of enforcement is due to the loophole written within COPPA: parental consent must be given for a website to view a child’s data, but the website can only tell if a user is a child if they look at that person’s data. This creates a nuanced situation, which prompted the FTC to not enforce this section of COPPA, while other sections will continue to be enforced.
Industry News
Attorney General Tim Griffin claimed that Roblox allowed predators to contact children by posing as minors, enabling exploitation of children. Additionally, Griffin claimed that Discord facilitated predatory behavior through private messages, voice chat, and servers which enabled the relationship to grow after initial contact. Griffin claims that both platforms misrepresented their safety to parents, therefore enabling predators to take advantage of children. Although Griffin’s argument is enticing, his success in this case is skeptical. He has just lost a recent case on social media restrictions for minors and Roblox and Discord are both pushing back hard on the allegations against them.
Roblox creates new age-tiered accounts
When creating a Roblox account children must now select their specific age range of either 5-8 or 9-15, this ensures that they are getting age appropriate recommendations. Children 5-8 experience Roblox Kids, whereas children 9-15 have Roblox Select with slightly less restrictions, but still at an appropriate maturity level. Those above 16 years of age receive the full Roblox catalog. Although these new accounts hold promise, there are issues rising in child verification. Roblox requires a facial scan to determine the general age of the user, but there are many steps of verification which frustrates parents and leads some to scan their own face which makes the app falsely believe that the user is above 16 and would get the full catalog. All of these complications have stopped many users from playing Roblox altogether; Roblox has lost about 20 million daily users over six months.
Youtube settles youth social media harm lawsuit
An anonymous plaintiff alleged that Youtube was promoting social media addiction and mental health harm in children. The plaintiff stated that Youtube employed engagement-driven design features including autoplay, infinite scrolling, and algorithmic recommendations which promote addiction and prolonged use; these symptoms can ultimately lead to mental health consequences. The plaintiff has also settled his suit with TikTok. He is set to continue his claim in court in late July when he sues Snapchat and Meta with the same allegations. As both Youtube and TikTok have settled, presumably because their case was not strong enough, it is unlikely that Snapchat and Meta would win in court.
England’s Department of Education announces improved child safety settings
England has announced that they will be rolling out new safeguards for ensuring child safety. They plan to implement this by upgrading technology systems to support their risk assessments. They will also engage inspectors earlier and give them access to real-time updates to improve the implementation of feedback. The reasons for this recent innovation are that technology had advanced faster than they could create safeguards, meaning the need for improved settings now is overwhelming. Although this improvement isn’t out of the ordinary for the Department of Education, this overhaul is especially important because of its expansion of AI-generated materials.
The Pennsylvania House Communications and Technology Committee has advanced House Bill 2006 to the full House. House Bill 2006 targets youth safety online as it would establish safeguards for AI companion applications. These safeguards include age assurance requirements, parental consent for minors, and mandatory disclosure that children are speaking to artificial intelligence as opposed to a human; among others. The Pennsylvania House is narrowly Democratic at the moment and House Bill 2006 is sponsored by Democrats, giving the bill a strong likelihood of passing.
Research and Civil Society
5Rights Foundation claims Latin American children face a greater online risk
A paper written by the 5Rights Foundation, founded by Baroness Beeban Kidron, has found that children in Latin America face a greater risk online than platforms publicly acknowledge. In the study, researchers created childlike personas and found that on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X they were almost immediately exposed to sexualized, violent, and emotionally harmful content, proving there were little to no safeguards for children. This discovery is in line with Kidron’s thesis that tech platforms get to self-regulate rather than having standard rules and has prompted a movement to make online regulations global.
Senator Blumenthal comments on “duty of care” at Social Media Harm Victims Remembrance Day
Senator Blumenthal stated at the event that any lawmaker serious about online safety would reject bills eliminating duty of care, displaying his value of the concept. This display of the Senators strong stance is in direct correlation to the recent gutting of the duty of care portion of the KIDS Act.
Researchers from NYU and North Eastern test safety features across different social media platforms
A group of researchers from New York University and Northeastern tested 86 safety features across Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Youtube and found that they had a failure rate of at least 50%. This displays how features meant to protect children from predatory adults from messaging them and to block accounts that are inappropriate were completely ineffective. The main issue researchers have identified is that safeguard marketing isn’t being verified externally, this will just give plaintiffs more ammunition in ongoing cases.
An American National Survey found overwhelming numbers of concern for child online safety
The International Justice Mission found that there was a strong backing of support from US adults to increase tech company accountability and support for the STOP CSAM Act, which combats child sexual abuse material online. Additionally, the report found a growing concern for, specifically, livestreamed abuse, online grooming, and the role of emerging technologies in accelerating exploitation.
The Molly Rose Foundation, based in London and founded by a father after his child committed suicide after viewing harmful online content consistently, has created a “resource hub” on their website to help parents understand the digital age their children are growing up in. This page includes how to understand the social media algorithm, have productive conversations with their children, and comprehend their teens’ exposure to online harm. This website could help many parents to foster communicative and effective relationships with their children.
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