Week of October 5, 2026 Newest
On the same Wednesday, Florida asked a judge to make Meta cap teens at two hours a day now, Common Sense Media found a teen could talk about self-harm with ChatGPT for an hour without a parent getting a single alert, and New York alleged TikTok held a safety feature back from some users as an experiment. Each is about a protection that exists on paper - and whether it exists on the phone in your house. Plus this week's listener poll.
Florida Wants It NowZero Parent AlertsThe Control Group
Report Transcript Episode Monday Week of September 28, 2026
Alabama's Attorney General walked out of a Montgomery courtroom with a signed list of eight things TikTok has to change - a two-hour cap, pauses every 15 minutes, a midnight lockout, and a blanket ban on cosmetic filters for teens. Plus a Santa Fe jury that found Facebook misled people on purpose 43,899,720 times, a district that got its grade book back in ten days without saying whose data was taken, and the most-searched slang word of the year, which means nothing.
Alabama Moved First43,899,720 TimesTen Days, No Answer
Week of September 21, 2026
A middle schooler in Henderson, Kentucky used AI to make nude images of two classmates and was detained on four counts - no hacker, no stranger, just a free tool and one afternoon. Discord began sorting every account by age, turning teen protections on by default. Spokane became the second district in three weeks to take its grade book offline. And a government sued OpenAI over a school shooting.
Four Counts, One KidDiscord Picked an AgeSpokane Went Dark
Week of September 14, 2026
Springfield, MA went back to school Monday; on Tuesday evening the FBI told the district its student data was gone - addresses, ages, ethnicities, medical information - and a ransomware gang has claimed the files. California signed 13 kids-and-tech laws that are not in force yet. A national survey says the school phone ban slipped while 13% of parents noticed. And the correction we owe you on Meta.
Springfield: Data StolenCalifornia Wrote It DownThe Phone Ban Slipped
Week of September 7, 2026
AI-made images of a sinister Cat in the Hat, posted with threats naming real schools, have led to juvenile arrests in at least eight states - some on felony charges, including one in Andalusia, Alabama. Springfield, MA lost a full week of school to a cyber incident that took the nurses' allergy records offline. And the promise we couldn't keep on Meta's New Mexico appeal.
Cat in the Hat ArrestsA Week Without School77% Want Guardrails
Week of August 31, 2026
New York City adopted a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI for 600,000 students and banned companion chatbots in every grade. New Jersey's bell-to-bell phone ban is in force. And now that a judge has signed the Meta settlement, two exemptions inside it - direct messages, and video over 22 minutes - didn't make a single headline.
NYC AI MoratoriumBell-to-BellTwo Exemptions
