A Dr. Seuss Character Got 10+ Kids Arrested

Intro — The Answer We Don't Have

Welcome to The Tech Radar for Parents. I'm your host, Weston, brought to you by Nicholas D. West Tech LLC. This is your briefing for the week of September seventh, 2026.

Last week I made you a promise. I said that by this episode I would be able to tell you whether Meta filed its appeal of the nine hundred forty two million dollar New Mexico judgment, because the deadline was Tuesday, September eighth.

I can't, and the why is the whole point of this show.

On the deadline day, the New Mexico Attorney General's office put out a press release about Meta. It was about a completely different trial, a data misuse case that opened in Santa Fe on Wednesday. Not one word about the appeal. I checked the AG's newsroom and six New Mexico outlets. Nobody has reported a filing, and nobody has reported a non filing. The only place the answer exists is the court docket itself, and I did not get into it.

So the honest answer is, I don't know. And I would rather tell you that than guess.

Now here is what I do know. The real news this week did not come from a courtroom. It came from a Dr. Seuss character.

Over the past ten days, an A I generated version of the Cat in the Hat has gotten more than ten kids arrested, in at least eight states, some of them on felony charges. One of them in our home state of Alabama.

So here's what we're doing today. What that trend is, and why a joke image turns into a terroristic threat charge. A district that lost an entire week of school to a cyber attack, and what the nurses lost with it. The good news, which is that the pushback on A I in classrooms is spreading and the public is with you. And a decoder ring with an actual new entry, for the first time in seven weeks.

Let's go.

The Good — The Line Spreads, and the Public Is Already There

Let's start with the good, and this week the good is momentum.

Last week New York City and Los Angeles, the two largest school systems in the country, pulled student facing generative A I out of their classrooms for the year. This week Stateline, the nonprofit newsroom that tracks state policy, asked who's next.

Chicago may be. About half of the candidates for the Chicago Board of Education this November have signed a pledge calling for a three year moratorium on generative A I in classrooms. A pledge, not a policy, but from the people who want the job. Districts in Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Texas and Washington have blocked or limited tools like ChatGPT. No other top ten district acted this week. But the direction is clear.

Here's the part that tells you where you stand. The Century Foundation released a poll on September second, run by Morning Consult, of more than two thousand voters. Eighty six percent are concerned about social media's impact on students. Eighty four percent about companies profiting from student data. And seventy seven percent want the government to set clear guardrails for technology in schools. That is eighty percent of Republicans and seventy six percent of Democrats.

The caveats. That's a progressive think tank, it was fielded back in May, and no margin of error was published. But eighty percent of Republicans and seventy six percent of Democrats agreeing on anything is not a rounding error. If you are the parent who keeps raising this at the school board, you are not the outlier. You are the majority.

One more, and it's a strange kind of good. On Thursday, the day I'm recording this, JAMA Network Open published a review by Jason Nagata's team at U C S F and Megan Moreno at Wisconsin, the people who actually do this research. They screened six hundred seventy two studies on social media laws, from age verification to school phone policies, and found thirty nine worth including. Their conclusion, quoting, further research is needed to determine the effectiveness, feasibility, and unintended consequences of particular policy strategies.

Why is that good? Because the top people in the field just said, in print, that the laws are ahead of the evidence. Not that the laws are wrong. That we don't know yet. People will tell you this fall that the science is settled. It isn't, and now you know who said so.

The Bad — A Week Without School

Now the bad. And this one I owe you, because last week I said on air that I had not swept the school breach trackers, and that the opening weeks of school are when districts get hit.

This week, the breach came to us.

Springfield Public Schools in Massachusetts, the second largest district in that state, has not held a single day of class this week.

On Labor Day, the superintendent, Doctor Sonia Dinnall, announced that every school would close Tuesday because of what the district called a severe cyber incident. On Tuesday they closed Wednesday. On Wednesday they closed the rest of the week. Students go back Monday, September fourteenth, the day this episode comes out.

As far as the district has said, something started going wrong around September first, and by Saturday the fifth it had become what they called malicious cyber traffic. An outside group got into the network and blocked the online programs the schools run on. Staff were ordered off the network, and kids with district laptops were told to stay offline.

And here is the detail that should stop you. The systems that went dark included the cloud platforms holding student medical and transportation records. The school nurses could not see which child takes which medication, who is allergic to what, or where a kid lives. That is the actual reason the buildings closed. Not the email. The allergy list.

More than fourteen thousand emergency texts went out to families. The F B I, the Massachusetts State Police and local police are investigating.

Now, what we don't know. Officials said student data was not compromised. The district has not said whether anything is being held for ransom, and as of Thursday no criminal group had claimed it. So I am not going to say ransomware, because the district hasn't. And I'm not going to tell you the records are safe, because what the district said is that access was blocked, and nothing more. The mayor put it plainly. Quote, those individuals that have perpetrated this could be watching this right now, so we're limited at what we want to say.

The assistant superintendent said that if they have to, they will go back to paper and pencil. Remember that phrase. In the action plan I'm going to ask you to find out whether your district could.

The Ugly — The Cat in the Hat

The ugly this week is a children's book character, and I want to be precise, because the details are what keep your kid out of a police car.

Around the last day of August, a trend crossed over from Ireland and the U K and spread across Snapchat, TikTok and X. Kids use A I to generate an image of the Cat in the Hat, usually the version from the 2003 movie, made sinister. Life size, standing outside a house or a school at night. Then a caption. Sometimes vague, sometimes a direct threat. And increasingly, it names a real student, a real school, or a real town. Some posts include a picture of a real home and its address.

Here is what that has cost so far. Every one of these is a dated, sourced case.

Warren County, Tennessee. A high school student charged September first with making threats of mass violence on school property. Oxford, Mississippi. A juvenile arrested the week of September fourth, and the charge is terrorism. Jessamine County, Kentucky. A juvenile charged after local police brought in the F B I. Berwick, Louisiana. Four girls, thirteen to fifteen. Pasco County, Florida. A twelve year old, charged with written threats to kill.

And Andalusia, Alabama. A threat against an Andalusia High School student went out on Snapchat on Sunday, August thirtieth. On Friday, September fourth, police sat down with a local teenager. They had already obtained, under a warrant, the Snapchat account, the phone, and the I P address. The teen confessed. He's in state youth custody facing possible terroristic threat charges, and police say there may be more suspects.

Fox 10 in Phoenix put the national count at more than ten juveniles, some on felony charges. I'll use exactly that phrasing and not inflate it.

Three things to take from this.

First. The images are made with A I. Not one of these kids held a weapon. It does not matter. Andalusia's superintendent, Doctor Daniel Shakespeare, said it as clearly as anyone. Quote, most of these videos are made with A I and are not real, but a post or message that names a school or a student is treated as a real threat no matter who made it or why.

Second. Snapchat is not a place where things disappear. A warrant got the account, the device and the I P address, and a teenager who thought a snap vanished confessed to it. The belief that it's gone is the belief that gets them arrested.

Third. The charge is not a suspension. In Tennessee it's threats of mass violence. In Mississippi it's terrorism. Berwick, Louisiana's police chief said, quote, once you hit post, you do not get to decide how seriously law enforcement takes it.

The last word goes to Andalusia's police chief, Paul Hudson. Quote, this was a case of our kids at our school creating an issue. There were multiple events, and we encourage mamas and daddies to check their children's phones.

The Decoder Ring — An Actual New Entry

Now the Decoder Ring, and for the first time in seven weeks, there is an actual new entry. Five terms you are going to hear.

Number one. The Cat in the Hat trend. Not a word, a format. An A I made image of the Dr. Seuss character, posed like a horror movie, with a threat attached. If your kid says it's a meme, they're right. If they say it's harmless, more than ten families found out otherwise this month.

Number two. Terroristic threat. The legal term in most of these cases, and it does not require a weapon, a plan, or the ability to carry anything out. In most states it's a threat of violence made to cause fear or disruption, and naming a school is usually enough. It's a felony in a lot of places, and a juvenile record is still a record.

Number three. Level four cyber incident. That's how Springfield classified what hit them. There is no national scale. It's the district's own severity rating, and the top of it. When your district uses a phrase like that, ask which systems went down, not which level.

Number four. Highly effective age assurance. H E A A. That's the term in the U K's online safety rules, and on Tuesday Snap announced that more than a million U K Snapchatters have been confirmed as over eighteen using it. App store age signals, age estimation, and I D checks when needed. U K only, self reported, and not coming to the United States as far as that post says. But it's proof the machinery exists, and it was the only public thing Snap said all week. Nothing about the Meta settlement.

Number five. Core Industry Member, and a correction to my own number. That's the phrase in the Meta consent judgment for the three companies, Snap, TikTok and YouTube, whose adoption of similar rules unlocks the contingent money. Last week I said roughly five billion dollars. Meta's own filing says five point three billion, about thirty percent of an eighteen billion dollar total. Five point three. And as of this week, all three companies are still silent.

Your Weekly Action Plan (1–2)

Alright. Your action plan.

Step one. Have the Cat in the Hat conversation tonight, and use three sentences.

Sentence one. A I made does not mean not real. If a post names a school or a person, the police treat it as a real threat no matter who made it.

Sentence two. Snapchat does not disappear. A warrant gets the account, the phone and the address. A teenager in Alabama learned that on Friday.

Sentence three. If you see one, you tell me, and I will not be mad that you saw it. That last part matters most, because the Oxford police chief's whole plea was, when you see those things, please let us know. Your kid will see it before any adult does. Make it safe to say so.

Step two. Ask your district three questions about the week the network goes down.

Question one. If the student information system goes offline, how does the nurse know my child's medication and allergies? Springfield's answer this week was, she doesn't, so we closed.

Question two. Do you have a paper fallback, and has it ever been tested? Springfield's assistant superintendent said they'd go back to paper and pencil if they had to. Find out if yours could.

Question three. How would you reach me if the phone system is down too? Springfield's went down. Fourteen thousand texts still got out, because they had a separate system for it.

You don't need to be technical to ask those. You need to be the parent who asked before it happened.

Your Weekly Action Plan (3–4)

Step three. Find out where your school board stands on student A I, and ask in words they have to answer.

Not, are you using A I. Every district is. The question is, do students use generative A I in class, in which grades, and who decided. New York drew the line at eighth grade. Los Angeles drew it at school issued devices. Half the people running for the Chicago board signed a pledge for three years of nothing. Your district has an answer too. And remember the poll. Seventy seven percent of voters want clear rules on this, across both parties. You are not the difficult parent. You are the room.

Step four. Keep last week's numbers, and don't wait on anybody.

Nothing changed this week on the Meta side. The settlement is signed and still not running. The rivals are still silent. Snap's one announcement was about the U K. And I couldn't tell you whether Meta even filed its appeal. So the two hour cap, the overnight block, the thirty minutes a day that New York City set for a fourth grader, those are still yours to set tonight, in about ten minutes, on either phone.

And on the evidence. The top researchers in this field said Thursday that the laws are ahead of the science. That is not a reason to do less at home. It's a reason to stop waiting for a law to do it for you.

Closing & Outro

So, to recap the week of September seventh. An A I generated Cat in the Hat got more than ten kids arrested in at least eight states, including one in Andalusia, Alabama, on charges as serious as terroristic threats and terrorism. Springfield, Massachusetts lost the entire week of school to a cyber incident that took the nurses' medical records offline. The pushback on A I in classrooms is spreading, seventy seven percent of voters want clear rules, and the leading researchers said in JAMA that the laws are ahead of the evidence. And Meta's rivals are still silent.

Now the part where I tell you what I did not check.

I did not get into the New Mexico court docket, so I cannot tell you whether Meta filed its appeal by Tuesday, and nobody has reported it either way. Florida's attorney general proposed, on Tuesday, criminal liability for A I chatbot companies whose systems take part in a crime. It's a proposal with no bill yet, and I'll cover it if it becomes one. I did not sweep the breach trackers beyond Springfield. There was no new peer reviewed study on teen screen time, only the JAMA review of existing ones. And for the seventh week, no genuinely new slang. The Cat in the Hat is a format, not a word.

And once more, because it happened again. My research system told me three of five categories came back empty this week. They were not. Springfield, the arrests and the Florida proposal were all found and then dropped before anyone checked them. I pulled them back by hand. A system going quiet is not the same thing as the world going quiet.

If you or your child are struggling, call or text 9 8 8. Free, confidential, twenty four hours.

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I'm your host, Weston, with Nicholas D. West Tech LLC. Have the three sentence conversation, ask the nurse question, and I'll see you next week.