Over the months, many countries have announced plans to restrict social media access for children and teens. Australia became the first to implement such measures at the end of last year, setting a precedent that other countries are now closely watching. Australia's regulations, along with other countries' proposals, aim to reduce the pressures and risks that young users may face on social media, which include cyberbullying, addiction, mental health issues, and exposure to predators. Of course, there are concerns about privacy regarding invasive age verification and excessive government intervention. Critics, including Amnesty Tech, have said such bans are ineffective and that they ignore the realities of younger generations. Despite this, many nations are moving ahead with proposed legislation. Australia became the world's first country to ban social media for children under 16 in December 2025. The ban blocks children from using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, and Kick. It notably doesn't include WhatsApp or YouTube Kids....

Like many young people of her generation, Fai Nur was what she called a 'chronically online teenager.' She obsessed over music groups, TV shows, and movies, and never missed the chance to talk about her interests endlessly online. When ChatGPT launched in 2022, she saw potential immediately. 'AI could finally let any user actually simulate any character, not just watch or talk about their favorite worlds, but live inside them,' she told TechCrunch. 'The role-play and immersion that fans had always wanted was suddenly possible at scale,' she said. She brought in her friend Amit Bhatnagar, who grew up building Minecraft games, and Pritesh Kadiwala, and the three of them began building Status AI: a gamified social media app where users can play any character in any universe. The app officially came out of stealth last year. To use the app, Nur said, users first craft a persona and are then transported into a social world built around them. 'A user can become a celebrity with millions of followers, step inside their favorite show or book, run for president, or go viral on the internet,' Nur said....

In 2014, Kristine and Matt, the parents of five young children, posted a 15-minute video on YouTube. '24 Hours With 5 Kids on a Rainy Day' was the first vlog to appear on their channel, Family Fun Pack. It splices together snippets of the utterly ordinary and frankly boring activities that make up a kid's life: eating, getting dressed, playing, practicing piano, more playing, story time before bed. Watching this feels somewhat akin to watching a home video'except I don't know these children, and their parents are trying to sell me things. The 'unbreakable, colorful cereal bowls' the kids eat out of, for example, are affiliate-linked in the caption. Over the past 12 years, the vlog has received more than 316 million views. Kristine and Matt, who don't share their surname publicly, have been on YouTube since 2011, when Kristine uploaded a video of her twin toddler boys putting themselves to bed. As she tells the journalist Fortesa Latifi in the new book Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online, she 'didn't understand privacy settings' and simply intended to send the video to her mother-in-law. Soon, it had 8 million views. 'Everything just spiraled from there,' Kristine says, which is putting it mildly: The Family Fun Pack YouTube now has 10.5 million subscribers and 15.9 billion lifetime views. One marketer estimates that the channel brings in about $200,000 a month from YouTube's AdSense revenue-sharing program, in addition to whatever the family makes from brand-sponsorship deals, affiliate links, and Cameos....

Americans lost $2.1 billion to social media scams in 2025, according to a new report from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The agency reports that losses from social media scams have increased eightfold and that social media scams resulted in higher losses than any other method scammers used to contact consumers. Nearly 30% of people who reported losing money to scams said the schemes began on social media. More people reported losing money to scams that originated on Facebook than on any other social media platform, with WhatsApp and Instagram ranking a distant second and third. Additionally, people reported losing far more money to scams on Facebook alone than they reported losing to text or email scams. The FTC's data shows that social media scams take many forms, including shopping scams, which were the most reported type of social media scam last year. Over 40% of people who lost money to social media scams said they ordered an item they saw in an ad, ranging from clothing and cosmetics to car parts and even puppies. Many of these ads led to unfamiliar websites, while others sent people to fake sites for well-known brands that claimed to offer big discounts....