Commentaries

In November 2024, the Australian Parliament passed an amendment of the Online Safety Act 2021. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 is the first law in the world to establish a national minimum age for social media use and an obligation on providers of an ‘age-restricted social media platform’ to take… Read more: Evaluating the Policy Effectiveness of Australia’s Social Media Restrictions for Minors

On the 19th of February 2025,  the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing titled “Children’s Safety in the Digital Era: Strengthening Protections and Addressing Legal Gaps.” The session addressed a range of child safety issues, including sexual exploitation and the role Big Tech plays in [not] mitigating these risks. Particularly, the… Read more: The Not-So-Good-Samaritan: A Commentary on Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act

Context-Setting There has been a significant rise in the use and deployment of surveillance technologies across the world – by private actors, governments and companies. To understand why this is, two questions arise:  “Is there a growing need to invasively detect, monitor, intercept and collect personally identifying information?” (this could be perhaps because there are… Read more: Privacy & Safety Can Co-Exist: Balancing Children’s Privacy and the Use of Surveillance Technologies

Quite a bit of work goes into policymaking – both on platforms and in countries across the world. Policymakers and platforms are so often focused on the technical and multifaceted processes involved with policy formulation. They identify a problem, carry out in-depth research and analysis, engage stakeholders, design policy options or iterations, conduct more consultations… Read more: Communicating Policies to Children & Young People

Pinterest’s recent updates to its safety and privacy policies for teenage users are commendable and, perhaps, exemplary. As will all policies, there will always be more room for improvement, for stakeholder feedback, for testing, for evidence-gathering – because the work of keeping children and young people safe online never really ends.