Discord will activate teen-safety features by default for all users who don’t verify their ages, the company said Monday. The messaging app will start phasing in the changes globally next month, it said.
A Missouri anti-porn bill requiring age verification could have more momentum in 2026 than in prior years, state Rep. Sherri Gallick (R) said at a Tuesday hearing of the state’s House Children and Families Committee. The panel heard testimony on Gallick’s HB-1839 and two other legislators’ similar bills (HB-2921 and HB-3015).
Nebraska lawmakers are weighing a proposal to expand the applicability threshold in the state’s currently narrow age-appropriate design code law. However, at the unicameral legislature’s Commerce Committee hearing Monday, the plan received backlash from two industry groups that frequently sue states over such bills.
Consumer advocacy organizations said they weren't surprised to see NetChoice sue South Carolina over its new Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) Monday.
Days after South Carolina enacted its age-appropriate design code (AADC), NetChoice sued the state Monday night, calling the law "the government's speech police" and a violation of the First Amendment.
Nearly all adults (95%) think children should be protected online from certain features and materials such as pornography, gambling and online purchases, according to a Common Sense Media survey of more than 1,000 adults published Monday. Additionally, more than three in five support age verification for online games and social media, though 35% of parents are also concerned about privacy and data security involved in that.
A new United Arab Emirates child digital safety (CDS) law "represents a significant development" in the country's "digital regulation and will have far-reaching operational consequences for digital platform operators," Hogan Lovells commercial law attorney Janelle Durlo and colleagues said in an blog post Monday.
Cookies, employee monitoring and data security were the top issues for which French watchdog CNIL issued fines in 2025, totaling nearly 487 million euros ($577 million), it reported Monday.
Age-verification systems and other efforts by social media companies to protect minors have been “inadequate,” according to a Hawaii bill that advanced Friday in the legislature. The legislation (SB-2761) proposes following Australia’s example and banning kids younger than 16 from creating or maintaining accounts.
Winning the AI race is important, “but our kids cannot be the collateral damage to our advancement,” the Nebraska attorney general office’s Consumer Protection Bureau Chief Bebe Strnad said at a hearing Monday. Strnad testified in support of a bill (LB-1083) seeking AI chatbot transparency by Sen. Tanya Storer (R).