#child safety
16 stories taggedchild safety.

Australia Calls Out Steam, Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft Over Child Safety Failures
A new government report finds the four biggest gaming platforms leave children exposed to predators and harmful content, with Steam singled out for the weakest protections of all.

Windows 11 to Tell Apps If You're a Child or Adult, Without Sharing Your Birthday
Microsoft's new age-awareness APIs return age bands rather than exact dates, and pair with a verify-once system tied to your Microsoft account.

The group called 764 is grooming children online. A mother explains what that really means.
A US sentencing this month put a spotlight on 764, a network of online predators who target minors through gaming and chat platforms. One mother's account makes clear this isn't a distant problem.

Two Nigerian men extradited to US over sextortion scams linked to teen suicides
Adebola Festus Adekunle and Mudasiru Afeez Olawale face life sentences after a joint operation tied them to blackmail schemes that ended in the deaths of two American minors.

Meta Faces Up to $18 Billion Settlement With 52 US States Over Teen Harm Claims
A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general says Facebook and Instagram were built to hook children. Meta has agreed to pay to make the lawsuits go away.

AI 'Nudify' Apps Are a Back-to-School Threat. Here Is What Parents Need to Know.
Apps that strip clothing from photos using artificial intelligence are cheap, easy to find, and already reaching school-age children. Michelle DeLaune of NCMEC told CBS News that parents need a plan before the new term starts.

Tennessee Man Gets 77 Years for Running Online Abuse Network Targeting Girls
A federal court sentenced Kyle Spitze, 27, to 77 years in prison for crimes tied to the 764 network, an online extremist group the FBI describes as a form of modern-day terrorism.

Roblox Signs Legal Agreement with Australian Regulators After Adults Found Able to Contact Children Without Parental Consent
Australia's online safety watchdog found that adult accounts on Roblox could see children's profiles and send them connection requests, all without a parent ever knowing. Now Roblox has put its promises in writing.

Thirty US States Take Meta to Trial Over Child Safety, Seeking Up to $1 Trillion
A federal jury trial launched this week could force Facebook and Instagram to strip out some of their most addictive features, and cost Meta more money than most countries earn in a year.

UK Children Report Surge in Explicit Deepfake Images of Themselves
A service that helps young people remove intimate photos from the internet says digitally faked images are rising fast. Regulators warn AI tools are making the problem worse.

Schools Are Handing Deepfake Criminals a Photo Album
Australia's eSafety regulator is warning schools to stop posting student and teacher photos online after a surge in AI-generated deepfakes built from official school feeds.

764: The Online Network Grooming Children Into Violence
The FBI has hundreds of open investigations into 764, a shadowy online community that manipulates children into harming themselves and others. Here is what parents need to know.

Europol Pulls 4,340 Links Tied to 'The Com' Extortion Network
A nine-country push targets an online ecosystem that grooms minors, spreads violence manuals, and has been linked to ransomware attacks on Marks & Spencer and Las Vegas casinos.

Child safety experts warn of global surge in 'sadistic online exploitation' of teenagers
Predators are using social media platforms and online games to coerce vulnerable children into producing sexual images and videos of themselves. The phenomenon is growing fast, and parents need to know what it looks like.

Australia Logged 2,000 Sextortion Complaints in Six Months. Big Tech Still Isn't Scanning for the Scripts.
Australia's online safety watchdog says the same blackmail messages keep appearing across platforms, and most major tech companies still aren't using the detection tools that already exist.