Happy Thursday everyone. It's been a quiet one for us, just getting back into the swing of things after the Easter holiday and trying to make a dent in my 26-in-26 reading list. I have a strict rule that it has to be a physical book, no Kindle, no eBook! For me, after so much screen time, there is something more cathartic about holding a physical book in my hands.

One thing I did last week however, that really made me think was the movie “Hamnet” and oh my goodness, it was a tear jerker! It must have been quite fearful living back then with so much illness and so few medicines not knowing if loved ones would survive if they got sick.

There is one line from the book that has stayed with me all week:

Our ancestors feared illnesses we have since eradicated and parenting today is genuinely easier in a thousand ways because of that. It can feel that the things we talk about in this newsletter feel so small in comparison; screen time arguments, settings to check, whether to allow an app.

But we have picked up a set of risks no one before us had to weigh, and they're harder to see because they don't arrive in hours or days. They unfold over months and years, which is why parents who are paying attention notice things others miss.

Keeping children safe online is genuinely the peril of OUR age, in a way no generation of parents before us has had to think about. I'm glad you are here to keep thinking about what you need to do to keep your own children safe.

Right, coffee time. Here's what has been happening this week.

— Heidi

From early June, Roblox is changing how accounts work for every user under 16. Children aged 5 to 8 will be moved to a new account type called Roblox Kids. Children aged 9 to 15 will be moved to Roblox Select. Each tier has its own content library, its own default chat settings, and its own parental controls.

If your child plays Roblox, the single most useful thing you can do this week is check the date of birth on their account.

Why this matters now: Roblox decides which tier your child lands in based on either their facial age check or the age linked to a verified parent account. Plenty of Roblox accounts were set up by children themselves with a fake date of birth. Roblox's minimum age is technically nine, so younger children often type a birthday that makes them old enough to join. Those accounts could now end up in a tier that doesn't match the child's real age. That could mean a seven-year-old landing in the Select tier, where chat is gradually reintroduced. Or a thirteen-year-old stuck in the Kids tier with chat off entirely, leading to a workaround: a new, unlinked account set up on a friend's phone.

What changes for each tier:

Roblox Kids (ages 5–8): Access limited to games rated Minimal or Mild. All communication off by default. A parent has to verify and grant permission before any chat is enabled.

Roblox Select (ages 9–15): Access to games rated up to Moderate. Chat gradually introduced with safeguards. Parental controls extended, for the first time, all the way through to age 15 rather than stopping at 13.

Standard Roblox accounts: For age-checked users 16 and over. No change to their experience.

What to do this week:

This is one of the biggest structural changes Roblox has made to how children experience the platform. An account set up three years ago with a birthday your child picked themselves may now land in the wrong tier.

Read more: Roblox Kids and Roblox Select, what parents need to know →

For the last two years, whenever a country has proposed restricting children's access to social media, the response from the platforms has been a version of the same argument: there isn't a technology that can verify age without collecting sensitive personal data, so any law is either unworkable or a privacy disaster. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has pushed for app stores to take responsibility instead. TikTok, Snapchat and Meta are all currently under EU investigation for failing to protect minors. The steady position across the industry has been that the tech isn't there.

The EU has now called the bluff.

The EU's privacy-preserving age verification app is now rolling out across seven pilot countries: France, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Ireland. It uses zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic method that lets someone prove they are over a certain age without revealing their date of birth, their name, or anything else. The platform never sees the ID. It only sees a yes-or-no answer to the question "is this person old enough".

The technology works. It is live. It is being used. And the EU is pairing it with enforcement: Snapchat is under formal investigation under the Digital Services Act, and four pornography sites have been found in preliminary breach.

This shifts the ground under several debates happening simultaneously in the UK, Australia, Brazil, and a number of US states. Governments proposing under-15 or under-16 restrictions have been pushed back with "but how would you even verify it?". That question now has an answer, and other countries don't need to build their own app from scratch. They can adopt the EU model.

For parents, two things follow. First, platform claims that age checks are impossible or privacy-damaging should be heard with more scepticism than they were twelve months ago. Second, the countries where your child uses social media are more likely, not less, to start enforcing existing minimum ages. The era where 11-year-olds could tick "I'm over 13" and nothing happened is closing.

Read the full analysis →

Walk through the toy aisle over the coming months and you will start seeing something new: soft toys, plushies and small robots that hold a conversation. They are being marketed at children as young as three. The technology inside them is the same adult-grade chatbot software used in apps like ChatGPT and Character.AI, with a "child mode" layer bolted on top.

That layer is not holding. Independent testing has found these toys saying things no parent would want their child to hear. Child development experts do not recommend them for children under 10. A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to ban AI chatbots in toys marketed to children.

The difference from a talking teddy of fifteen years ago: older toys played recorded phrases. These ones generate language in real time. Neither the parent nor the manufacturer can preview what the toy might say.

Before buying any talking toy this year, ask:

Saying no is not overreacting. The evidence so far says these products aren't ready for young children.

Read more: What to know about AI chatbot toys →

🇪🇺 European Union. The EU's privacy-preserving age verification app went live this week across seven pilot countries (France, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland). Uses zero-knowledge proofs so users prove their age without handing over ID. Paired with live Digital Services Act enforcement: Snapchat under formal investigation, four adult sites in preliminary breach.

See where every country stands on the Wired Parents Country Tracker, updated every Thursday →

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Teens say TikTok is costing them sleep. Pew's biggest study of US teen social media to date (1,458 teens and parents) found 37% of teen TikTok users say the app hurts their sleep, and 44% of parents think their teen spends too much time on it, compared with 28% of teens who agree.

Teens are flagging their own chatbot addiction. Drexel researchers analysed 300+ Reddit posts by 13–17 year-olds about Character.AI and found all six behavioural addiction markers raised by the teens themselves, not their parents.

England's school phone ban is going statutory. The UK government confirmed on 21 April it will put the phone-free schools guidance into law via the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, covering all schools including independents.

TikTok Family Pairing has two new settings. Parents can now block specific accounts their teen follows and get notified when their teen posts publicly. Two-minute check in the Family Pairing menu.

Sextortion reports from under-18s rose 72% between H1 2024 and H1 2025, the IWF says. Have the conversation with your child now: if anyone ever threatens them with an image, the response is to tell you immediately. Shame is what the blackmail relies on.

Last week I asked: before reading the piece, had you heard of vault apps? The split was even. Half of voters said they already knew about them. Half said this was completely new.

That tracks with what I hear from parents offline. Vault apps sit in that category of thing where awareness is genuinely bimodal: if you've come across one you know exactly what they are, and if you haven't, the whole concept is new. There isn't much middle ground.

Ofcom's 30 April deadline lands next Thursday. Six platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube) have to explain to the UK regulator how they will stop under-13s accessing their services. Ofcom will report publicly on the responses in May, and has said it will take enforcement action if it is not satisfied. That report will be one of the first real tests of the Online Safety Act.

Until next Thursday!