Happy Thursday everyone and a particular welcome to all our new subscribers. It's genuinely exciting to see readers joining from so many countries. Whatever brought you here, you've arrived at a busy week!

This week, six US states and LA County have filed lawsuits against Roblox, all making the same allegation: that the platform knowingly fails to protect children from predators. In Washington, the KIDS Act and COPPA 2.0 both cleared committee, with AI chatbot safety rules included for the first time. And the UK House of Commons rejected a social media ban on 9 March — but handed ministers the powers to impose one quickly if the consultation recommends it.

Grab a coffee - here is everything you need to know.

— Heidi

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There has been a lot of movement this week. We now track 19 countries and regions — 4 with laws in force, 1 with powers granted, 8 with bills in progress, and 6 with formal proposals.

This week's highlights:

🇮🇩 Indonesia — A ban on social media for children under 16 was announced in early March, with a specific date set: existing accounts belonging to under-16s will be deactivated on 28 March. The ban covers YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X and others.

We track countries worldwide — right now, 19 are actively legislating, consulting or proposing restrictions on children's social media access. See where every country stands on the Wired Parents tracker, updated every Thursday.

See the new tracker →

Six US states and LA County have now filed lawsuits against Roblox, all making the same central allegation: that the platform markets itself as safe for children while knowingly failing to prevent predators from accessing them. The Nebraska AG described it as "a playground for predators." LA County said the platform "gives pedophiles powerful tools to prey on innocent and unsuspecting children."

Nebraska became the latest, filing on 4 March, following Florida, Iowa, Tennessee, Texas, and Los Angeles County. The lawsuits focus on specific design choices: private messaging and voice chat with minimal barriers to adult-to-child contact, user-created environments hosting deeply inappropriate content, and a sign-up process requiring only a username, password, and date of birth. Roblox introduced mandatory facial age verification for chat in January 2026, which it described as "the gold standard for communication safety." Nebraska filed suit four weeks later, saying it does not fix the underlying design.

Roblox has more than 151 million daily active users, most of them under 13. The Netherlands opened a Digital Services Act investigation in January. Australia's regulators are pressing separately.

What to do today: go into your child's Roblox privacy settings and restrict all contact to Friends only. Turn on the parent monitoring dashboard in Account Settings. And have a specific conversation about how grooming works on gaming platforms — these cases all started with friendly conversation inside a game, not with a child stumbling across explicit content.

Read more: Six States Have Now Sued Roblox →

The KIDS Act passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee 28-24 on 5 March. The headline detail for parents is the SAFEBOTs Act, included in the package, which would require AI chatbots to implement specific child safety measures before being made available to minors. The AWARE Act, also included, would require parental notification when a child searches suicide or self-harm terms on a platform. COPPA 2.0, which would raise the digital age of consent from 13 to 16 and ban targeted advertising to children, passed the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously the same week.

Both bills face a long route to becoming law and have stalled at similar stages before. The state-level picture is moving faster. Across 27 states, ~78 AI chatbot safety bills are currently under consideration. Oregon passed one this week. California has proposed a four-year moratorium on AI chatbot toys designed for children.

Why this matters for parents now: if your child uses an AI companion app, it is worth knowing what the safety policies are for minors. The lawsuit against Character.AI, filed by the family of a 14-year-old in Florida after the child became deeply dependent on a chatbot companion, is progressing through the courts and has been a significant driver of congressional attention.

Social media was available to children for years before meaningful regulation arrived. AI companions are on the same trajectory, but the regulatory conversation is starting earlier — partly because lawmakers now have a clearer picture of what happens when they wait.

Read the full analysis →

MPs voted 307 to 173 on 9 March against the Lords' amendment to ban social media for children under 16. Lord Nash, who led the amendment, called it "deeply disappointing" and pledged to bring it back in the upper chamber.

The more significant development was what happened immediately after. MPs approved the government's alternative amendment, which gives Science Secretary Liz Kendall the power to restrict or ban children's access to social media, AI chatbots, and addictive algorithmic features via secondary legislation, without needing a new bill. Before 9 March, that fast-track option did not exist legally. Now it does.

Whether the government uses it depends on what the consultation closing on 26 May recommends. With 107 Labour MPs abstaining rather than backing their own government, political pressure is building. Lord Nash has signalled he will push again in the Lords. This one has not finished.

If you are in the UK, the consultation is open at gov.uk until 26 May and is worth responding to.

Read the full analysis →

Australia tightens the screws. Six new age-restricted material codes came into force on 9 March, covering app distribution platforms, social media services, and gaming platforms with social features. Australia remains the furthest advanced of any country in building the practical infrastructure of a social media ban.

Meta's Ray-Ban glasses were filming children. A joint investigation by two Swedish newspapers published last week found that contractors in Kenya, hired to improve Meta's AI systems, were reviewing footage captured by Ray-Ban smart glasses — including clips of children getting changed, people using the bathroom, and intimate moments. The face-blurring technology designed to anonymise footage reportedly failed regularly. The UK's Information Commissioner's Office has opened an investigation. A US class-action lawsuit was filed this week. Meta has said it is investigating. Over 7 million pairs of the glasses were sold in 2025.

Virginia's social media law paused. A federal judge blocked Virginia's Social Media Protections Act on First Amendment grounds this month, in a ruling likely to influence ~20 other US states with similar legislation in progress.