On the heels of the smash-hit novel Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke and the buzz surrounding the upcoming film adaptation starring Anne Hathaway, the tradwife movement is having a reckoning.
Despite how soothing it might be to watch someone milk a cow and grind their own wheat to make grilled cheese from scratch (yes, this is a real example), there’s more to the movement than sourdough starters and cottagecore couture.
#Tradwife is filling teens’ social media feeds with rigid gender roles, racism, and extreme ideologies. It’s even been called the female manosphere.
Tradwife (a portmanteau of “traditional” and “wife”) is an online subculture promoting traditional gender roles for women, such as being a stay-at-home mother, bearing lots of children, and submitting to their husband’s authority. The movement is characterized by a clean, retro aesthetic of 1950s-middle-class white domesticity with a heavy splash of rural homesteading.
#Tradwife hit virality in the early 2020s, buoyed by COVID’s forced retreat inside just as the rise of algorithms reshaped social media feeds in a way that favors controversial viewpoints.
Tradwife influencers are predominately young — many are teens themselves — and they’re catching the eye of teen girls online.
I need to pause here to be very clear: deciding to be a stay-at-home mom is a valid choice. It’s also a financial necessity for growing numbers of families. I’m not talking about a mutually agreed-upon domestic balance that leans toward gender norms. I’m talking about an ideology that celebrates male dominance, female submission, and financial dependency. Here are the risks:
Influencers only show what they want us to see. Tradwife content is often a fallacy propped up by smoke and mirrors, generational wealth, and invisible household staff. Most people can’t afford this kind of heavily curated existence.
The trend in the tradwife community is to marry young and reproduce prolifically, often foregoing college and starting a career. Coupled with the submissive dependence the movement encourages, this sets teen girls up to struggle to support themselves should the marriage go sour.
A portion of tradwife influencers promote taking away a woman's right to vote in favor of a single household vote cast by her husband.
One prominent tradwife issued a “white-baby challenge,” and even tradwives who don’t openly identify with racist ideas often use hashtags such as #14words and #1488 to signal their allegiance to white supremacy.
A cornerstone of tradwife culture is the return to “traditional values” of domesticity for women and moral authority for men. The picture of femininity they promote is narrow and rigid, with a woman’s place in the home, submitting to her husband, and bearing flocks of children.
There’s a significant overlap between the tradwife movement and alt-right ideologies.
Use digital check-ins and a monitoring app like BrightCanary to supervise your child’s online activity and see if they engage with tradwife content. Keep an eye out for these associated hashtags:
If your teen’s algorithm is filled with tradwife content, resetting their algorithm can help balance things out.
Balance rigid gender narratives they may see online by exposing them to a wide range of ideas on what it means to be a woman.
Tradwife culture promotes traditional, often rigid gender roles such as “a woman's place is in the home” and “a wife should submit to her husband’s authority.” The movement also has significant overlap with racist, sexist, and alt-right ideas. To protect your teen against the harms of the tradwife movement, monitor their online activity, help them reset their algorithm, and expose them to diverse gender expressions.
I’m low-key biding my time until the teens in my life replace their Amazon Christmas wish lists with links to TikTok Shop. TikTok users are just one swipe away from tens of millions of products that can be purchased without leaving the app. But is TikTok Shop safe for kids? Let’s find out.
TikTok Shop is an online marketplace where users can buy and sell products inside the app.
Far from the static experience of other selling platforms like eBay and Facebook Marketplace, TikTok Shop is an interactive experience featuring influencer content, personalized recommendations, and embedded social features like sharing.
TikTok Shop can be accessed through the “Shop” tab. Creators can also include links to TikTok Shop products in their videos. These promotional posts amount to semi-stealth commercials and frequently appear on users’ For You Page.
Officially, teen accounts can’t use TikTok Shop. But like most things social media, the reality is more nuanced, with a few workarounds for motivated kids. Here’s what I discovered when I tested it:
Users under 18 are prohibited from accessing TikTok Shop. In my test account for a 13-year-old, “Shop” didn’t even appear in the header menu. But I was able to create an adult account with only a fake birthdate and purchase from TikTok Shop.
I ran into more substantial barriers when I tried to become a seller on TikTok Shop using my fake account. I was prompted to upload a government-issued ID before continuing. Enterprising teens could figure a way around this, but it’s certainly a strong barrier.
I was also asked to provide a Social Security number. I bailed before that step because I’m not trying to give that level of information to TikTok, so I can’t verify if TikTok cross-references social security numbers with the age of the holder. But if so, this step is much harder (and much more illegal) to game.
I was prompted to enter the same identifying documents as when I tried to become a seller.
A number of sources state that age verification isn’t required to create affiliate accounts and earn commission from promoting TikTok Shop products. This information appears to be outdated. My testing found this loophole has been closed.
TL;DR: It’s quite a heavy lift for your child to sell or market TikTok Shop merchandise, but purchasing items is only one fabricated birthday away.
Because teen accounts can’t access TikTok Shop, parental controls don’t apply.
Scams, deepfake doctors selling dubious health products, and the risk of impulsive buying make TikTok Shop not safe for kids. Age verification is easy to fake, though, so make sure they’re on a teen account and monitor their use with BrightCanary.
Learn more about parental controls on TikTok, and find out how to limit purchases with Apple Screen Time controls.
True crime as a genre is hotter than ever. (SSDGM; IYKYK.) But indulging in podcasts, documentaries, and books shouldn’t be confused with the True Crime Community (TCC), a dangerous internet subculture frequented by kids that glorifies mass shooters. Here’s everything you need to know about TCC, including warning signs your child is involved and what you can do to protect them from its influence.
TCC is a decentralized online community fascinated with violence and mass shootings. Members create and share works glorifying real-world acts of violence, including fan art, fan fiction, and stylized videos and photos elevating perpetrators. They also share videos capturing violent acts and disseminate perpetrators’ manifestos and personal writings.
Analysis by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) and the Center on Extremism have found that TCC followers skew concerningly young, with many teens and preteens actively participating.
Because TCC isn’t one centralized website or forum, there are a number of places where kids can encounter it.
Online gaming — particularly sandbox or open-play-style platforms, like Roblox or Garry’s Mod, that allow players to create and share content — are popular with TCC. In “TCC games,” real-world mass shootings are recreated.
Cody Zoschak, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told NPR that gore forums like Documenting Reality and WatchPeopleDie are common pipelines to TCC for boys.
According to Zoschak, girls are more likely to encounter TCC through online eating disorder communities.
TCC is active on most social media platforms, but is most visible on TikTok, Discord, Pinterest, and Telegram.
Because their brains aren’t fully formed and adolescence is a turbulent phase of development, kids are particularly vulnerable to the negative impact of graphic violence and extremism online. Certain factors can increase their susceptibility to falling into a community like TCC:
Struggles at home or at school can lead some kids to empathize with the outcast archetype of mass shooters.
Research identifies these mental health issues as common in perpetrators of school shootings, including those linked with TCC: depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, self-harm, social anxiety, suicidal ideation, and obsessive thoughts.
TCC is known for embracing outcasts, and kids who are bullied or feel alienated from their peers may be drawn to the sense of belonging.
Pay attention to your child’s behavior, both online and off. BrightCanary helps you monitor their online activity and sends real-time alerts to red flags, such as conversions about violence, concerning Google searches, and chats with new contacts.
Many kids find their way to TCC because they feel like they don’t fit in elsewhere; helping your child foster offline friendships can be protective.
Ask questions and make it clear you are there to support your child no matter what.
If you’re concerned, enlist other trusted adults to help you support your child, and consider professional mental health support.
If you’re concerned your child is planning to hurt themselves or others, these free crisis resources can help:
True Crime Community (TCC) is an online subculture that glorifies violence and mass shootings and counts many teens and preteens in its ranks. Involvement in TCC puts kids at risk of exposure to violent content, encouragement to commit violence, dangerous parasocial relationships, and suicide.
To protect your child, monitor their online activity for warning signs, help them create offline connections, and take swift action if you spot concerns.
According to my 14-year-old niece, teens hate using AI — except for homework. This isn’t hard evidence, but it still raises uncomfortable questions.
School districts are increasingly imposing moratoriums on AI, but it’s now embedded in our lives in ways that make preventing kids from using it complicated.
This article addresses three questions: Should kids use AI for homework? Can we actually stop them? And how do we teach them to use it safely and responsibly?
Early research suggests that the risks of kids using AI for education outweigh the benefits, and some experts suggest kids should never use generative AI. Here are some of the risks of letting kids use AI for homework without guardrails:
A report by the Brookings Institution's Center for Universal Education asserts that students who offload too much of their own thinking to AI can experience cognitive decline or atrophy at a level more commonly seen in aging brains.
Research on this is in its infancy, but kids who overuse AI may miss the critical developmental window for certain cognitive skills, and these skills may not be recoverable later.
Struggling to figure out a math problem or craft an essay is an essential component to the learning process. Using AI to eliminate that friction also reduces the learning opportunity.
Analysis by the New York Times found that Google’s AI overview produces tens of millions of incorrect answers per hour.
Banning Claude or ChatGPT doesn’t actually stop kids from using AI. The technology is now so embedded in everyday products that kids no longer have to seek out AI; AI finds them.
Since zero exposure is impossible, the goal then becomes teaching kids AI literacy and critical thinking. These tips help them avoid some of the AI pitfalls:
Kids need to know what they’re up against. Explain your concerns (and those of experts). Help your child see AI as a tool, not an infallible replacement for human expertise and judgment.
Alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo offer an AI-free option, and Startpage uses Google search results without AI mode or overviews.
Use reputable sources to verify any information provided by AI. That might mean cross-checking information with established news organizations, and looking beyond the headlines — for example, if an AI answer is pulling a statistic, double-check that the statistic actually exists and is accurate.
Don’t sleep on other research tools like school and public libraries, news outlets, Google Scholar, and academic institution websites.
ChatGPT study mode uses guided reasoning versus instant answers. In my testing, I found it was easy to convince it to do the work for me by telling it I was checking my answers, but it’s a better option than using ChatGPT without study mode.
The big players aren’t the only bots in the game. This chatbot from Critical Thinking Labs was designed to encourage critical thinking. Like ChatGPT study mode, it’s not a perfect solution, but it guides users to deepen their process and is far less eager to do the work for you than its counterparts.
Encourage your child’s curiosity and help them follow their interests. The Brookings Institution report suggests that students are less inclined to have AI do homework for them if they feel engaged by the work.
As parents, we need to develop and model our own critical thinking skills around AI. Here are some excellent resources to guide you.
BrightCanary is a child monitoring app that helps you keep track of:
This information is valuable as you guide them to use AI responsibly. For more tips, download our free downloadable AI toolkit for parents.
AI is increasingly unavoidable for kids when doing homework. That’s because it’s embedded into search results and common software.
Because of the risks of using AI for homework, such as missing the critical window for developing cognitive skills and the potential to reduce learning, you should take steps to help your child learn AI critical thinking skills.
Fostering curiosity, modeling critical thinking in how you use AI, and encouraging them to explore diverse research tools are some of the ways you can support your child as they navigate AI in their education.
By some measures, Snapchat is the most popular app for teens. Anecdotally, teens in my life tell me they don’t text each other anymore; they Snap. But is Snapchat safe for teens? Let’s take a look.
Snapchat is a photo- and video-centric social media platform. Users can:
My AI, Snapchat’s AI chatbot, is turned on by default, leaving teens exposed to privacy concerns such as targeted ads and stored chats. Snapchat has added filters for teens using My AI since its initial messy launch, but the possibility of inappropriate responses remains.
The Drug Enforcement Agency has identified Snapchat as a platform where criminal drug networks operate. Teens have died after purchasing drugs laced with fentanyl through Snapchat, and the company faces dozens of lawsuits from families.
Snapstreaks, disappearing content, and infinite scroll put teen users at risk of addictive behavior. The company faces numerous ongoing lawsuits alleging that Snapchat is not only aware of this risk, but that its product is designed to drive compulsive use by minors.
Snapchat’s filters and editing tools let users finesse their appearance to such a drastic degree that it’s greatly altered the way teens — particularly girls — view beauty standards, negatively impacting their happiness and self-esteem.
Snapchat has enhanced protections for teens, including newly released safety measures for users 13–15. Highlights include:
Snapchat offers these parental controls through Family Center:
Unfortunately, Snapchat’s Family Center only shows you who your child has been chatting with and how often, not the content of their messages.
Most third-party parental monitoring apps don’t work with Snapchat on Apple devices, but BrightCanary has you covered. You can use BrightCanary to view everything your child types on Snapchat (and all platforms). You’ll also get customizable, real-time alerts to any red flags.
U.S. users must be 13 to use Snapchat.
Users must self-attest their date of birth, but Snapchat has no additional age verification, and it’s easy for kids to fib about their age.
Just because your child can use Snapchat, doesn’t mean they should.
Common Sense Media advises teens to wait until at least 16 before using Snapchat, which is older than their recommendation for other social media platforms. They cite disappearing messages and the app's reputation for sexting, among other concerns.
After years of reviewing and writing about social media, I agree: Snapchat isn’t safe for 13-year-olds. The platform has made progress toward safety, but the remaining risks are simply not worth it. It’s best to wait.
If you decide to let your child use Snapchat, use these tips to help them do so more safely:
Snapchat’s teen safety features and parental controls allow for a reasonably locked-down experience, but remaining risks such as unhealthy beauty standards, addiction risk, and difficulty monitoring their use make it unsafe for teens under 16.
If your child uses Snapchat, you should set up parental controls, explain the risks, and monitor their use with BrightCanary.
Snapchat’s My Eyes Only is a feature you’ve likely never heard of, but really should know about. That’s because your child could be using it to hide things from you. Here’s everything you need to know about the feature.
Snapchat’s My Eyes Only feature is a passcode-protected vault where a user can privately store Snaps or Stories. Only photo Snaps and video Snaps shorter than 10 seconds can be moved to My Eyes Only.
Before we get into why you should be concerned about My Eyes Only, let’s take a look at how it functions.
If your child uses My Eyes Only, they could be doing so for non-worrisome reasons, like wanting to show a friend their memories, but not all their memories, or a developmentally appropriate desire for privacy. But it also could be a big reason for concern.
Snapchat is already an inherently difficult platform for parents to monitor because, by default, messages disappear after just 24 hours.
My Eyes Only further complicates the issue. Snapchat and other social media platforms limit what images child monitoring apps like BrightCanary can access, meaning you’ll need to also use digital check-ins to monitor Snapchat images.
The problem is, most parents don’t know about My Eyes Only, making it an easy hiding place.
I don’t want to freak you out, but it’s worth the thought experiment of playing out the worst-case scenario. One thing a kid might store in My Eyes Only are sexts or AI-generated nudes.
The legal and technical details are complicated, but under certain circumstances, law enforcement may be able to access items stored in My Eyes Only.
Nude images of minors, even when they’re generated by AI, are illegal under federal law. State laws vary, but kids have been charged with both misdemeanors and felonies. If found guilty, depending on the state, they may be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of their lives.
Snapchat's My Eyes Only lets kids hide photos and videos behind a passcode, out of reach of parental monitoring apps. Using it could be an innocent, age-appropriate bid for privacy, but it could also signal trouble. Kids can use My Eyes Only to hide risky content, including nude images which can carry legal consequences, even for minors.
To mitigate the risks, talk openly with your child about your concerns, set clear expectations for their behavior on Snapchat, and monitor their use with BrightCanary.
As an avid online thrifter, I’d never heard of Depop until my editor asked me to review it. Translation: Depop is for the youths, and I’m too old to know what it is. Maybe that’s true for you, too. If your child wants to use Depop, but you're left wondering, “What even is Depop?” or “Is Depop safe for kids?” — I looked into it so you don’t have to. Here’s what I found.
Depop is an online fashion resale marketplace that’s massively popular with the younger set. A whopping 90% of users are under 26, many of them teens.
Perhaps catering to its Gen Z base, Depop feels a lot like a social media platform. Users have a profile, complete with a picture and the option to link to other socials. They can “like” items, follow sellers, and DM other users.
Depop is a bit like a mashup of Instagram (without the parental controls) and eBay (with less robust protections).
Items on Depop are often offered at a steep discount of around 30-50% off retail. Some items, especially fast fashion, can be snagged for 80% less than new, while vintage, trendy, and hard-to-find items sometimes go for more than the original price tag.
Many teens turn to Depop for extra cash, offloading from their own closet or making bank by scooping up limited-edition items and flipping them on the site.
Gen Z on the whole is more focused on sustainable buying decisions than other generations, and used clothing has a substantially lower environmental impact (though there’s some nuance).
It might feel like the biggest risk from your kid using Depop is a sudden influx of packages on your porch or their questionable fashion choices (both very real), but the biggest danger comes from the fact that they’re buying and selling from strangers on the internet.
Users can DM each other (no images), even when not engaged in a transaction. If you know anything about child predators, it’s clear how a site populated by teens with a DM feature is a prime target. Predators can easily connect with your child over a perceived shared interest — “OMG, bestie, that dress is fire. Slay, baddie!” — gain their trust, and then lure them to another app and request explicit pictures.
Transactions completed through Depop include scam protection, but kids can still get duped. Common Depop scams include:
It’s just soooo easy to click that Buy Now or Add to Bag button, especially when you’re getting a good deal. But hundreds of dollars of clothing at 50% off retail is still hundreds of dollars.
Depop has zero parental controls and doesn’t require parental permission to buy or sell. I was able to get up and running with a test account for a 13-year-old in less than a minute.
Depop has no meaningful age verification.
If your child signs up for Depop through Google, and their Google account is set to their actual age, they’ll be informed they need parental permission to open an account. But all they need to do is pivot and sign up through email, then lie about their date of birth.
Despite the risks, Depop can be a positive place for kids. With a little vigilance, it can also be a safe one. Here’s what you should do:
Depop is an online clothing resale platform popular with teens. It’s possible for your child to use it safely, but you both need to understand the risks, like scams and predators. You should take steps to protect your child if they use Depop like teaching them safe online communication and monitoring their use.
Find out why thousands of parents trust their child monitoring to BrightCanary. Supervise your child across every platform and website, 24/7.
Research clearly demonstrates that social media can negatively impact kids. How it affects them depends largely on the algorithms that shape their feed. This complicated and covert process regularly exposes kids to content on eating disorders, self-harm and suicide, extreme gender viewpoints, and other harms. Here’s how algorithms put your child in danger and what you can do about it.
Social media algorithms are complex sets of rules and computations running behind the scenes to determine what content users see and in what order.
Algorithms are opaque and vary by platform and user; no two people have the same feed. One key building block is user behavior. Everything your child sees is partially shaped by what they’ve previously liked, commented on, or shared.
Algorithms have upsides, like keeping your feed clear of topics you don’t care about. But they also have a darker, potentially dangerous side for kids. Algorithms can fill a child’s feed with dangerous content at shocking speed. One recent study focusing on Snapchat found that one in three young users reported being exposed to unsafe content or messages at least weekly.
If your child likes or shares a #petglowup, more rescue-dog makeover videos are likely to enter their feed. On the other hand, if they interact with self-harm or disordered eating content, their feed can quickly fill with dangerous topics.
Researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that new TikTok users who paused on and liked videos about body image and mental health were then recommended suicide and eating disorder content within minutes.
We’re not talking about just a few videos. Teens face an onslaught of potentially harmful content. The CCDH study revealed that TikTok recommends body-image and mental-health videos to teens every 39 seconds.
Although your child’s social media behavior is a big factor in what the algorithm shows them, research shows they’re also likely to be shown harmful content they didn’t seek out.
Most egregiously, the algorithmic harm teens face using social media isn’t a flaw; it’s an intentional design feature.
To increase user engagement, social media companies capitalize on the harmful nature of their algorithms by targeting “vulnerable” accounts.
Research indicates that users who seek out eating disorder content often have usernames that incorporate words like “losing weight.” The CCDH study found that accounts with “lose weight” in their username were fed 12 times more self-harm and suicide videos than control accounts.
As parents, there’s a lot we can’t control about our children’s social media algorithms. But there are still steps you can take to protect them from danger.
It can be hard to fully understand what your child sees on social media because your own algorithm (and therefore your experience online) is likely very different from theirs. Here’s how to stay informed:
Explain how algorithms work and why they can be problematic. Teach them to critically examine what they’re shown on social media.
If your child is exposed to harmful content through their algorithm, resetting it can help. Use this guide to start fresh.
If you’re concerned about the content in your child’s feed, parent coach Lisa Smith of The Peaceful Parent offers these suggestions:
Social media algorithms can expose your child to self-harm, eating disorders, and extremist content within minutes, even without them actively searching for it. You can help by monitoring your child’s social media use (BrightCanary is great for this), teaching them to question their feeds, and keeping communication open and judgment-free.
Learn more about the risky spaces your child might fall into online, from the manosphere to eating disorder content.
We’re huge Percy Jackson fans in my house. I’d been trying (and failing) to get my son to read the book for years, and after he blew through the TV series during a nasty bout of pneumonia, it immediately became our read-aloud bedtime pick. Even though I heartily share it with my brood, your family is not mine, so here’s everything you need to know to decide for yourself if Percy Jackson is appropriate for kids.
The Percy Jackson book series is classified as Middle Grade, meaning its target audience is roughly 8-12 years old.
Common Sense Media says the book is appropriate for ages 9+.
The TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board rates Percy Jackson PG.
Common Sense Media gives it the green light for kids 9+.
I generally agree with Common Sense Media, but I think they’re a touch conservative with this one. Or, rather, there’s more nuance. I think both the book and the TV series are appropriate for the target audience of 8+.
My 6-year-old had no issues listening to the book. She’s a tough-as-nails little sister who’s been exposed through her brother to things he never would have been at her age (second babies, amIrite?). I would think twice about letting her watch the show, since it’s a different beast to see the scary monsters, but I’d probably allow it under parental supervision.
I share this to illustrate that if you’re raising an extra-sensitive soul, it’s probably wise to wait — but if, say, your little one didn’t blink at Star Wars, they’ll probably be fine.
With BrightCanary monitoring, it’s easy to stay on top of the TV shows, movies, and books your child is talking to their friends about.
Neither the book nor the show has any profanity.
With kids’ books published 20 years ago, you always run the risk of encountering problematic stereotypes and outdated ideas. There were a few instances of ableism (the use of the word “crippled,” for example) and fatphobia that made my skin crawl, but they were honestly mild compared to literature standards of the time.
I simply paused and briefly explained why that kind of language and thinking is outdated and harmful. Kids can understand nuance better than we tend to give them credit for.
I haven’t read book two yet, but I’m told it includes the r-word. Not great, but it’s spoken by a bully, so at least it’s not presented as a positive. Personally, this wouldn’t stop me from sharing it with my kids, but I would use it as a teachable moment.
In step with the times, the Percy Jackson books are super white-coded, while the newer TV series does a good job of racial diversity — the whipsmart, no-nonsense Annabeth is played by the talented Leah Sava Jeffries.
Occasional ableist language in the book aside, both the book and the movie do a decent job of disability representation; Percy’s ADHD and dyslexia are portrayed as strengths, and his mentor is a wheelchair user (played in the series by the incomparable Glynn Turman).
There’s no nudity. There’s innocent tweeny flirting and mentions of conception in relation to the kids’ immortal lineage, but nothing explicit.
As expected, considering Percy and his friends are battling gods, there’s a lot of violence in both the book and the movie. There’s also tween bullying, exploding vehicles, and plenty of sword fighting.
However, deaths are stylized and not gory; aside from one beheading, characters fade to dust when killed. Percy’s stepfather drinks and abuses his mom, but it’s discussed rather than depicted and is more obvious in the book than the show.
The book features vivid descriptions of scary monsters, some of which are nightmarish onscreen (I’m looking at you, Sirens). Percy’s mother is also thought to be dead for an extended time, and he and his friends are under near-constant peril.
Percy’s stepdad smokes cigars and drinks excessively, and a taxi driver smokes a cigar. A surfer mentions mushrooms, but in a way that’s likely to go over kids’ heads.
The Percy Jackson books and the Disney+ TV series are both appropriate for kids and delightful additions to your child’s reading and watching rotation.
Both feature violence and can be scary. Some outdated tropes show up in the book, but needn’t be dealbreakers because they can be used as teachable moments. Overall positive representation (especially in the series) overshadows occasional negative stereotypes. The book is appropriate to read aloud to younger kids, but the series is scarier and might be worth waiting until 8 or 9, depending on your child’s temperament.
Stay in the know about the media your child consumes. Thousands of parents trust BrightCanary child monitoring for insights, summaries, and alerts on iOS.
Meta AI now gives you insight into your child’s conversations with its AI chatbot. But this feature only shows broad strokes, and that’s not enough to meaningfully monitor and protect your child.
Meta AI has been ringing alarm bells since its inception. It earned an “unacceptable” risk assessment by Common Sense Media, faced an FTC investigation, and even failed Meta’s own internal testing.
Here are some of the issues with it:
Recently, Meta blocked underage users from interacting with AI characters and announced that teens inquiring about suicide will trigger a parental alert. These sound promising, but I’m still skeptical.
Blocking interaction with AI characters is good, but this doesn’t address the entirety of the problem. Teens can still use Meta’s AI assistant, where many safety concerns remain.
Additionally, no independent tests of the new notification system have been published, and Meta hasn’t released internal testing data. Given that third-party stress tests of Meta AI’s prior safety notification system declared it “broken” and notification systems from competitors like ChatGPT are also resounding failures, I’m not encouraged that this round is anything more than empty promises.
If you supervise your child on a Teen Account on Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram, you can now see what they’ve asked Meta AI.
Via the Insights tab, you’ll see a list of the topics your teen has asked about in the past seven days. (Your teen can also see the same list.)
Topics are broken down into 16 categories:
If you click on a category, you get associated sub-topics, including at least one your child has asked about. However, you aren’t able to see the exact prompt your child entered, nor the chatbot’s response.
Meta does provide 11 conversation-starters developed in collaboration with the Cyberbullying Research Center to help you follow up with your teen. (It’s a great resource.)
Meta’s new Insights feature strikes me as more safety theater from a company that consistently prioritizes profits over child safety. Here’s why Meta’s “topic categories” don’t qualify as true supervision and aren’t enough to keep your child safe:
Expert warnings about AI chatbots range from potentially harmful to downright unsafe and unacceptable for users under 18. Instead of limiting use to adults or building a genuinely safe product, Meta made a subpar feature that implicitly signals to parents they should let their kids use AI chatbots because they’re now “safe.”
All you’re told is that something your child typed fits into one of 16 broad categories. Clicking for details only reveals a handful of sub-topics, some of which may not be related to what they asked. That’s not meaningful insight. For example, if Health and Wellbeing appears, your child might have asked about acne or about serious issues like mental health or substance abuse.
Although Meta’s list includes 16 topics, it inexplicably limits you to 10 items per seven-day period. This arbitrary cap means if your child’s 11th topic is something serious, you’re out of luck.
It’s tempting to say Meta’s Insights are better than nothing, but I’m not convinced. It may give a false sense of security and cause parents to forgo additional measures. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say it would be better if they instead did nothing, but at least without this feature, it would be clearer that the platform doesn’t truly monitor kids, and parents could make safety decisions accordingly.
Users can’t fully opt out of Meta AI, but they can mute the chatbot. Given teens’ tendency to do the opposite of what parents ask, rather than telling them to mute it, provide them information on why it’s bad for them.
It may not be a big leap; according to my 14-year-old niece, “teens hate AI,” and she’s not alone in her sentiment. This stance makes sense for a digitally savvy generation: the more educated people are about how AI works, the less likely they are to use it.
Demonstrate critical thinking when you use AI and make it known when you’re skeptical of its output.
BrightCanary scans everything your child types, including on all AI platforms, and gives you meaningful insight to help you address the situation:
AI chatbots are incredibly risky for kids. Meta AI’s Insights feature uses broad categories that aren’t a substitute for true parental monitoring and risk giving a sense of false security. BrightCanary gives you the visibility and details you need without leaving your child’s safety up to guesswork. Download today to get started for free.
