Safe on Social

For years people have said that if we just had more self-control, were better parents, and set clearer boundaries, everything would be okay. They told us to be stricter, but also more relaxed, and to find a balance between the two. This way of thinking puts all the blame on the parents. It’s always been yy assumption that big tech companies are trying to shift the responsibility away from themselves and onto parents. They want us to feel guilty for not being good enough paren

This week the IWF released new figures on child self-reported deepfake abuse. This is what to do if you child or student says an image isn’t real. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and Childline released their latest Report Remove figures for the past six months last week. It is a service in the UK that lets under eighteens flag sexual images or videos of themselves and get them taken down. The sobering numbers that have been reported are that 420 of those reports are dee

On Monday 3 August the Australian eSafety Commissioner released its most detailed study yet of how children are using generative artificial intelligence. The report, titled Talking to Machines: Children’s Experiences with AI Assistants and Companions, is based on a survey of one thousand nine hundred and fifty children aged ten to seventeen, conducted between the second of February and the fourth of March 2026.Seventy eight per cent of the children had used an AI assistant su

From time to time, distressing or harmful material circulates online that children and young people may come across often without ever looking for it. When this happens, we write to you not to alarm you, but so that you are prepared and know what to do. We are deliberately not describing any specific material or naming anyone involved, and we ask that you do the same. Please do not go looking for it, and please do not name it in front of children. Why we ask you not to name

Five years ago, it was the occasional email. A handful of parents starting to ask bigger, harder questions of the organisations their children spend time with. Now that same question lands in my inbox almost every day. It comes from thoughtful parents wondering about consent forms — the "permission to publish" forms that decide where images of their children end up online. Dance, martial arts, the local footy club or school — it doesn't matter. The worry is the same. And lat