For the first time in human history, not in a generation, not in a decade, but right now, in real time, adults are not arriving ahead of children. They are arriving alongside them. Shaped by the same systems. Pulled by the same currents in architecture that was never designed to slow us down, never built to make us think, only to make us respond. The algorithms did not come for the young first. They came for all of us. What they have levelled is not just our attention. What t

From New Mexico to Global Regulation: Shifting Expectations of Platform Responsibility By Anna Hayes & Kirra Pendergast A Turning Point in Online Safety Seven and a half hours. That’s all it took for twelve ordinary people to unveil what decades of legal abstraction, lobbying, and child online safety spin had worked hard to keep hidden. Even more alarming is that this fog was not just maintained by platforms and policymakers. It was supported by a wider culture of reassurance

Warning - 18+ Only Contains Explicit Images If you have not heard of it yet, there is a good chance the young people in your orbit have. It is instantly available. You can access for three days for free then a subscription. It looks, at first glance, like a game. Colourful avatars, character roleplay, the warm familiar feel of a social app. It arrives through a TikTok recommendation or a friend's suggestion, and it is inside your child's world before you have had a chance

Every human library ever assembled, every act of courage and every act of depravity, every war and every love poem now lives in the glass rectangle your child carries to bed. The question was never whether they would learn from it. The question, the one we have failed to ask loudly enough for long enough, is who designed the lesson plan, what they wanted in return, and whether any of us consented to the curriculum. There is something that happens in the bedroom after midnight

Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Law. What Big Tech hijacked, what it cost us, and what actually matters now I grew up in Byron Bay. I was born in 1970, the same year Victoria became the first jurisdiction on earth to make seatbelts mandatory, and I remember 1977 the way most people remember yesterday. I have a mild form of hyperthymesia — I rarely talk about it — which means my autobiographical memory functions like a recording. Dates, conversations, the exact words some

What schools, parents and educators need to understand about deepfakes, digital abuse, and the gap where real harm lives. Before you start reading this please know the information in this post is provided as general guidance only and does not constitute legal advice. Every situation is different, and the legal frameworks governing work health and safety obligations vary across Australian jurisdictions. If you are a school leader, diocesan officer, or department representative

“You can improve yourself. You can be more”. “There are techniques, routines, tools that will sharpen the version of you the world currently cannot see”. And he watches. Of course, he watches. Because that is precisely what the algorithm was designed to ensure. What follows is not a single moment of radicalisation. There is no clear before-and-after. What follows is something far more insidious and far more difficult to reverse. What follows is the slow, algorithmic reframing

No young man wakes up one morning and decides to hate women. Here's what I keep saying to every parent, every teacher, every person who knows a young man who has been influenced by the manosphere or its fringe dwellers, asks me “how does that even happen” — well it doesn't happen the way you think it does. There is no single moment. No bad video that flips a switch. No influencer who reaches through a screen and rewires a boy's brain in an afternoon. It's quieter than that.

CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses a game that references child sexual exploitation and may be distressing to survivors of abuse. It contains frank discussion of how real-world criminal cases are being turned into entertainment for adolescents. A game is circulating among young people called Five Nights at Epstein's. It's being shared in group chats, traded between friends, and accessed on platforms where user-generated content slips past filters. This is not a rumour.

A fourteen-year-old takes a screenshot of a classmate's Instagram photo, runs it through a free AI app, and generates a fake sexual image. They share it in a group chat. A few mates laugh. Someone screenshots it. Someone forwards it. By lunchtime, it has reached people the original sender has never met. The fourteen-year-old thinks it's a joke. Under new amendments to the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), effective 16 February 2026, it is a criminal offence. And the penalties are not sm

On February 19, 2026, Roblox announced its inaugural Global Parent Council. Eighty parents from thirty-two countries, hand-selected, meeting quarterly to "share insights and perspectives" and "advise on products, policies, and partnerships." There is a Head of Parental Advocacy with a doctorate. There is a companion programme called Parent Champions. The press release uses words like committed, empowered, co-creating, safe. If you are a parent who has been worried about Roblo

Confusion has a way of spreading faster than truth, and right now, confusion is spreading through our school communities about Australia’s "ban" on social media for children under 16 years. I can hear it in the voices of parents who are worried their child has done something illegal. I can see it in students who believe they are one login away from punishment. I can feel it among staff who are unsure where their legal responsibilities begin and end. Australia did not ban chi

If you work in a school as a principal, in advancement or marketing, board member, wellbeing lead, ICT manager or educator, you may already know this feeling. That quiet pause before approving a photo for social media and the moment of unease that didn’t exist five years ago. The sense that something has shifted, even if the policies haven’t yet caught up. You’re not imagining it. The risk environment has changed, and with the amount of coverage now appearing across Australia

For the past two days, I began each student's talk with these questions: “Who here is still able to access all the apps?” And for the older students: “Who has a younger sibling still with access?” In the first session, Yrs 9/10, there was hesitation. A few brave hands. I could feel the uncertainty in the room, maybe even shame or fear from those still under 16 years that they might get in trouble. I broke it open and spoke as I have become known for on LinkedIn and in inte

If you’ve ever posted a photo of your child with a smiley face or heart emoji over their face, you’re not alone. It’s become a kind of digital parenting ritual. A signal that says, I love them, but I’m protecting them too. That instinct, to protect while still sharing, is deeply human. But here’s what most of us haven’t been told: the tools we’ve been using to protect our kids online haven’t kept up with the technology, which is now learning from them. It’s time to gently, b