Two years ago, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt released his New York Times bestseller The Anxious Generation. The book posits that the rise of social media and smartphone use is largely to blame for the prominent decline in teen mental health since 2010. It quickly became a central rallying cry of the social media backlash. Haidt has been credited with helping inspire Australia's nationwide teen social media ban. He has joined forces with bereaved parents who are fighting tech companies in court. His name comes up unprompted in conversations with people in power who say his book opened their eyes to an online crisis.

Haidt's theory has …

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It's the hot new thing in tech, and it's where all the jobs are. Students who don't learn to use it fall behind. And to help them catch up in time, its creators are graciously providing the resources and curriculum for learning it, often pro bono.

That's the narrative AI companies are pitching schools on right now, but according to New York Times education technology reporter Natasha Singer, it's also how the tech industry has built its influence in classrooms for the past 15 years.

In a new book, Coding Kids, Singer details how tech companies took a central role in promoting computers and coding skills in education, promising computer sci …

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Microsoft agreed to a set of safety and privacy principles for AI in schools a week after two major school systems announced a ban on student-facing AI.

In a new agreement with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second-largest teachers union in the US, and its New York City affiliate the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), Microsoft committed to ten principles that can be contractually enforced by school districts that adopt them. The terms include pledging not to train AI models on student or educator data, limiting the amount of data Microsoft collects in the first place and disclosing to families how its tools work in plain …

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One messy database is threatening to disenfranchise thousands or even millions of registered voters, while leaving even more at risk of intimidation or data breaches, in the name of solving a problem that barely exists.

As the 2026 midterm elections approach, election and privacy experts are sounding alarms about the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program, which President Donald Trump's administration has expanded to ostensibly catch noncitizens voting. Experts say that amounts to a dangerous, error-prone effort to centralize voter data. "The federal government doesn't have the author …

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Under a new bipartisan bill, Americans could sue for damages if a government official illegally tries to coerce a social media, AI, or broadcasting company to remove their post - regardless of whether the platform actually does it.

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the JAWBONE Act on Thursday, which, in addition to letting individuals sue for these kinds of damages, would create new transparency requirements for government communications with social media, AI, and broadcast companies.

That could empower someone like Jimmy Kimmel to sue Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr …

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