YouTube is strengthening its Community Guidelines around online gambling and graphic violence in gaming. Starting November 17, existing rules prohibiting content linking to online gambling sites or applications that are not certified by Google will also include links to sites involving digital goods with “monetary value,” including video game skins, cosmetics and NFTs. “Our policies are designed to evolve alongside the digital world,” Google says, explaining that the changes “keep pace with new trends, like gambling with digital goods, and to more closely align our guidelines for mature content with industry standards.” Continue reading Google Expands YouTube Rules Limiting Violence, Gambling

Meta Platforms is adding new safety features to provide parents more control as to how children — most pointedly teens — interact with AI chatbots and characters. The move follows the September launch of an FTC investigation of Meta and five other companies on the potentially harmful effects of their AI on children and teens. Meta’s new guardrails will allow parents to turn off one-on-one chats with AI characters completely or just block specific characters. They’ll also be able to glean insight into topics their underage household members are discussing with AI, including Meta’s own AI assistant. Continue reading Meta Bolsters Parental Controls for AI in Wake of FTC Inquiry

On the heels of passing a sweeping AI consumer safety law, California Governor Gavin Newsom has enacted multiple privacy laws, including one that makes it “clear and easy” to delete social media accounts. Another expands 2018’s California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), requiring web browsers to include one-click methods to universally opt-out of allowing third-parties to sell personal data. Previously, Californians had to opt out of data sharing by filing requests one site at a time. Effective 2027, browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari will be required to have a single setting that lets consumers opt out of all data brokering. Continue reading Three New California Laws Strengthen Consumer Data Privacy

California has become the first state in the nation to enact an AI safety law. The Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act requires major AI firms to regularly report safety information, keeping government apprised of the guardrails imposed when building models as well as ongoing risks presented. California is home to leading AI companies including OpenAI, Alphabet, Anthropic, Meta Platforms, Nvidia and xAI, which means the law will be something of a national standard, as the rules imposed on those companies will have follow-through effects in all states. The law also bolsters whistle-blower protections for employees of the affected firms. Continue reading California Enacts an AI Law Focused on Frontier Model Safety

OpenAI has added parental controls for ChatGPT’s Web interface, with mobile controls coming soon. The controls give parents the ability to reduce or remove certain content and dial down personalization by turning off ChatGPT’s transcript memories. At the same time, OpenAI has added the ability to restrict image generation with the launch of Sora parental controls for ChatGPT-connected teen accounts. There are also controls for sending and receiving direct messages through the app. OpenAI says the changes aim “to give families tools to support their teens’ use of AI.” To activate control access, parents must have their own accounts and teens will need to opt in. Continue reading OpenAI Rolls Out New Parental Controls to Help Protect Kids

Google is rolling out “Gemini in Chrome” to U.S. Mac and Windows desktop users. Business users will get it in the weeks to come, as will Android and iOS mobile devices. The immediate change integrates “Google AI into Chrome across multiple levels so it can better anticipate your needs, help you understand more complex information, and make you more productive when you browse the web.” There are a number of safety features that leverage AI to combat scams and handle things like automatic password resets. And Gemini in Chrome will soon be able to recall websites previously visited without requiring you to scroll through your browsing history. An agentic browsing assistant is also in the works. Continue reading Google Adds Gemini AI Assistant to Chrome Browser in U.S.

Following a California teen’s suicide after months of conversation about it with ChatGPT and a wrongful death lawsuit filed by his parents against OpenAI, the company says it will introduce parental controls “within the next month.” New safeguards include parents being able to “control how ChatGPT responds to their teen” and “receive notifications when the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress.” OpenAI says it has recently introduced a real-time router that can redirect “sensitive conversations” to its GPT-5 thinking and o3 reasoning models, engineered to respond with greater contextual awareness than efficiency-focused chat models. Continue reading OpenAI Announces Plans for New ChatGPT Parental Controls

As ByteDance approaches the latest U.S. deadline to sell TikTok or face being banned here, it continues to add new features, with barely a ripple of news concerning a sale. The legislation that contained the sales clause became law in April 2024. The most recent of several extensions was issued in June, pushing the deadline to September 17. In July Reuters reported a deal was “close,” with TikTok building a new U.S. version of its app ahead of a planned sale “to a group of investors.” Now the platform is adding voice notes to DMs and image uploads in chats. Up to nine images or video clips can be added to individual or group chats. Continue reading TikTok Adds Voice Notes for DMs and Image Uploads in Chats

OpenAI and Anthropic — rivals in the AI space who guard their proprietary systems — joined forces for a misalignment evaluation, safety testing each other’s models to identify when and how they fall short of human values. Among the findings: reasoning models including Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, and OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini resist jailbreaks, while conversational models like GPT-4.1 were susceptible to prompts or techniques intended to bypass safety protocols. Although the test results were unveiled as users complain chatbots have become overly sycophantic, the tests were “primarily interested in understanding model propensities for harmful action,” per OpenAI. Continue reading Anthropic and OpenAI Report Findings of Joint AI Safety Tests

Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 now have the discrete ability to end “abusive” or “harmful” conversations in consumer chat interfaces. Anthropic says the feature was developed as part of its exploratory work on the protection and well-being of its AI models. The company also envisions broader safety uses, although it does point out that having a model defensively terminate a chat is an extreme measure, intended for use in rare cases. “We’re working to identify and implement low-cost interventions to mitigate risks to model welfare,” Anthropic explains, qualifying it is unsure “such welfare is possible.” Continue reading New Anthropic Safety Updates Focus on Claude’s Well-Being

Meta Platforms has launched a war against scammers who have infiltrated its popular messaging service WhatsApp, reportedly taking down more than 6.8 million accounts on the platform and adding features to help people identify fraudulent schemes in group and individual chats. Meta claims the scams go far beyond WhatsApp, involving crime syndicates linked to known fraud communities around the world. These criminal scam centers commonly use forced labor to target people across multiple apps, commonly disrupting WhatsApp, the mobile SMS tree that underpins private text messaging, as well as users of ChatGPT, TikTok, Telegram and blockchain. Continue reading WhatsApp Deletes Scam Accounts and Adds Safety Features

Google’s YouTube is adding new age-verification methods designed to protect teens. The streaming video platform is using AI to interpret “a variety of signals” to identify users under 18, regardless of the birthdate used to create the account. If the system identifies a user as a teen, age-appropriate protections will automatically take effect. These include disabling personalized advertising, restricted recommendations, limits on repetitive viewing of certain content and screen-time reminders. If the system incorrectly categorizes a user as under 18, they will have the option to correct the situation with a credit card or a government ID. Continue reading YouTube Deploying AI to Identify and Safeguard U.S. Minors

The European Union has published a General Purpose AI (GPAI) Code of Practice designed to help companies comply with the AI Act, which includes copyright protections and transparency requirements for advanced models. The Code of Practice bans training models on unauthorized materials and says companies must comply with copyright-holder requests to omit work from datasets. Developers are required to provide documentation describing the features of their AI models. The AI Act began taking effect in August 2024 and is being implemented gradually, with key transparency, governance and privacy provisions coming into force next month. Continue reading EU Releases AI Practices Code to Help with Legal Compliance

Texas has codified a new law that requires the Apple and Google app stores to verify users’ ages for downloads, providing parents and guardians more control over children’s downloads. California and Illinois are considering similar measures, but so far Texas is the largest among 20 states that have evaluated similar smartphone laws aimed at child safety. In March, Utah became the first state to establish such regulation. As part of a broader national push Congress this month reintroduced the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) requiring social media platforms to police harmful content. Continue reading Texas Enacts App Store Accountability Act to Protect Children

TikTok AI Alive is a new image-to-video feature that can add sequential expression to selfies and add progressive hues to sunsets. Accessible through the platform’s Story Camera, AI Alive uses intelligent editing tools that give anyone, regardless of experience, “the ability to transform static images into captivating, short-form videos enhanced with movement, atmospheric and creative effects.” TikTok says it is prioritizing safety and transparency by adding a label to AI Alive stories, which will also have C2PA metadata embedded, traveling with the content even when it’s downloaded and shared elsewhere. Continue reading TikTok Offering ‘AI Alive’ Image-to-Video Generator in Stories