Khadija Mohammed

Prepared for Boston Children's Hospital Digital Wellness Lab, this memo explains the regulatory landscape of AI and child tech products. Currently, the federal government has few regulations on the use of AI in child technology products. Lawsuits on AI chatbots, such as those involving Character AI, have made courts a regulator on AI and child tech products. In addition to lawsuits, state have proposed regulations for AI products, such as California’s LEAD for Kids Act. On a global level, entities, such as the European Union and the United Nations, also play a role in defining AI use with children.

In the United States, civic education has been at an all-time low. Teaching civics in schools is invaluable because the youth are much more malleable and easily influenced, making it possible to instill the value of civic engagement into students. Political participation is important in a democracy as it ensures that the government is in regulation by the people. This brief includes and analyzes a brief synopsis of the patterns of civic education in the primary regions of the United States.

Over the past year, political sentiment has pushed states to regulate social media use for children in the United State. We analyze 300 bills introduced by US state legislatures in 2024. We find that while Democratic- and Republican-controlled legislatures both introduced legislation related to social media, Republican-controlled state legislatures were more likely to enact such regulation.

Throughout history, the distribution of information has proven to be widespread and rapid. Though the spread of news comes with multiple benefits, along with it comes the dangerous side effects of propaganda and misinformation. Recently, a graphic1 circled social media comparing Israeli Prime Minis...

During the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, the United States went into a period of isolation.1 While they were occupied with their financial instabilities, the far-right political ideology of fascism propagated between 1919 and 1945. Critics blame the lack of response from the U.S. for...