Publications: Alex Ambrose

Rather than following the UK’s lead on children’s online safety, U.S. policymakers should learn from their mistakes and chart a better path that skillfully preserves user privacy, limits collateral damage, and removes the incentives for online services to over-remove lawful content.

The Supreme Court upheld Texas’s online age checks, opening the door to fragmented state laws. Congress should create a single national “child flag” system to protect kids and simplify compliance.

AR/VR innovation needs to accelerate in order to meet the critical demands of health care. Policymakers should empower and fund immersive technologies in the health-care industry because of the long-term cost saving benefits and positive impact on patient care.

Instead of legislating AI companions based on a real understanding of the benefits and potential harms of AI companions, states risk over-regulating before the technology can reach its full potential.

A reasonable compromise on federal data privacy should protect and promote innovation by minimizing compliance costs and restrictions on data use, as well as address concrete privacy harms, improve transparency requirements, and strengthen oversight and enforcement.

There is still time to adjust the COPPA Rule to better protect children and empower parents without imposing unnecessary burdens on businesses and users.

Senators reintroduced the Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA), which has many flaws, namely that it complicates compliance for platforms that already disallow children below age 13 and limits users’ ability to fully customize their online experience.

Congress needs to step in to prevent a patchwork of state age-verification laws and establish a child-flag system that would better balance adults' access to legal content versus children's access to material intended for mature audiences.

Standards Australia should establish age-based guidelines for the metaverse using existing content ratings; require device operating systems to create an opt-in “trustworthy child flag” system; work with global, government-led groups to build voluntary industry standards with a focus on interoperability; and promote digital literacy campaigns for children to operate in the metaverse safely.

Meta announced on January 7, 2025 that it was ending its third-party fact-checking program on its social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Threads—and moving to a “Community Notes” model, similar to X, in the United States.