Meg Leta Jones publishes op-eds on recent SCOTUS internet porn ruling, state AI regulation, and AI in schools

Meg Leta Jones, core faculty member at the Center for Digital Ethics and Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor in the Communication, Culture & Technology (CCT) program, has recently published op-eds addressing critical issues in childproofing the internet, protecting children from dangerous AI apps, and parental rights with respect to AI in education.

Writing in the online, independent news and opinion platform The Conversation on June 27 on the decision by the Supreme Court in Free Speech Coalition Inc. v. Paxton that Texas’s law obligating porn sites to block access to underage users is constitutional, Jones explains that the law requires pornographic websites to verify users’ ages – for example by making users scan and upload their driver’s license – before granting access to content that is deemed obscene for minors but not adults. Outlining the arguments that were made supporting and opposing the law, Jones describes how the Court concluded that the law’s effort to protect minors is consistent with “ordinary and appropriate” methods that are “only ‘incidentally’ burdening adults’ First Amendment rights.” The decision in the case, she writes, “gives state lawmakers much more room to effectively regulate how online platforms interact with children, but I believe successful laws will need to be carefully written.”

On July 25 in The Hill, Jones–along with Margot Kaminski, Moses Lasky Professor of Law at University of Colorado Law School and director of the Privacy Initiative at Silicon Flatirons–argues that “[a]s the U.S. defines its AI policy, we must ensure that states continue to have the authority to protect kids from new technologies.” Citing children’s unique vulnerability to the sometimes fatal dangers of “relationships” with AI companions designed to mimic and encourage human interaction that most kids are developmentally unable to evaluate critically or defend against, Jones and Kaminski assert that “[t]here is profound misalignment between the goal of profitability through engagement, and the welfare of our children.” 

Jones tackles the issue of the use of AI in K-12 education in a July 30 essay for the Institute for Family Studies titled “AI is the Latest Threat to Parental Rights in Education.” After describing a steady erosion of protections of student privacy and against the usurpation of parental consent since the 1990s–in spite of legislative efforts–she points out that “AI in K-12 education, particularly at the elementary level, risks undermining the development of fundamental cognitive skills that children need to build through struggle and practice.”  The solution, she asserts, is “the restoration of parental consent” in schools, which, she suggests, requires three surprisingly easy steps: 1) immediately rescind FTC guidance allowing schools to consent on behalf of parents, “returning to COPPA’s original congressional requirement for direct parental consent;” 2) enforce parental consent protections in FERPA, carefully narrowing, monitoring, and enforcing the “school official exception,” the meaning of which “[a]dministrative interpretation has since stretched . . . beyond recognition,” with “[e]ducational technology companies now routinely qualify[ing] as ‘school officials,’ despite FERPA’s requirements; and 3) amending the White House’s AI Executive Order “to include clear language that AI systems may only be used with students after obtaining parental consent that explains what AI technologies will be used, what data will be collected, how decisions will be made, and the potential impacts on children’s educational and social development.”