Pandemic lockdowns led to an unprecedented surge in children’s usage of digital devices. Yet while tech helped alleviate some of the pressure placed on parents at the peak of the crisis, the mass digitisation of everyday life has raised questions around just how safe kids are online.

Instagram is giving live-streamers on the platform the power to appoint moderators to remove harmful or abusive content. As people look to social platforms to take responsibility for the content they host, empowering community moderators is a positive step to build collective responsibility.

Social media platforms often rely on age verification measures to keep younger users out, but kids can easily bypass them. With concerns rising about how safe kids are online, Yoti’s age prediction tool could provide a solution, but only if people trust its use of facial recognition technology.

While parents worry about the disadvantages of their kids getting too much screen time, researchers believe they should be taught what lies behind the black box of AI. Canvas8 spoke to expert Stefania Druga about her work, which involves demystifying machine learning for the next generation.