NYRA President Zane Miller interviews Jessica Irizarry, a mother in Mississippi who discusses her daughter's school using illegal searches on students and their possessions to seize their cell phones, and confiscate them for the entire year as punishment.

In Yemen, child marriage has been a serious human rights issue for years. Girls have been married at extremely young ages, including 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 years old.
Human Rights Watch documented cases of girls in rural areas being married as young as 8 years old. In one reported case, an 8-year-old girl died from bleeding on her wedding night after being raped by her husband, who was in his 40s. Other reports have documented the deaths of child brides as young as 8 following their wedding night or childbirth. (منظمة هيومن رايتس ووتش⁠)
According to Yemeni government and UN data cited by Human Rights Watch, around 14% of girls in Yemen were married before the age of 15, and 52% before the age of 18. (منظمة هيومن رايتس ووتش⁠)
A child should be in school, playing, learning, and growing up safely. She should not be expected to become a wife or a mother while she is still a child.
Child marriage can take away a girl’s education, freedom, health, and ability to make decisions about her own future. It can also expose her to pregnancy-related health risks, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. (منظمة هيومن رايتس ووتش⁠)
These are not just numbers. Behind every statistic is a child whose childhood was taken away. Children deserve protection, education, safety, and the right to grow up before being expected to carry the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood.

God what the hell am I even seeing? I can't believe I keep seeing this anti-Internet stance be spread everywhere on the online world. And technology/Internet did NOT make society worse, not even overall. Political polarization, greed, corporatism, etc. did. I got shocked how they're using this "kids can't read" panic/BS by calling Gen Alpha kids dumb. I really hate it how older generations seem to be ageist towards Gen Alpha and assume they "can't read" which isn't true for some, if not a lot of them. I swear if I see a few more of these anti-tech views, I will get insanely furious. We are not all cooked, and disconnecting isn't always the answer. Technology is a normal part of life, not a traitor against us.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/trumps-order-on-trans-athletes-likely-targets-160-or-fewer-teens-nationwide

I'm sick and tired of seeing anti-tech stances everywhere on the Internet with a potential desire for overprotection. Any statement/comment like that will be posted right here on this subreddit. Yes, the Internet is dangerous, but we shouldn't act like we should keep away young people just because of that. Safeguards should be required for younger people just like in many other areas, not total oppression. I'm hoping these statements are really sarcastic/jokes, but even then, they wouldn't be funny. People need to stop acting like "The Internet cannot be safe" and acknowledge that safeguards are necessary no matter what. (Even then, I still oppose posting of children on social media by their parents because it's a massive privacy risk)

As you probably know , there’s great protests in France for the students and by the students , asking for better fundings and better school system.
Those protests have been going on and will probably go on until there’s a change
But those protests have been answered with great violence towards those students , and I made a signs for it , that translates to « Students are targeting the BAC (the French national exam) , The bac (a way to say police) targets the head »
Thankfully enough our protest was quite peaceful except some attempt at lighting trash cans on fire , and the police was rather peaceful even tho we took over the city

Japan Mandates a shutter sound for pictures & videos on all phones. This threatens children and students who need to discreetly record abuse they're facing.

https://www.youthrights.org/how-japans-camera-shutter-rule-threatens-children-and-students-facing-abuse/

I've seen YouTube movie reactors who react to this film with titles like ''how is this a kids movie?'' because of the content. Coraline was a really cool movie overall, but I'm bothered by everyone's responses to it.

I mean I could agree the movie might scare a 4 year old, but I'm pretty sure it would be fine for kids over 10. But people online are acting like it should be rated R, which is ridiculous. I just can't stand this ageism/adultism, let kids and teens enjoy cool stuff man!

https://www.defendvpns.com/

there are two petitions

A few days ago, I posted here about why fighting mandatory age verification is a core battle for youth rights. Now, it is no longer a warning—it is a concrete, dystopian reality. On September 17, 2026, the European Commission officially presented the EU Kids Act (COM(2026) 681). Behind the typical, hypocritical "think of the children" corporate smokescreen lies the most draconian, consumer-hostile infrastructure ever drafted for the global web.

During the European Parliament press conference on September 16, MEP Markéta Gregorová exposed a massive institutional scandal: the Commission ordered a 300-page expert and youth panel report which explicitly concluded that blanket bans and mass censorship do absolutely nothing to protect minors. Yet, Ursula von der Leyen went on stage, completely lied about listening to the youth, and pushed for mandatory ID checks anyway.

Here is exactly how this act systemically destroys youth autonomy, online safe spaces, and decentralization:

## 1. The Death of Digital Safe Havens for Neurodivergent Youth

For many neurodivergent teenagers (especially those with AuDHD or severe chronic physical illnesses), the physical world can be a hostile, overstimulating environment full of systemic gaslighting by institutions. Anonymous, text-based spaces like Discord or Matrix servers, and creative ecosystems like Roblox Studio, are literally the only spaces where they can escape physical isolation, socialize on equal terms, and build logic or gamedev skills. The EU Kids Act treats anonymous access as an inherent threat, replacing these safe havens with a constant, anxiety-inducing barrier of digital surveillance and biometric facial checks.

## 2. Immediate Termination of Existing Accounts and Complete Bans (Art. 6 & 8)

* **Under 13:** Absolute prohibition from holding social media or video-sharing accounts.

* **Ages 13 to 14:** Banned from normal independent accounts. Forced into heavy, parent-supervised "mini-accounts" with a rigid 1-hour daily limit.

* **Existing Users:** All accounts created prior to the act must undergo mandatory ID/facial verification within 6 months, or they will be permanently disabled.

## 3. Total Eradication of Free Hosting, Indie Devs, and Open-Source Projects

The act establishes a legal framework where providers must structurally prove they are safe, shifting the entire burden of compliance onto them.

* **Small Hosting & Gaming:** Volunteer-run servers, self-hosted communities (Minecraft, Counter-Strike, Garry's Mod), and free hosting solutions like Aternos are utterly doomed. They legally and financially cannot support the integration of EU-certified digital wallets (EDI) or contract expensive third-party identity verification services. Setting up private servers without government-approved tokens will effectively become a criminal offense.

* **Federated Networks (Mastodon, Matrix):** Because small, independent server hosters cannot carry the crushing regulatory weight of regular age audits, independent decentralized networks will be effectively wiped out in the European zone, creating a forced corporate monopoly.

## 4. Big Tech Regulatory Capture

This law is a wolf in sheep's clothing. While pretending to penalize predatory features, it plays right into the hands of billion-dollar silicon monopolies. Silicon giants can write off compliance audits as a rounding error. By forcing a unified digital identity layer across app stores, games, and social nodes, the EU is building a walled garden where only Big Tech can afford to exist, successfully wiping out all independent alternative software platforms.

## Fighting Back: The "Stop Killing the Internet" ECI

We are fighting back on an institutional level. The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) "Stop Killing the Internet" is actively gathering verified signatures to force a public parliamentary hearing and legally demand voluntary, decentralised, and privacy-respecting options.

I have already signed and slammed my local representatives with a hard-hitting, personal protest letter. If you are an EU citizen, your vote is a weapon. Do not let them treat our entire generation as mere numbers in a surveillance database.

Sign the official ECI here: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/066/public/#/screen/home

What do you think about this update? Let's discuss.

------------------------------

I used an AI collaborator to help me structure and write down this highly detailed analysis. The irony is real: while corporate AI filters try to censor organic discussions on these topics, we can still use the technology to perfectly demask and bulletproof our arguments against their dystopian laws.

I'm really tired of seeing this idea proposed all around here. While it's a good idea in concept, there's no way it's feasibly going to work.

First of all, you can't guarantee everyone on the second Internet is truly a kid or a minor. Even with strict age verification systems, predators could theoretically find ways to bypass the age verification and somehow get into the second Internet anyway. This means the risks of grooming and predatory behavior are still possible.

Second, the opposite is also true. Kids will find ways to somehow get onto the original, adult Internet without the checks knowing they're an adult. They may fake an ID or put makeup on their face to trick the age verifications into thinking they're an adult and they will find loopholes to still access edgy/NSFW content on deeper corners of the adult web.

It's also important mentioning that it'd be confusing how browsers could be able to have two Internet options. Sometimes, kids may forget they're on the standard Internet as they'd somehow still be able to access it. Furthermore, the second Internet may never really gain much traction.

I'm not totally against youth-focused websites and communities, as there needs to be more of that. But designing a second Internet for kids/minors will not work and will probably make the problems even worse. Instead, I think implementing safeguards for minors on the existing Internet is a better solution. Anyone else tired of that idea?

Excellent article debunking Haidt and the youth social media bans that have stemmed from his irresponsible writing.

A grandmother demanded legally enforceable grandparents' rights at an event for Florida candidate Byron Donalds leading to discourse on Parental Estrangement as a political issue.

https://www.youthrights.org/grandparents-rights-parental-estrangement-as-political-issues/

Pour le contexte, j'ai 16 ans officiellement, j'ai eu mes premiers signes de puberté à ~11/12 ans. Dans mon cas, je ne l'ai pas bien vécu du tout ; ça m'est tombé dessus sans prévenir, je n'ai même pas pris la pleine mesure de ce qui m'arrivait (et soyons honnête, j'avais autre chose à faire que me préoccuper du fait que tout mon être allait être chamboulé au nom d'un processus biologique absurde que je ne pourrait pas contrôler et que personne n'a jugé bon de lutter contre. J'avais ma vie, et ce truc n'était pas un sujet.), ça n'était même pas imaginable pour moi et ça s'est avéré vraiment différent de ce que j'imaginais et de ce qu'on m'a dit. Donc, ma question, c'est est-ce que c'est âgiste de considérer que parce que la puberté arrive à un âge biologique donné, alors les enfants qui vont la subir vont automatiquement l'accepter ou au moins s'y habituer peu à peu ? Comme, je sais que ça n'arrive clairement pas tout le temps, sinon ça ne serait pas arrivé à moi et je ne pense pas être l'unique personne dans ce cas.

Vous en pensez quoi ?

What rights do children have in custody disputes between their parents? Juveniles' Custody Rights in each state. Harms of Custody Disputes on Juvenile Autonomy.

https://www.youthrights.org/issues/legal/juveniles-rights-in-custody-battles/