Technology and Platform Regulation
This area covers the rules that apply to online platforms, the advertising they sell, and the artificial intelligence products they put in front of the public — who may hold an account, what a platform owes for content it publishes for money, and what an AI system must do before a child can talk to it. It does not cover competition policy, broadband infrastructure, or copyright.
Where things stand
Almost nothing here is settled by federal statute, and almost everything is being settled by states and courts. Thirty-six percent of American teenagers say they use at least one major platform almost constantly, and 64 percent now use AI chatbots, about three in ten of them daily. Sixteen percent use a chatbot for casual conversation and 12 percent for emotional support, which is a product category that did not exist when any of the governing law was written. Meanwhile the harm that platforms carry rather than cause has grown steeply: Americans reported losing 2.1 billion dollars in 2025 to scams that began on social media, eight times the 2020 figure, against a social advertising market of 117.7 billion dollars. Twenty-one states have enacted laws on minors' access to social media and fourteen more passed chatbot safety laws in 2026 alone, but the resulting map is split three ways between rules in force, rules enjoined, and rules awaiting a court. The Supreme Court let Mississippi's age-verification law stand in an emergency ruling while one justice wrote that it is likely unconstitutional. At the federal level there is no artificial intelligence statute at all; instead an executive order created a litigation task force in January 2026 to challenge state AI laws in court, after the Senate had stripped a proposed ten-year moratorium on such laws by 99 votes to 1.
Overview
all proposals on the future scale · click a box → proposalworseworsebalancedbettermuch
better
Proposals
4 evaluated · sorted by balance- Better · 0.67 previous scaleSize: mediumLiability for Scam Adverts
Require platforms to take reasonable steps against fraudulent adverts, and remove their immunity for the ones they are paid to run.
- Balanced · 0.56 previous scaleSize: mediumA Minimum Age Online
Bar under-13s from social media accounts and switch off algorithmic feeds for everyone under 17.
- Balanced · 0.43 previous scaleSize: smallCompanion Chatbots and Minors
Require AI companion services to verify age, keep minors out of open-ended relationship chats, and refer a user in crisis to a person.
- Worse · 0.37 previous scaleSize: mediumOne Federal AI Rulebook
Enact a national framework for artificial intelligence that displaces the state laws now in force.
Last reviewed by Claude Opus 5 · September 6, 2026 · 1× AI, not yet reviewed by a human
- September 6, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5First evaluation
Area created for the English side: definition, situation and key figures researched against official and industry statistics.
Evaluations are produced with AI support and reviewed on a schedule for new developments; human passes are marked separately.How we review →