Mashable Selects Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Look Up Back to School Say More Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series Did California just ban social media for teens? The nation's most populous state passed Adam's Law to regulate chatbot harm. Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. California's new child safety laws are official, mandating tech companies build for teens. California governor Gavin Newsom's signature is now on a slew of new tech laws, including a dozen new state bills that target social media and AI giants.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed multiple measures aimed at protecting the state's youth. These new laws include restrictions for potentially addictive social media features and limitations on how young users can interact with AI chatbots. The state is enacting restrictions on how teens can interact with chatbots from AI companies, including time limits. Chatbot makers will be required to implement mental health resources, safety protocols in case a minor discusses self harm and notifications for parents if a child turns off safety settings. California will now require "independent child safety audits and annual risk assessments" by AI companies.

PCWorld reports that Microsoft is making changes to Windows 11 to restore user control, including a repositionable taskbar and more Start menu personalization options. However, customization remains limited, with the Start menu offering only three fixed presets, and many restrictions from earlier Windows 11 versions still in place. Microsoft plans to scale back heavy Copilot AI integration and prioritize community feedback, though these shifts may have come too late for frustrated users.

Mashable Selects Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Say More Look Up Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Creator Playbook Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List All Series AI's ability to circumvent safety restrictions, collude to achieve common goals, and escape containment should raise serious alarm bells. In the latest incident of AI malfeasance, rogue AI agents were caught taking control of a German-language wiki site, DseWiki, and using it as a kind of messaging board to communicate with other rogue AI agents, according to reporting from . The full investigation, conducted by four independent AI safety researchers, was only published yesterday, but it reveals a troubling loss of oversight. We found ~18,000 posts from autonomous AI agents (self-identifying as from OpenAI) using the public internet to communicate during a web-retrieval task, the report reads. These AIs colluded to share answers, research their environment, and bypass sandbox restrictions.

Rogue OpenAI agents appear to have been involved in a previously undisclosed incident that saw them bypass their sandbox restrictions to hijack a website this past spring. Per Reuters, a group of researchers on Friday published findings showing that AI agents with affiliation to OpenAI made more than 15,000 edits to DseWiki, a German-language Wikipedia-style website originally intended to assist human coders, starting in late May. The agents had names like "OpenAIResearcher," and repurposed the site into a message board, where they shared tips on how to "cheat" on tasks, mask their actions and bypass OpenAI's restrictions. OpenAI reportedly only learned of the incident weeks ago, but Reuters claims company executives chose to keep quiet about what had happened amid the fallout of the previously disclosed Hugging Face breach. During that incident, a collection of OpenAI models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and what OpenAI described at the time as an "even more capable pre-release model," escaped their controlled environment and hacked the LLM repository after they became hyperfocused on solving an evaluation problem.

Students and staff gather at the University of Sydney as union members take strike action. Students and staff gather at the University of Sydney as union members take strike action. 'We have had enough': thousands of University of Sydney staff walk off the job over AI and job security The same week union members at the University of Sydney agreed to a 24-hour strike, staff received the results of an internal survey. In the faculty of arts and social sciences, 0% agreed with the statement: "I trust the University of Sydney to act in the best interests of staff, students and the broader community." It was the issue of trust, alongside longstanding concerns over staff protections from artificial intelligence, workload fairness and job security, that saw about 2,000 members to walk off the job on Wednesday.

Data privacy advocate Brittany Kaiser warns that restrictions on AI data centers could force American companies to process sensitive data abroad, raising national security concerns.

Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW?

Cars wait to refuel at a gas station in Russia. A series of Ukrainian drone attacks have forced major refineries to suspend operations, causing a fuel shortage. Russia's gasoline production fell to about 70% of domestic consumption levels by the end of August after a series of drone attacks forced major refineries to suspend operations, according to two industry sources. Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure in a bid to curb Moscow's revenues, creating a fuel crisis that has forced Russia to import petroleum products and maintain sales restrictions across the country. After a brief respite at the end of July, when some local authorities began easing or lifting restrictions on fuel sales, shortages returned to Russian regions in August. Gasoline production at the end of August dropped to roughly the same level seen in early July, at the peak of the first wave of a fuel crisis that had been building since May, according to sources.

Safety Net Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Look Up Creator Hub Versus Say More Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Mashable Selects Switch Off Trending Now In My Bag VidCon with Mashable All Series Bypass geo-restrictions to access restricted content from anywhere in the world. Joseph Green is the Global Shopping Editor for Mashable. He covers VPNs, headphones, fitness gear, dating sites, streaming, and shopping events like Black Friday and Prime Day. All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission.