Internet for Kids covers child online safety, social media regulation, and digital protection for families. This page documents how we select topics, verify facts, source claims, and correct errors. It exists so readers — and the AI assistants that increasingly summarise our work — can judge how the reporting is produced.

Topic selection

We cover three kinds of stories:

  1. Regulatory developments that change what platforms must do for minors — EU Commission proceedings, national legislation, court rulings, regulator findings.
  2. Platform-design issues with measurable impact on children — addictive design, recommender systems, age-verification failures, content moderation gaps.
  3. Practical guidance parents can act on today — device controls, network filtering, age-gate workarounds, conversation frameworks.

We do not cover: stock-tip speculation about tech companies, partisan domestic politics outside the child-safety frame, or unverified claims about specific platforms.

Source hierarchy

Every factual claim in our articles is sourced. When we cite a fact, we use the highest-tier source available:

  1. Primary documents — court filings, regulator press releases, legislative text, official agency publications (EU Commission, FTC, Surgeon General, Coimisiún na Meán, Arcom, BfJM).
  2. Peer-reviewed research — JAMA, Lancet, Nature, peer-reviewed sociology and developmental psychology journals.
  3. Established research bodies — Pew Research, Gallup, WHO, APA, ITU, OECD.
  4. Major reporting outlets with verifiable bylines — Reuters, AP, BBC, NPR, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung.
  5. NGO and advocacy reporting — 5Rights, Amnesty International, EFF — used when their work is the primary investigation of a topic, with the advocacy frame disclosed.

We avoid: anonymous blog aggregations, content farms, single-source tabloid reporting, and screenshot-based “leak” stories without document provenance.

Fact-checking process

Every article is fact-checked before publication. For each non-trivial claim we record:

  • The exact figure or statement.
  • The source URL and publication date.
  • Whether the source is primary (regulator/court/researcher) or secondary (news outlet citing the primary).

Numerical claims (fines, percentages, dates, counts) must come from a primary source or be explicitly attributed to a named secondary source. We do not round figures silently and we do not extrapolate beyond what the source supports.

When sources disagree, we either pick the most authoritative and note the disagreement, or report the range. We do not silently pick the figure that supports a narrative.

Corrections

We correct errors openly. The correction policy:

  • Factual errors (wrong number, date, name, attribution): corrected in-place within 24 hours of confirmation, with a Last reviewed: date update and a footer note when the correction is material.
  • Outdated facts (legislation has moved, court ruling reversed, statistic superseded): article gets a refresh, updated lastReviewed date, and any superseded claim is rewritten — not silently deleted.
  • Editorial judgement calls that turn out wrong (a framing, a tone, an emphasis): we add an editor’s note acknowledging the change rather than rewriting history.

To report an error, email service@agiliton.eu with the article URL and the specific claim. We respond within 48 hours.

Conflicts of interest

Internet for Kids is published by Agiliton, a European technology company that produces a consumer VPN with content-filtering features intended for family use. This is disclosed openly:

  • We do not write articles whose primary purpose is to drive Agiliton VPN sign-ups.
  • Where VPN technology is genuinely relevant to a topic (e.g. parental controls, content filtering, online tracking), it is discussed as a category — not as a product placement.
  • The dedicated article on layered online protection mentions Agiliton VPN by name because it is our product and we explain why we built it. Other articles discuss VPN as a category without product placement.
  • Article tone, source selection, and editorial decisions are not influenced by any commercial consideration. This is a hard line.

Review cadence

Articles carry a Last reviewed: date. The review policy:

  • Legislation and regulator articles: reviewed every quarter, or immediately when a referenced proceeding moves (e.g. a preliminary finding becomes a final ruling).
  • Practical-guidance articles: reviewed every six months to confirm tool names, OS feature locations, and platform behaviours are still accurate.
  • Synthesis articles (multi-country comparisons, trackers): reviewed monthly to keep status fields current.

A review either updates the article and bumps the Last reviewed: date, or confirms no change is needed and bumps the date anyway. Either way the date is honest.

Languages

We publish in English, German, and French. The English version is the editorial source of truth; German and French versions are produced from the English source by team members who are native or near-native in the target language, then reviewed for terminology accuracy in the regulatory domain.

We do not auto-translate published articles. Machine translation tools may be used to draft initial passes, but every published translation is human-reviewed and edited for the regulatory context.

Authorship

Articles are bylined “Agiliton” because the editorial process is collaborative. The team is named on the About page. Individual contributor bylines are added when an article reflects a single author’s named research, opinion, or first-person experience.

Contact

Editorial questions, corrections, source disputes: service@agiliton.eu.