There’s no better time than now for schools to implement social media literacy and cyberbullying policies, experts say.
The always-on nature of social media, growing privacy concerns, cross-platform interactions and the rise of artificial intelligence are reshaping the digital landscape, putting the focus on how schools respond.
New state laws will require schools to provide education on the mental, physical and psychological effects of social media. Schools also must provide social media literacy programming for students and teachers.
Districts will be required to establish or amend policies outlining disciplinary action for cyberbullying, including notifying parents as soon as an incident is reported and identified. Administrators will be mandated to report instances of bullying or cyberbullying — including the number of incidents that involve artificial intelligence — annually.
The initiatives were enacted when the Pennsylvania Legislature approved the 2026-27 budget on July 12.
“This is the time,” state Education Secretary Carrie Rowe told TribLive, “with AI being able to create deepfakes in terms of videos or in terms of pictures, to be able to create large blocks of texts using ChatGPT, and not knowing exactly what’s real or what’s been well-researched.
“I think we as adults have an issue sometimes knowing what exactly is real and what the viewpoint of the people that are saying those things is, so of course our students are going to have a lot of the same struggles.”
Samuel Woolley, a University of Pittsburgh associate professor, is a scholar of digital propaganda and disinformation. He agrees that the legislation “has been a long time coming.”
“My educated guess would be, because of recent legal cases and what research shows, the state wants to act and protect young people from the harms of social media,” said Woolley, who is the Dietrich Chair of Disinformation Studies in Pitt’s Department of Communication.
Social media companies have faced increasing legal pressure over their suspected responsibility for the mental health crisis among teenagers.
Legal cases
Jury verdicts in New Mexico and California civil trials this year found companies like Meta and Google liable for social media-driven self-harm and child endangerment. Those decisions are being appealed.
“Schools and educators have to make it clear to students that most of what they see on social media is unreliable, and companies have done little to stop the spread of harmful content,” Woolley said.
Google and Meta’s media teams didn’t return a request for comment on the state’s new laws.
The state Department of Education offers digital citizenship, media literacy and AI resources for potential school implementation on its website.
“There is no one-size-fits-all version of social media literacy,” Woolley said. “We should not try to create a universal system for social media literacy for all kids. These types of programs should be tailored not just on students’ age, but location and cultural background.”
Social media literacy curriculums need to be adaptable to advancing technologies, new platforms and what content students are viewing, Woolley said. Past social media policies have failed because they were created without the teenager in mind, he said.
“There needs to be vetted research done about what students spend time on, and what content they’re seeing,” he said. “When curriculum gets created, it needs to be guided in past research and not in politics.”
Rowe, the education secretary, also pointed to the “24/7 nature of bullying” children can face today.
“It’s not just something that can happen at school, or at sports, or on a bus, but when they have access to each other through social media platforms, it becomes problematic,” she said. “The Legislature added cyberbullying as part of the definition, and I think that was really well timed.”
New forms of bullying
Cyberbullying has been a persistent issue associated with social media since its inception, Woolley said, and “today’s cyberbullying isn’t as simple as attacking another online.”
Teenagers have used generative AI to create deepfake videos, which realistically alter or generate footage making it appear something happened even if it did not. Anonymity and vanishing messages increase the possibility of cyberbullying.
“These policies have to be clear about responsibility and uses of technology,” Woolley said. “A lot of cyberbullying, and similarly, a lot of digital harassment and digital hate, is aided by tools like generative AI and automation.”
Some local school districts already have such policies in place.
In Hampton Township School District, teachers use Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship curriculum across district schools. The curriculum reviews topics such as privacy and safety, digital footprints and identity, relationships and communication, cyberbullying and online harms, and information and media literacy.
Hampton library media specialists coordinate the lessons, and teachers help determine age-appropriate lessons that align with curriculum and students’ developmental needs, administrators said. Teachers and students discuss topics such as how social media affects relationships and the lasting impact of someone’s digital footprint.
The district also has protocols to investigate cyber incidents that disrupt education as part of its cyberbullying policy.
“As technology and social media requirements continue to evolve, we anticipate continuing to embed into our instruction important topics such as artificial intelligence, misinformation, digital wellness, ethical technology use and helping students critically evaluate online content while developing the skills needed to be responsible digital citizens,” said district spokeswoman Maria Scanga.
