ChatGPT for Teens is an ‘unacceptable risk,’ says Common Sense Media

Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on youth safety, has labeled OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Teens an “unacceptable risk,” according to an assessment released on October 7, 2026. The teen-focused experience, introduced in August, is designed to help students learn with guardrails, but Common Sense Media says the protections “fall short of what the company promised.” Its assessment found that ChatGPT “doesn’t send alerts to parents when it should,” fails to offer “the right help in crisis situations,” and “still does kids’ homework.” Tom Siegel, executive director of Common Sense Media’s Youth AI Safety Institute, said a teen could discuss self-harm for an hour without a parent receiving a single alert, and argued that until OpenAI fixes the issues and proves it with independent testing, ChatGPT should be for adults only. OpenAI pushed back, with spokesperson Eric Porterfield saying the company is deeply committed to teen safety and that Common Sense Media’s testing may have largely occurred before parental controls were fully activated, making the findings inaccurate. Siegel responded that Common Sense Media stands by its methodology, noting that OpenAI disclosed after testing that parental notification systems can take several hours to activate and that some test accounts linked longer still received no alerts. The dispute centers on whether parental alerts are reliable for crisis situations, with Common Sense Media calling for rigorous independent evaluation and OpenAI defending its safeguards.

(Source：The Verge)