For Wisconsin parents, the most disturbing aspects of their teen’s phone probably have little to do with screen time. Bigger questions surround what happens inside the apps: notifications, endless feeds, the urge to keep checking and personalized recommendations. Families sense these problems even when scientists can’t prove causation or define a diagnosis.
Wisconsin’s Assembly Bill 963 aimed to target some of those features. It would have required large platforms to estimate users’ ages, obtain parental consent for minors and add safeguards such as the highest-privacy settings, no targeted advertising and no infinite scrolling or profile-based feeds. The Assembly passed it in February with bipartisan support, but the Senate didn’t take it up before adjourning in March 2026, meaning it did not become law.
What the research does — and does not — tell us
About 97% of teens use the internet daily, and about four in 10 say they’re online almost constantly, according to the Pew Research Center.
Nearly half of teens also express concerns about social media: 48% say it has a mostly negative effect on people their age, and 45% say they spend too much time on it, Pew’s surveys show.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that frequent social media use is associated with a higher prevalence of persistent sadness or hopelessness, bullying and certain suicide-related risks. But association isn’t proof of causality. Teens experiencing psychological difficulties may use social media differently, and many other factors shape their well-being.
A systematic review of 32 studies on adolescent anxiety and social media found similarly mixed evidence. More than half found a positive association between social media use and anxiety, with stronger associations in studies focused on problematic use. Even so, the authors called for more research and better ways to measure use.
The distinction between association and causation matters as lawmakers consider a difficult question: How should they regulate potential harms that researchers are still working to define?
From screen time to platform design
Wisconsin is part of a national movement. By March 2026, all 50 states had introduced legislation on digital media and minors, ranging from age verification and parental consent to feature restrictions and limits on targeted advertising. States have also pursued social media companies through litigation.
Attorney General Josh Kaul joined Wisconsin in a 47-state settlement with Meta that requires stronger child-safety measures, including time limits, age-assurance measures and limits on push notifications.
The settlement matters, but it applies only to Meta and does not cover every design feature targeted by AB 963. The bill would have set broader standards for large social media platforms, including limits on targeted advertising, infinite scrolling and profile-based feeds.
AB 963 focused on minors’ social media accounts and the platforms themselves, shifting attention from whether and how long children use social media to how platforms are designed to keep them engaged.
If a platform’s design encourages engagement through features such as personalized recommendations, infinite scrolling or constant notifications, responsibility should not fall entirely on the child or parent. Parents can identify problems and set boundaries, but they cannot control every feature built into an application they did not design.
Measuring whether the rules work
Although AB 963 stalled this year, similar proposals are likely to return. If Wisconsin enacts a similar proposal, lawmakers should measure whether the protections change how platforms operate and improve young people’s online experiences.
Wisconsin does not need to wait for perfect scientific certainty before taking reasonable steps to protect children. But evidence, not fear, should drive any response.
Stan Gottfredson is president ofAtraxia Law, a paralegal firm supporting families dealing with the legal and practical challenges minors face online.
Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.
Wisconsin will get between $219 million and $313 million to spend on mental health measures for children from a national settlement with Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram. (Getty Images)
Wisconsin lawmakers who have sought to address child safety online told the Wisconsin Examiner on Thursday that a settlement worth up to $17.1 billion between the owner of Facebook and Instagram and most states in the U.S. is a win, but that it leaves a lot to be done to protect kids.
Wisconsin was one of 47 states involved in a lawsuit, filed in 2023 against Meta, that alleged that the social media giant purposely designed its platforms with addictive features, knew it was exposing children to serious mental harms and intentionally misled the public about the safety of those platforms.
Wisconsin is set to receive between $219 million and $313 million from the settlement, depending on whether other social media companies agree to the terms. The company in its settlement did not admit to wrongdoing.
For years, concerns about the safety of children online and efforts to protect their mental and physical health have been bubbling up. Wisconsin has adopted laws to ban cellphones during class time and recently expanded its Wisconsin’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
Rep. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls) and Rep. Renuka Mayadev (D-Madison) were part of a group of lawmakers tasked with studying ways the state could protect children online during the 2025-26 legislative session. The task force resulted in an array of proposed bills aimed at addressing the issue, though many — including barring addictive features online for young users, age verification requirements, prohibition against chatbots for children without safety features and mental health warning on social media — did not become law.
“It’s unfortunate that it got to the point that we’ve seen children lose their lives, go through mental health situations,” Brill said. “I believe these platforms understood what they were doing was damaging to children, so while it’s a win, it’s unfortunate that we had to reach a settlement to get this taken care of when this wasn’t addressed previously.”
Mayadev said Meta “capitulated” with the settlement and that “it’s about time” something was done.
“Young people are feeling more than ever lonely, have had increased suicide ideation, have had more anxiety and eating disorders. We’ve just seen the tremendous detrimental effects of social media,” Mayadev said.
Both lawmakers said that the settlement is just a start.
During a Wednesday press conference, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said the settlement is the largest Big Tech settlement in the history of the country and the largest state consumer protection settlement since the settlements with Big Tobacco in the 1990s.
According to the New York Times, the Meta settlement’s base cost will be $12 billion, but an additional $5 billion will be paid by Meta if other social media companies also agree to pay in $5 billion. The company has also agreed to the two-hour limit on screen time for children, though it could be decreased to a one-hour limit if other companies agree to the same.
Kaul said the next step is to determine where the funding should go.
“What I’m going to be doing is everything I can to put these funds toward keeping kids safe in Wisconsin,” Kaul said. The funds, he added, could go towards initiatives such as crisis intervention services, after-school programming and digital wellness use and mental health programming.
Brill noted that while the settlement seems like a lot of money, it is only a small portion of what the multi-trillion dollar company brings in each year.
“I don’t think we can put a worth on the number of children and the damage it’s caused, so while we should celebrate it, I think it’s a cautious celebration because there’s so much work to do and so much loss that came in the meantime,” Brill said.
Brill and Mayadev said they’d both like lawmakers to be involved in conversations over where the funds are allocated.
Kaul said the most important piece of the settlement is the sweeping safety changes Meta has agreed to make to its platforms.
“I hope they can set a new standard for the entire industry so that kids who are using social media can stay safe and remain healthy as they’re online,” Kaul said.
Changes include stronger age verification of users between the ages of 13 and 17, mandatory pauses at 15 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes, limiting screen time for teenagers up to 17 for two hours a day, restrictions on access at night and an elimination of push notifications during school hours.
“We’re gonna see stronger, more friendly, user-friendly parental controls in place as well, so parents are going to be able more easily to play a larger role in limiting their kids’ use of these platforms,” Kaul said. Beauty filters — which distort a user’s face in real time to change its shape or add makeup — will also be limited.
Brill said she thinks a key part of the settlement is that the company appears to be keeping “parents in the driver’s seat .” She said she will be interested to see whether the other companies agree, however. Some of the work, she said, will be continuing to push for state-level laws that can address the issue, which she described as nonpartisan. Brill does not face a challenger in her bid for reelection this year.
“I met some of the families who have had things happen with their children, and it’s absolutely devastating, and it doesn’t matter which way your house votes; it affects everybody,” Brill said. “We’re just seeing the mental health of our state and our children, being so affected by this, so my hope is we can make a smart decision with [the settlement funds], and that we can, as a Legislature, continue to move forward and introduce great legislation to a governor’s desk that’s willing to work with us on it.”
Mayadev said she doesn’t think the settlement’s guardrails are sufficient.
“Why would we trust the company who has put our children in harm’s way to come up with the solution to protect them?” she said. “No parent — and I’m a parent — should feel like ‘OK, well now let me just hand over the phone and the social media apps because Meta and the other big tech CEOs are gonna care for my children.’”
Mayadev said that ideally regulations on companies would be put in place on a federal level. She said legislation would ensure it is the company’s obligation to make sure platforms are safe rather than burdening parents. She said that “children are bright” and can likely find ways around some of the changes that are being discussed.
“At the federal level, we need our congressional folks to act because then we’d have uniform guardrails, guidelines for everybody in the United States to adhere to and to protect children,” Mayadev said. “If Congress continues not to act, we’re going to have to do it at the state level, and then what the problem with that is, it’s piecemeal. What we do is different than Minnesota, which is different than Michigan or Ohio.”
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Social media videos started popping up earlier this year with users complaining about the cost of living in Green Bay, other cities in Wisconsin and other battleground states.
The people posting the videos make claims that run the gamut – some factual, some misleading and some totally false.
Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk looked into the trend, but couldn’t determine who – if anyone – was paying the creators to make the videos.
If the videos were paid for, creators not disclosing that paid relationship could be in violation of federal prohibitions on deceptive advertising, one political advertising expert said.
Republicans and Democrats are increasingly paying for user-generated content, raising questions about the future of election campaigning in the digital age.
In May, TikTok user @lifewithjacob1 uploaded a 20-second video blasting Green Bay’s rent prices.
“Why is rent in Wisconsin so expensive right now?” he said. “I’m on a website looking for a new spot. I can’t find anything under $4,000 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.”
He went on to post more than 100 more, bemoaning skyrocketing prices for gas, housing and even dinner at Culver’s. Almost every video on the account, which was created in May, focused on how expensive life is in Green Bay.
The problem? Many of the videos seem to be pure fiction.
It’s not just that the average rent in Green Bay is a quarter of what he claims, according to July figures from Zillow. It’s also that his name isn’t Jacob, and it’s unclear if he’s ever lived in Wisconsin.
Through a reverse image search, Wisconsin Watch and Muckrock’s Sunlight Research Desk identified the man in the videos as Connor Printz, a self-described “user-generated content creator” who gets paid by brands to make social media posts that don’t look like ads. It’s a burgeoning industry, and one that many Americans may never have heard of — though they’ve likely seen these kinds of posts.
This model is spreading nationwide as dark money groups try to sway voters stealthily by hiring social media creators to push their agendas. Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk identified more than a dozen users publishing near-identical messaging about the cost of living in battleground states — claims that oscillate between factual, misleading and downright false.
The videos targeting Wisconsin don’t mention specific political parties or candidates, but they’re strikingly similar to videos where creators in other states supported or knocked certain candidates — part of what MS NOW called a “secret paid influencer campaign.”
It’s unclear who, if anyone, is funding the videos about Green Bay and Wisconsin, or what the goal is. Printz declined to answer questions, and the videos and biography on his account have since been deleted, a phenomenon common with short-term social media campaigns.
The videos themselves do not indicate whether they were paid for. If they were, one political advertising expert said, creators not disclosing that paid relationship could violate federal prohibitions on deceptive advertising. The trend raises questions about the future of political campaigning and the reforms needed to protect elections in the modern age.
Meanwhile, though many of the statistics the creators shared are false — Green Bay is often hailed as a particularly affordable city — the posts speak to a question increasingly on Americans’ minds, one that could prove pivotal in upcoming elections: Why is everything so expensive?
Making money on misinformation?
To try to understand who is behind the Green Bay videos, Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk researched creators using public records databases, scoured campaign finance records, conducted reverse image searches, interviewed elected officials representing the city and compiled more than 5,000 videos.
Among the findings: The person shaking his head disapprovingly over the high cost of living in northeast Wisconsin is a former college basketball player turned social media creator whose LinkedIn profile says he’s based in Los Angeles.
While @lifewithjacob1’s TikTok bio said he was “Green Bay born and raised,” his Claremont McKenna College basketball webpage says he’s from Waterbury, Connecticut, and attended high school in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Printz claimed to live in Green Bay and sometimes referred to moving from California to Wisconsin in TikTok videos posted under the @lifewithjacob1 account. Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk found no evidence he has ever lived in Wisconsin.
Today, according to his LinkedIn, Printz works as a user-generated content creator through SideShift, a platform where organizations hire content creators. His account states he manages between six and 10 social media accounts at a time, “completing campaigns for brands.” SideShift did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s questions.
According to the American Marketing Association, user-generated content is “sponsored content that looks and feels like genuine customer posts.” While the person on screen has likely received payment or free products, the videos are meant to feel like they’re ranting or raving about something of their own accord. It’s typically a cheaper way to advertise than making sponsorship deals with high-profile influencers or celebrities.
When those posts endorse or recommend brands, products or services, federal law and platform policies require they be labeled as ads or sponsored content. TikTok did not respond when Wisconsin Watch asked if its policies require such disclosures for videos like Printz’s.
Political organizations are increasingly buying this form of content, eager to leverage its authentic — and often undetectable — feel.
Both political parties are hiring influencers to build online enthusiasm for their candidates. Democrats have poured tens of millions of dollars into these secret influencer campaigns since their 2024 election defeat, according to a New York Times report. The influencer firm Creator Grid, which has received funds from the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, boasts connecting “Republican candidates with the internet’s most powerful conservative influencers,” the Times reported. This election cycle, MS NOW reported that influencers received payment to post favorable content about politicians in California and Michigan and attack a candidate in Illinois.
Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk found similar videos about the cost of living in cities across the country: La Crosse. Milwaukee. Madison. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Charlotte, North Carolina. Atlanta, Georgia. Many of the users creating these videos have similar usernames, including @rantswithsaum, @rantswithcarlyy or @rants.with.k. Wisconsin Watch contacted several of the users behind the accounts but none responded.
It’s unclear who paid for the videos Wisconsin Watch identified. The Sunlight Research team searched spending records for registered political action committees and political candidates in key swing states but found no evidence of payments to the influencers or influencer platforms tied to these videos. And while Wisconsinites will elect a new governor in November, spokespeople for candidates David Crowley and Tom Tiffany both said they had not paid for or even seen the videos in question.
What is clear is that this type of political content is in demand: Wisconsin Watch found a listing on SideShift from “Project Bullhorn” offering creators $1,500 monthly to “speak on the rising crisis of affordability in the United States ahead of the 2026 midterms.” Project Bullhorn is one of several influencer efforts the New York Times reports Democratic donors are funding. A leader of the initiative declined to answer questions from Wisconsin Watch on the record.
‘More expensive than NYC’
From May through July, Printz posted roughly two videos a day about Green Bay’s cost of living.
In May, he claimed gas prices in Green Bay soared to almost $7 a gallon. While the Iran war has driven fuel prices up, prices at local pumps peaked this spring around $4.50 a gallon.
“Is Green Bay, Wisconsin, actually more expensive than New York City?” Printz asked in a June video, recounting the experience of a friend who purportedly moved from the Big Apple to Packerland, anticipating a lower cost of living.
“Guess what? It was just as expensive. Rent prices were crazy. Gas was crazy. Culver’s is so expensive, more than almost every restaurant in New York City,” Printz said.
In another video, he said tuition at Wisconsin colleges now cost $70,000 annually.
“Just makes you question if it’s worth it now,” reads text on the video of Printz repeatedly shaking his head. According to CollegeBoard data, Wisconsin’s public universities charged in-state students $10,600 on average in 2025.
💵$4k rent? $7 gas? More expensive than NYC? A deluge of TikTok and Instagram videos are making outlandish claims about Wisconsin’s cost of living. In some cases, the people behind them – self-described “user-generated content creators” — are using fake names or don’t even appear to live in Wisconsin. The videos seem to be part of a growing trend of paying influencers to post on political topics, often without any disclosures. Here’s why it matters. Read more at the link in our bio.
In addition to the overblown numbers, locals might spot other faux pas. In one video, Printz asks for feedback from his “fellow Wisconsiners,” a term that would make any self-respecting Wisconsinite cringe.
Green Bay resident Allyson Brunette started seeing the videos pop up in her TikTok feed around May. The inaccuracies were obvious, she said, especially the part about $4,000 rent.
What was less obvious was where all these videos came from. She clicked on the creators’ profiles and discovered that not only did they often follow each other, but some of the users following them were making parallel videos elsewhere.
“It seemed that there was almost this network of these avatars with similar usernames and almost identical content in different cities and states across the U.S.,” said Brunette, who wrote to Wisconsin Watch in May about her suspicions.
“I was like, am I nuts? I think this is a coordinated effort,” Brunette said in a July interview. “What immediately struck my mind, as someone who’s 38 and lived through the Facebook misinformation of the last few elections, was: Is this gearing up to shift political (opinions) before the gubernatorial election?”
Brunette isn’t the only TikTok user raising the alarm about these types of claims. On many of Printz’s videos, commenters called out misinformation and offered the facts.
“Obvious rage bait,” wrote one user in response to the claim that Green Bay is more expensive than New York City.
“Literally nothing you said is true,” wrote another.
Is it legal?
Experts say this novel influence model seems to test the limits of laws governing campaign finance and advertising.
Christopher Terry is an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota who studies political advertising. He told Wisconsin Watch these types of videos could potentially violate state and federal law, even if they don’t mention candidates, parties, elections or products.
Paid posts are a form of commercial speech, which is not subject to the same First Amendment protections as standard political speech, Terry said. If creators don’t disclose that they were paid to create posts, that could violate the Federal Trade Commission prohibition on deceptive practices, Terry said, though he noted the agency has not enforced that policy against social media influencers to date.
“It has warned a bunch of them. It has threatened a ton of them, but it has not actually brought an enforcement action against any of them,” Terry said.
Any posts that mislead voters about candidates or referendums could also potentially violate a Wisconsin statute barring “false representation … intended to affect voting in an election,” Terry said.
“Any chucklehead in any northern Wisconsin bar will give you an opinion on a political thing … That’s fine,” Terry said. “If he’s paid to think that and paid to sit in the bar and talk to people about it, that’s something else, right?”
Meanwhile, democracy advocates have called on the Federal Election Commission to clarify laws to explicitly require that influencers post disclaimers indicating who paid for their political content.
Prices, misinformation on the rise
While many of these videos are riddled with false information, they channel popular frustrations over real spikes in prices.
“Gas is not $7 a gallon in Green Bay, and average rent is not $4,000. But they’re both more expensive than they used to be … It’s simply true that people are anxious and concerned about the cost of living,” said state Sen. Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay. “And I hear that from people across the political spectrum.”
Across the country, consumers have been sour on the economy for years, said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers. The monthly consumer sentiment survey, first conducted in 1946, asks Americans how they feel about the economy and where it’s headed.
The answer in recent months: still not good. When survey workers asked Americans in June about their personal finances, 56% brought up high prices without being prompted.
In Green Bay, where the average home value is about $290,000, the cost of living remains relatively low. But local residents are feeling the strain of rising prices too, state Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner, D-Green Bay, said.
Still, he fears the misinformation could stifle Green Bay’s future.
“That’s one of the most frustrating things about social media is that we are now fighting an army of misinformation, sometimes by innocent bystanders, but sometimes by bad actors,” Rivera-Wagner said.
“This is where that confusion can actually cost or have real impact,” he said. “There might be people in and around our community or businesses thinking about moving or working in our community, and they’re seeing a larger narrative that is not only inaccurate, but doesn’t actually talk about how much work we’ve done to make Green Bay still one of the most affordable places to live in the state or the country.”
In less than a year, the Michigan Association of Pupil Transportation will release its second illegal passing awareness campaign, this time catered to the NFL audience.
Katrina Morris, executive director of MAPT, said the association recently filmed its latest public service announcement with former Detroit Lions offensive tackle Lomas Brown. The PSA is expected to be released in early August, timed with the start of the back-to-school season.
The video follows MAPT’s 2025 illegal passing campaign featuring NASCAR driver Ryan Preece, which was filmed in partnership with ROUSH CleanTech. Morris said the goal of these PSAs is to reach more audiences than those in school transportation.
“The last one, it [had]125,000 views,” Morris said of the Preece PSA. “So, you know that’s not transportation people. The NFL has a huge voice, too, and so we’re hoping to get more than that.”
The new campaign came together after Morris said she mentioned wanting to connect with someone in the Detroit Lions organization. An MAPT board member helped make the connection through his father-in-law, who is retired from the NFL and the Detroit Lions.
The PSA was filmed over two days, with scenes shot in Ludington and Detroit. Brown also visited students in Ludington through an educational program that helps students regulate, cope and reintegrate into their general education districts. Morris said the students had learned about Brown before his visit and were excited to meet him.
“He was phenomenal with their kids,” Morris said. “Signed autographs on shirts … and took pictures with the kids, so it was really neat and amazing.”
PSA Blends Football Humor with Seriousness of Illegal Passing Issue
The PSA uses humor and football references, as well as a nod to the NFC North Division. For instance, in one scene, a child asks for a green and yellow mohawk, a nod to the Green Bay Packers. In another, a man asks for a bear tattoo, ala the Chicago Bears. In another, a couple appears to be rushing into marriage while wearing Minnesota Vikings purple and gold.
Brown responds to each scenario with, “I wouldn’t rush into that.”
The lighthearted banter turns serious at the school bus stop. “But here’s where it really matters: No rushing when the red lights are flashing, there’s no passing,” Brown says in the PSA.
Morris added that a combination of humor and urgency is intentional. Like the video with Preece, she noted that the goal is to create a message that people will want to watch, while also reinforcing the most important safety rules for motorists, to stop for school buses when their reg lights are flashing and stop arm is extended.
Morris said Brown understood the importance of the campaign after seeing a recent news story about a close call involving a student.
“He and his wife were watching TV a couple days before we film, and one of our school districts had a really close call where this car just came flying past and this kid was going to cross the road,” Morris said. “He said it really resonated and obviously made it a little bit more important to get this done.”
MAPT’s first illegal passing PSA with Preece was released during National School Bus Safety Week in October 2025 and can only be run through the end of this calendar year. The new PSA with Brown, however, does not have the same restrictions.
Morris said sponsors again helped make the latest PSA possible, including several that also supported the racing campaign. The current PSA was sponsored by the National School Transportation Association, the National Association of Pupil Transportation and the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, as well as state organizations such as New York, Texas, and Indiana. First Light, IC Bus and Dean Transportation also sponsored the PSA.
She said some sponsors also committed funding specifically for airtime, which could help expand the campaign’s reach beyond social media.
The campaign’s momentum may not stop here. Morris said MAPT is already looking toward the music industry as the next avenue for reaching a broader audience.
“There’s obviously a need for this, and there’s a want for it, which is good,” Morris said. “And hopefully there won’t be a need or a want for it after a while. But right now, we have to do something for the kids.”
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