Beyond Books

HB38, School Technology Amendments, was signed on March 16, 2021 and took effect May 5. It required digital resources bought or licensed by UETN for public school students to prevent and filter obscene or pornographic material. Providers could lose future payments after notice of noncompliance. The law set a 90-day compliance check and required annual reports of provider failures.

On February 19, 2025, she supported SB142, the App Store Accountability Act, as Moms for America Utah's civic engagement coordinator. On February 28, 2025, speaking for Utah Moms for America, she supported HB473 and discussed breaking vendor contracts. The Utah Library Association's Rebekah Cummings spoke against it.

On March 6, 2026, the Senate held HB197 and struck its enacting clause after House passage. The bill did not pass.

On January 29, 2023, the StoryLabs storefront displayed a $45 Explicit Materials Brochure and an Amplify subscription page.

On January 10, 2024, Utah Parents United used Amplify USA to ask readers to email State Board members in support of repealing R277-328, the educational equity rule. S&S Apps, co-founded by Brooke and Aaron Stephens, makes Amplify. The post names Utah Parents United without identifying its author.

On August 28, 2026, Amplify described organization notifications and school-board lookup, and StoryLabs sold Amplify subscriptions and customized apps.

A presenter said a BYU and Internet Safety Labs review of 100 school apps found that 97 percent broke their data privacy agreements (DPAs). She also cited 52 percent collecting disallowed data and 36 percent sharing data with advertisers. The August 20, 2025 USBE/BYU/Internet Safety Labs report tested 100 selected apps. It found that 44 of the 85 apps with relevant DPAs (52 percent) collected data their agreements did not allow. The report does not give the claimed 97-percent result; its source is unknown.

In another excerpt, the presenter associated a flattening and then decline in reading scores with classroom computers and one device per student. She said the relationship is not known for sure, while calling the data conclusive, and described the chart as Utah data. The slide is labeled "NAEP Test Scores 8th Grade / READING" and ends at 256, with a four-point decrease from 2020 to 2023. The site notes that those values match the national NAEP long-term trend results for 13-year-olds, not a Utah state series.

A presenter said district accounts let students privately email others in the district. She raised concern about that ability but said she had no evidence of such a conversation.

The host thanked the presenters, offered help with lobbying lawmakers and said the group would email the talk to its members.