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Welcome to the Heat is On DC Social media has brought people together, but it has also torn lives apart. This week we're reflecting on social media Victims Remembrance Day, which is a day dedicated to the children we've lost and the families who have been forever changed by the harms of social media.

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So we went to DC to spend time with some of these parents. These are parents who should be planning graduations, weddings, and bright futures for their kids. Instead, they're carrying unimaginable grief while fighting to make sure that no other family has to endure what they have. Because when the system benefits a few wealthy companies while harming kids, things need to change.

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What are US Lawmakers going to do about it?

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Because families can't keep carrying the burden of protecting children from products engineered to keep them hooked. It's a fight we cannot win until lawmakers confront the addictive features driving these harms. And until then, more children will be hurt and more families will have to pay the ultimate price. I'm Sarah Gardner.

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And I'm Nikki Petrossi. Today, the Heat is On DC

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before

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we get into the event that we were at in D.C. i want to talk about a couple of headlines, and this one is from Politico. And they wrote, white House helped Mark Zuckerberg and the Google CEO dodge a Senate grilling. And so this is to do with a hearing that the Senate is going to hold. Senator Grassley announced a hearing called Is this Social Media's Big Tobacco Moment? And we were like, yes, this is what we need to be seeing. And after the verdicts in California and New Mexico, we have a lot more to work with when it comes to holding these CEOs accountable. Senator Grassley subpoenaed the CEOs from Meta Alphabet, which is the parent company of Google and YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat. And, you know, before we get into, like, the Zuckerberg of it all, why is now the right time to be hearing from these CEOs?

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Because of the trials. It's we now have the evidence of how the CEOs lied. What the CEOs are most afraid of is being in a Senate judiciary hearing where they are under oath, where now a senator will ask them, did you know that this was addictive? And they cannot lie. Right. So they are trying to avoid that hearing at all costs from a PR perspective, from a brand damage perspective, but honestly now also from a legal perspective, because the trials have completely changed the playing field in terms of what questions they'll get asked. And they're going to be in, like, a very tricky legal situation. In fact, something we would. We wanted to see happen was them have to admit in front of members of Congress that they knowingly released an addictive product to kids. That should have been and could still be the goal of a hearing. That happens with the tech CEOs. But the point I'm trying to make is they are desperate to get out of this situation. And so this is where we started seeing, like, it's a very DC Term, but sort of this horse trading of, like, bills or things and trying to get out of that moment. What else could they concede on so that they can avoid that grilling? It's really important for sort of two major takeaways that I would want parents to have coming out of this. One is that we are in a profoundly different place than we were at the first Senate Judiciary hearing two, two and a half years ago, where the CEOs hadn't been up there in a long time. And sort of, they were, like, fumbling their way around and we were revealing things that we started to see in the lawsuits that were upcoming and so forth. And it was very explosive because it was like, oh, my gosh, we've sort of caught them in a moment of unknowing. Now they know what's coming. They're better prepared, but we have more evidence. Yes. And so the stakes are all just, like, way higher. But the thing I want parents to take away from that is that tech is on their back foot. They are scared, they're running away, they're starting to act desperate. And that should signal something to you, which is like, something is wrong. A company that felt confident stuff, stood by their product, knew it was safe for kids, would have no problem going in there and testifying and saying, I'm an open book. Let me tell you about the business. Let me tell you how we run it. Let me tell you. So why are you avoiding it so much? That should be a big red flag when it comes to trusting what they say about the safety of their product. So we should no longer be trusting Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, any of these people who are saying, oh, this is safe, like that's what that should flag for you, is that they are actively trying to get out of explaining that to you as a customer, as a consumer of their product.

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Zuckerberg does not want to be in Congress answering these questions. And he was able to do an insider deal with the people in D.C. and Senator Grassley's office, I assume. I think he got the white House involved. There was some insiders basically in D.C. that informed us that now instead of Zuckerberg, it's going to be the Instagram head, Adam Mosseri and the YouTube head, Neil Mohan, instead of the CEOs having to be questioned by the senators. And that is in exchange for the White House's support on a package of, of bills. And this is not what we need. Like, we need the CEOs to be appearing.

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Yeah. This is meta having ultimate meddling power. And like this is corporations leading politics and, and law making. And it should, it's disgusting. It should upset people, it should concern people that they have this level of influence and power. And to your point, Mark Zuckerberg is the one that needs to be in that seat, not Adam Mosseri, ironically. And you and I have talked at length about Adam Mosseri and how good he is on a stand or not. I personally think he's actually terrible and that I think they're more vulnerable putting Adam Mosseri up than Mark because Mark is very well rehearsed. He's very solid on his answers. Adam's like much more wishy washy. And anyway, that's a personal opinion, but it also just downgrades, sort of like the level of interest in the hearing. And it's like not the big top dog. It's like the second one down. And so it's a bummer because it takes away from attention it would get if Mark Zuckerberg was in that seat.

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And Adam Mosseri, when we watched him as a witness in the lawsuit, the social media addiction trial, his talking points were very similar to Mark Zuckerberg. What I saw was Adam Emissary was just more poised, not as much attitude. I could see Mark Zuckerberg getting really annoyed, visibly annoyed with having to answer these questions. He's very uncomfortable in that position. And you could tell he put someone on the job of getting him out of this responsibility. So this Senate hearing was supposed to take place in June. It's gotten pushed to July due to ongoing negotiations with the invited witnesses. That's what I heard from Grassley's office. And so July 28th is the new date. We expect this to happen. It's important that it happens. We're grateful that it's going to happen, even though it's not the top dogs for all of these companies. But we will be there and keep parents updated on what happens. A very, very concerning and dangerous package of bills called the Kids act was marked up in the House a few days ago and actually was passed through the House and now goes to the Senate. Can you tell us about the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act?

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Yeah.

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So this is a watered down, hodgepodge version of what used to be the Kids Online Safety act, which was a bill that was passed in the Senate over two years ago. I mean, I say that it's changed forms many, many times since then. Basically the things that parents need to know is that the House felt an immense amount of pressure to bring a package of bills or a bill to sort of like meet and partner with the. The Senate has been doing. But unfortunately, from the jump, we knew the House bills were not going to live up to the standard that survivor parents can accept, that safety advocates can accept. We knew they would be sort of watered down because of Big Tech's influence on them. And so they've gutted major parts of those bills. Things that basically like duty of care, that make companies do certain things after they've been found negligent, or there's a whole big thing around blocking states, abilities to sue companies and that being. Okay, so thinking about the trials, right, Those are states bringing cases or individuals bringing cases. Think about how fundamental those have been in changing the landscape. So oftentimes what Big Tech is trying to do at the federal level is put language in these bills that would prevent some of those lawsuits from being able to move forward again to sort of like hide what's happening. So I don't want to misspeak on like, what exact iteration ended up being in the package that got voted on. Because I, I know again, it changed many, many times. But at the end of the day, the unfortunate thing is that you get a news alert that says like, the Kids act passed the House, right? And so just intrinsically you're like, well, that sounds good. Like we, you know, nothing really passes anything ever, and it's the Kids Act. But the thing you need to know is that this is not the set of bills that we want and it will not fundamentally change the platforms and make them safer or safeguard families. So it means that there's a lot more work to do then making sure that the Senate's version is the one we do want. And that then when they negotiate that the Senate version, hopefully if it can get to a place that's strong, would then sort of supersede this House version. So it's a bummer because we've been waiting for these votes and everything for so long and then it got voted on a bad package.

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Right? And we're not just saying this because we know that these companies had a hand in how these bills were drafted. I sat on a long webinar with a group of people who spent hours and hours analyzing this long bill and they picked it apart and were able to find all these issues. And so I was so moved though by parents taking action on that day that it was voted on. And so many hundreds and hundreds of parents contacted their representatives and asked them to vote no on the Kids act and it was not a landslide. And so I think we made a difference there. And there will be a call to action when it goes to the Senate of what we want to send to our senators. And so by the time this goes live, I'll make sure to put some kind of letter writing tool or petition in the episode notes for this episode so parents can go do take a minute to go do that. Right now it only takes probably less than a minute to fill out that form and contact your senator. Hopefully it's in a great, a great place and hopefully the changes have been made. The duty of care added back in, but there was quite a bit of work that was needed to the version that the House passed. And so, so we're not hopeful for that and appreciate any all parents support around getting a bill passed or a package of bills passed that will actually protect children and not big tech. Now we're going to move to talk about social media Victims remembrance day, which is June 23rd every year. And we're going to have a guest pop in shortly. Parent survivor Amy Neville will tell you more about Amy. But basically we just got back from D.C. and Sarah, you want to fill listeners in on what you put together in D.C. along with parents Rise and a few other organizations.

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It's really the work and brainchild of the two moms, Kristen Bride and Amy Neville, who both lost their sons on June 23 the same year due to different harms on Snapchat. This is the manifestation of Kristin and Amy's love for their boys brought to life and then expanded to include so many grieving families and to create an environment that is about celebrating their children's lives as much as it is about memorializing and paying tribute. We both have the immense privilege of working with survivor families pretty regularly. And their experience is one that is often asking them to call upon and relive the trauma of the loss of their child, whether that be for advocacy, whether that be for raising awareness, whether that be for educating other parents about the harms and how to avoid them. And not often enough do reporters or people ask them about the happy times of their kids. Lives and who they were as people. And that is really the essence of this day, is to give space for the families to celebrate their children's lives and be with each other as much as to demand action and to put pressure on and to be enraged and angered, to fight for future generations. And I want to say something about smvrd, that's our acronym for it, Social Media Victims Remembrance Day that I felt like was so powerful. Two things. One was the difference between this year and last year in terms of general awareness of what it was, what it meant, even just a year ago, having to explain to reporters what the day was about and social media harms. And honestly, even as basic as like, well, how did the kids die from those harms? People didn't really fully understand the difference between last year and this year in terms of the knowledge of what it means, the interest in that it's happening, the awareness of what the trials did and that these companies have blood on their hands for these kids lives. The power that these survivor parents have, both politically and publicly when they speak has just been completely transformed. They carry such weight with them now because people are listening. They're listening to them in a way that they weren't listening before, which makes me so happy for them and so proud of them because it is a long slog to get to that place and it is telling that story over and over and over and over, which we don't believe anybody should ever have to do, but they do do it because they want people to know. And so it was really powerful just to see how much the dynamics around the day had changed and how we had tons of media and press interested in coming and covering it. Kristen and AM were live on CNN from the ground in front of the memorial. It played for like four and a half minutes on cnn. That just means like every TV that had that turned on all across the country, people saw it. And so that was incredibly encouraging. That's sort of the positive side. And then I think on the hard side or the difficult side is like you just feel like, well, why hasn't something changed? Why hasn't something good passed? How could we still be here a year later having had added new faces to this memorial? Like, it's just so obvious something is wrong. Why can't something change? And so, you know, it's holding that duality of both hope and frustration constantly in one place and in one combination. And the parents do it so incredibly well. Our job is just to support them. It was the most beautiful scene. The last thing I'LL say about it is it had been like storming up the wazoo the day before and the morning of, like, hurricane torrential. Like the wind that goes sideways where like, your whole body gets wet and you're like, that came from the sky, but, like, my leg is wet, you know, like, that level of like, there was lightning. And then, of course, of course, like an hour before it was supposed to happen, the heavens parted, the light came in, and it was the most beautiful afternoon. Kudos to Lennon Torres on my team and her. All the folks that set up, some of the mamas came and set up the memorial itself and all the beautiful faces in the grass and they all got wet because that was during the rain period. But by the time we got there, it was so beautiful and stunning. And, you know, the parents talk about this all the time. Like, these are the kids, like, looking out for us, doing their thing. And, man, we sure felt it that day when those clouds parted and the sun came through and we were all there able to celebrate together outside.

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It was such a memorable day and so important and really about action. And why don't we bring in Amy now to kind of tell us more about why her and Kristen Bride created this day of remembrance. Amy, thank you for joining us today.

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Thanks for. Thanks for having me.

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Yay. It's so good to see you here. You know, social media victims Remembrance Day is a really important event that you founded with Kristen Bride. Can you tell us that's what it's all about?

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June 23rd is the day that Kristen and I both lost our sons. You know, we're a thousand miles apart. Same day, same platform, different harms. And when I was thinking of how do we go bigger with talking about these issues? Right. I'm educating all the time, talking to communities and young people all the time, but there has to be bigger attention. And that's when the idea of making the 23rd a day for everybody who's lost their kid to social media harms. Yeah. On some level, maybe I'm selfish and it says a grand gesture of love to Alex on the day that he died, but. Sorry.

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That's okay.

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I don't usually articulate that I talk about that piece, but because it's like, selfish and private, I guess, in a way. But it's really important for me for families to be witnessed. Right. To be seen as more than just a parent who lost their kid and to also feel normal when we come together in this space. When I'm around other impacted families, I feel totally normal. There's an acceptance there. You're not going to get awkward questions. There's not a judgment. There's people who haven't heard rumors about you. It's just a nice normal space to be in. And then the first half of the day is about calling attention to legislation and to what these tech companies are doing. And that's really important and that's something Kristin is really passionate about. I think that's, that's why we balance each other out so well is she's let's go on these policy and that piece where I'm like let's take care of the families. And so we're able to bring those two ideas together into one space and also bring in allies into that space, which I think is so powerful because sometimes our allies are out there, they're doing the work, but they're not an impacted family. And so getting that time to spend with those families and to spend see them in action, I think helps make the work more valuable to them, makes it more personal.

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And you had a few senators speak at the event this year. Can you tell us about who spoke and kind of what the vibe was we had?

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Josh Hawley spoke. He has been a champion for the families over this since the the tech hearing that happened in 2024. Really he's come out with some the Guard act. So some legislation that majority of us support.

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We're here today to call for justice because the faces of these children who've been as you look across this field in front of me, every face, every picture, every name is a cry for justice. What these pictures represent are the most powerful companies in the history of the world taking advantage of our children for one reason only and that reason is profit.

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We had Senator Richard Blumenthal there who is responsible for the Kids Online Safety act that came out of his office and he was there making the demands to make sure that the duty of care stays intact again, which is incredibly important to families. And then we also had Amy Klobuchar who has been an incredible ally even though I'm not from Minnesota. She's been helpful to me in my advocacy, you know, coming out of her office, helping us get information and proposing the resolution to get the day signed in to as a holiday.

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Today on social media Victims Remembrance Day,

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we honor the lives cut short because

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these companies have failed to protect kids on the platforms. Every single one of these photos, it's

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not just a photo, it's not just

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a number, it's not just a button. It's someone that you loved.

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What I love about this event is it is about remembrance, but it's also about action and trying to prevent more names from being added to the lawn every year. What would that look like for you? What kind of reform would you want to see?

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Oh, man, that is so hard. Honestly, I think the duty of care is important. I think we need to keep the courthouse doors open for families to be able to sue, because that right now, that's the only thing that seems to be working. But at the end of the day, we still need to educate people. These companies are still going to act in ways that are probably not favorable to our kids, and we constantly need to be prepared for that. I would like these companies to make their product safe by design, and I don't think we should settle for anything less. Like, Mark Zuckerberg, how much money is enough money for you that you will finally make these products safe? Like, there's got to be an answer to that. These techs already have enough more money than they can spend in several lifetimes. So at what point is child safety important?

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And he doesn't want to show up and be asked those questions, does he?

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Oh, not at all. I cannot believe he's weaseled his way

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out of a hearing.

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I know. We're really.

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What do we expect?

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What do we expect from him? He thinks he's above it all.

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It does show a big shift because before, his arrogance was like, oh, yeah, I'll go do a hearing, like, none of this matters. I can just like, crush this topic and like, move on. And now it's actually very telling that he doesn't want to do it. I mean, it sucks that we don't get to hear from him because we deserve that as a nation who had to deal with his decision making and repercussions from that. But, like, I actually think him trying to weasel out of it shows that he doesn't want to do it. And he doesn't want to do it because, Amy, you all the parents so outdid him as part of the trial and showed that you were full of, like, heart and conviction and he was full of bullshit. And so he doesn't want to do it. And so that is progress in some ways, even though it's. It's annoying that he weaseled out of it.

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Right. You know, as we're trudging along here and we're. We're moving the mountain a little bit in a little bit and a little bit at a time, but we need our big moment like other industries have had, where the AIDS movement where they had a pivotal moment. It was on the news. There was outrage being created through media platforms that resulted in helping people. And, yes, that's a very big movement. And I'm not saying the harms are alike. I just want to be clear. But we need that big moment where finally, I mean, we were seeing the court of public opinion start to turn with the trials, but we need to get bigger and we need to get louder. And I think it's coming. I mean, it's just we've had this groundswell and things keep happening in our favor even when little things like the legislation that just passed in the House. Yeah, that's a downer. But we. We get those. We get that, okay, we're not going to win everything, but we're winning most things.

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So why don't you close us out? And you mentioned, like, outrage because there are so many parents who are outraged, parents who are watching your work and watching our events and, and tuning in to see what's going on at Social Media Victims Remembrance Day. Maybe they can't be there, but they support. And so what do we want to end with? Just for people who are listening, who want to do more from home, I

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think it's important for people that want to do more at home to know that they are not powerless. It sounds like such a huge, monumental task, but it's not. It's a simple call into your legislator saying, vote no on this bill. It's as simple as following organizations like Parents Rise on their social media pages and sharing their post out to your friends. One thing I always tell people when I do a community education night is like, okay, you're here now. Your job is to go tell 10 more people about what you learned tonight. And that's how we're going to continue to build the movement and get change.

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I'm so proud of you and Kristin. And it just went so well, and

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I couldn't do it without you guys. Like, it's like linen. I hope linens recover at this point, you guys see us and it's just so. It's so important. These relationships are really important.

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We feel the same way. It's an honor and a privilege to be able to support you all as part of Social Media Victims Remembrance Day. I can't think of anything I would rather do, honestly.

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Thank you.

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Thank you, Amy. Thank you for being here. We love you. Sarah. Can you speak to what needs to change so that we can stop adding names to the lawn each year? And, you know, overseas, a lot of different countries are passing Laws raising the age of social media, restricting access to kids under 16. And is that the solution or is there something else we need to be focusing on here in the us I

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think like everything, there's not one silver bullet. I think the, having said that, the focus right now is banning and getting rid of addictive features. That is sort of the universally accepted solution that if put in place tomorrow, would fundamentally make all the platforms so much safer that a lot of the harms that the kids are experiencing now would be greatly reduced, which hopefully would then mean also we would lose less children to those harms. It doesn't mean that it would solve every issue or that this would never happen. But what's driving the human cost of this so dramatically right now is the business models of keeping kids at attention, trying to grab their attention and hook it. And that often happens through shocking, horrible, egregious content that you just can't look away from. And so that is sort of a universally accepted idea within the field right now is that if we can make the platforms change that through legislation or through pressure, it would greatly reduce the harms from there. There's a whole bunch of other things too that could also help it. I think my point of view is that the trials proved that the platforms right now are unsafe for anyone under 16. That's how I, Sarah, personally feel. That's different than. I don't necessarily think doing a ban solves, makes the platform change the dynamics of the platform. So there's a lot of nuance. But I think that there has been a signal that this is an unsafe product for kids under 16 right now and that if we actually get them to get rid of the addictive features and the algorithmic pushing of content, that would be the biggest step forward we could take.

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I totally agree. And I mean in the countries where they age has been raised and the companies are now responsible for verifying ages, it's been found that they're just not doing a very good job verifying the ages and that teenagers are reporting all over Australia, for example, that they never got kicked off and they're under 16 or they were able to sign up by using a fake birthday or they drew a mustache on their face and when they did the face scan, they passed for an adult. And so we're still leaving it up to the companies to verify ages. And it doesn't look, I mean, it's not in their best interest to do that. They are at risk of multimillion dollar fines for every child that they let on there. That's under 16, but those aren't being fined yet. They're still being given time to figure out the technology. And so I just don't trust them to put an effective solution into place when it comes to age gating anyways. And the problem is the proven to be addictive and harmful features of the products. And that's. I agree that's what we should be tackling here. As the prior.

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My one other note on the bans is that to me it's not surprising that teens are still getting on it because to your point, the companies are the gatekeepers and also it's too soon to measure the efficacy of any legislation that passed. For me, the countries that have done it, it's more of a signal. I think the more interesting metric to track would be population wise, did parents see the ban go into place and then did they delay access based off of that, given that signal, which is something. That's what I think is a more interesting metric than like did the one kid who already had the phone get kicked off of it or like figure out how to use a VPN to get back on it. I say that just because there was so much work that went into getting countries to get to that point and, and push the. To me it's more about pushing the conversation forward and I hope someone is out there measuring in the places where that happened. Did the parent population then have a different set of inputs and thinking into their decision making about how to give access? That's what I think would be more interesting to measure. And it all takes time.

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Yeah. And I do think there's a YouGov survey with Channel 7 Spotlight that we, we interviewed and did their documentary on that like how are, how have household decisions changed around access to social media? And I think that is looking really positive because parents are responsible and we want, you know, if you tell us 13, we think it's 13. If you tell us 16, we think

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it's safe for 16.

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We're gonna, we trust, we're trying to follow the rules. Yeah, thank you for that breakdown Sarah. I think it's important for parents to understand like how to react when we see more countries passing these age gating bills and what we should be focusing on here. And so we're going to continue to bring parents into the conversation, give you action items so that you can support different bills that prioritize pressuring the companies to be safer in the best way that we can possibly get that done.

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Sam.