Deb Schmil has become a regular on Capitol Hill. Last week alone, she visited the offices of 13 lawmakers, one of more than a dozen she has made from her home near Boston in the past two years.
In each of her interviews, Schmil speaks about her daughter, Becca, who died in 2020 at age 18. She said Becca died after taking drugs laced with fentanyl purchased on Facebook. Prior to that, she was raped by a boy she met online and then cyberbullied on Snapchat.
“I have to do everything I can to pass legislation to protect other children and stop what happened to Becca from happening to them,” said Schmil, 60. “It's my way of coping.”
Schmil is one of dozens of parents lobbying for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require social media, gaming and messaging apps to restrict features that could promote depression, bullying or lead to sexual exploitation. The bill, the most powerful tech-wide legislation in years, would require tech services to default to the most privacy and safety settings for users under the age of 17 and allow teens to opt out of some features that could lead to compulsive use.
About 20 parents formed a group called Parents SOS, modeled in part on Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which in 1984 created a federal drinking age mandated at 21. Like MADD members, the parents carry photos of children they say have been killed by social media and tell lawmakers their own personal tragedies.
Dozens more parents have founded organizations to combat social media addiction, eating disorders and fentanyl addiction, all promoting KOSA and storming the Capitol to talk about how their children have been harmed.
The bill, which will be introduced in 2022, has bipartisan support in the Senate and is ready for a vote. It recently passed a key House subcommittee vote. President Biden also supports the bill.
US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy said this week that social media is contributing to and fuelling an “urgent” mental health crisis among young people.
But KOSA still faces significant obstacles: Tech industry lobbyists and the ACLU oppose it, saying it could undermine free speech, and others worry that limiting children's access to social media could further isolate vulnerable young people, including those in the LGBTQ community.
To ramp up pressure as Congress nears its August recess, Parents SOS launched a Father's Day ad campaign in New York's Times Square and a streaming TV ad campaign (funded by child advocacy nonprofits Fair Play and the Eating Disorder Coalition).
“Some of my friends told me, 'This is so painful, just forget it and move on,' but I couldn't stay silent because I knew the social media companies weren't responsible,” said Christine Bride, 57, of Oregon, whose son Carson committed suicide in 2020 at age 16 after relentless bullying through anonymous messaging apps that connected to Snapchat.
Snap, X and Microsoft have announced support for KOSA.
“The safety of young people is an urgent priority, and we call on Congress to pass the Child Online Safety Act,” Snapchat's parent company Snap said in a statement. Snap will no longer allow anonymous messaging apps to connect to its platform.
Mehta, which owns YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, declined to comment. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
The parents' efforts are in line with a global movement to regulate teen safety online. The European Union's Digital Services Act 2022 requires social media sites to block harmful content and limit the use of features that could lead to teen addiction. Britain enacted similar online safety laws for children last year.
Nationally, 45 state attorneys general have sued the company, accusing it of harming young users. Last year, 23 state legislatures passed child safety laws, and New York passed a law this week restricting social media platforms' use of recommendation feeds that could lead to impulsive spending among users under the age of 18.
Many of the parents who became lobbyists cited “The Social Dilemma,” a 2020 documentary about the harms of social media, as a call to action. They also said they were incensed by the 2021 revelations by former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen, who testified before Congress that Facebook was aware of the dangers the app posed to young people.
“For the first time, I understood it was by design and that it was a company problem,” said Christine McComas, 59, of Maryland, whose daughter Grace committed suicide in 2012 at age 15 after being bullied on Twitter.
Many parents said the Humane Technology Center, a nonprofit that advocates for social media regulation and was featured in the documentary, introduced them to the group after they reached out.
Maureen Molak's son, David, committed suicide in 2016 at the age of 16 after being cyberbullied on Instagram and messaging apps. Another of her sons found a memorial page for Grace McComas online and encouraged his mother to contact her by email.
The two mothers stayed in touch by phone and began reaching out to other parents, and Molak started a foundation to educate the public about cyberbullying and push for state laws against it.
By early 2022, some parents, working with Fair Play, had begun pushing for state child safety legislation. In February of that year, KOSA was introduced by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
The bill initially gained modest support, but made it out of a Senate committee and languished for months. Eventually, a few parents grew impatient and stormed the Capitol in November. Bride and other parents say they stormed into the office of Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat and chair of the Commerce Committee, and demanded a meeting. She met with them the next day.
Cantwell was visibly moved, rubbing the backs of several parents as they talked about their children, Bride said.
“It's a huge shock to them to see us and know that their children are no longer with us, and that's what gets people going,” Bride said. Cantwell's office declined to comment.
Cantwell was a vocal supporter of the bill and then tried unsuccessfully to attach it to a year-end appropriations bill.
The bill sat dormant for much of last year, in part because of concerns that the language required companies to design their sites to protect children was too vague, and some lawmakers worried that the bill gave the attorney general too much power to police certain content and could be used as a political weapon.
Despite their disappointment, the parents kept calling each other to motivate themselves. In September, Ms. Schmil rented a short-term apartment a 10-minute walk from the Capitol. She put on her sneakers in a canvas bag and visited the offices of nearly 100 senators to tell them about Becca.
“As I thought about another year of her birthday and the anniversary of her death, I felt I had to do something productive in her memory to get through another anniversary,” Schmil said.
The parents decided to start ParentsSOS late last year, around the time the Senate Judiciary Committee announced its January hearings on child safety for tech company CEOs. The effort, aimed at garnering more support for KOSA, was funded by Molak's foundation, which works on fair play and cyberbullying.
Parents have been communicating via email, text and Zoom, attending public hearings on child safety, and deciding to confront executives from Discord, Meta, Snap, TikTok and X with photos of their kids.
During the hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, tried to force Mehta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to apologize to his parents. Zuckerberg turned to his parents and said, “I'm sorry for everything that you've all been through.”
Todd Miner, a Parents SOS member who was in attendance, said the apology rang hollow: Miner said his 12-year-old son, Matthew, died in 2019 after taking part in TikTok's “Blackout Challenge,” a strangling challenge.
“We need KOSA, that's it,” said Miner, 48.
The parents then met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, who promised to bring the KOSA bill to a floor vote by June 20, according to Schmil and others who attended the meeting.
The House of Representatives introduced a companion bill in April.
Molak, 61, of San Antonio, met with Republican Rep. Randy Weber of Texas last month to talk about his son, David.
“Why am I not involved in this bill? Let's get involved in this bill!'” Weber, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told staff during the meeting, Molak said. Weber's office did not respond to a request for comment.
But progress in that committee stalled this month, and the Senate version of the bill still faces opposition.
Schmil and three other parents made another trip to the Capitol last week.
“You need to keep busy and keep trying,” Schmil said.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
