Meta could have killed a bipartisan bill to protect children online, but parents of children suffering from online harm are putting pressure on social media companies to step up.
On Thursday, the 45 families of children who lost their children to online harm — from sextorites to cyberbullying — honoured the child’s memories and called for action and accountability from the company outside of one of the Manhattan offices in Meta.
Many dressed in white, held roses, signs they read, “Meta benefits, children pay the price,” and flipped through pictures of dead children.
Although each family’s story is different, the thread that puts them together is “I ignored everything when they reached out to them and tried to warn them what had happened to the child.”
One mother, Perla Mendoza, said she died of fentanyl poisoning after her son took a drug that he purchased from a dealer on Snapchat. She is one of many parents with similar stories of lawsuits against Snap, claiming that there were few companies in order to prevent illegal drug sales on the platform before or after the death of her son. She spotted her son’s dealer posting images promoting hundreds of pills and reported it as a snap, but she says it took eight months to flag his account.
“His drug dealer was also selling it on Facebook,” Mendoza told TechCrunch. “It’s all connected. He was doing the same thing on all his apps (including Instagram). He had multiple accounts.”
The vigil follows recent testimony from whistleblower Sarah Wynn Williams. It will also come four years after the Wall Street Journal published its Facebook file. This shows that despite downplaying the issue, they knew Instagram was toxic to the mental health of teenage girls.
Also, Thursday’s event organizer, which includes action and design, including advocacy groups, delivered an open letter to Zuckerberg with over 10,000 signatures. The letter calls for Meta to stop promoting dangerous content for children (such as sexual content, racism, hate speech, and content that promotes eating disorders). Use meta platforms to prevent sexual predators and other bad actors from reaching children. It also provides transparent and fast resolution for problematic content and child reports of interactions.
Gardner placed a letter in a mountain of rose bouquets outside Meta’s office when protesters chanted “building a future where children are respected.”
Over the past year, META has been implementing new safeguards for children and teens across Facebook and Instagram. Meta recently introduced teen accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. This limits who can contact teens on the app, and limits the types of content that account owners can view. Recently, Instagram has started using AI to find teens lying about their age to bypass safeguards.
“We know that parents are concerned about teenagers having an unsafe or inappropriate experience online,” Meta spokesperson Sophie Vogel told TechCrunch. “So we’ve made a major change to the Instagram experience for teens with teenage accounts. It’s designed to address the biggest concerns of parents. Teen accounts have built-in protections that are restricted by teenagers and those who can contact content. They recognize potential online harms and know where to seek help.”
Gardner says Meta’s behavior is not enough to plug in the safety gap.
For example, Gardner said despite Meta’s stricter private messaging policy for teenagers, adults can approach children who are not on the network through post comments and ask them to approve a friend’s request.
“We’re signing on to researchers as 12 or 13. Within a few minutes, they’re really getting extremist, violent or sexual content,” Gardner said. “So it clearly isn’t working, and that’s not enough.”
Gardner also noted that recent changes to Meta fact-checking and content moderation policies support community notes signal the company “letting go of responsibility that doesn’t bring.”
Mehta and its lobbyist army led opposition to the Online Safety Act for Children who failed to pass through Congress at the end of 2024. The bill was widely expected to pass in the House after sailing through a Senate vote.
“I think (Mark Zuckerberg) is about showing that not only is he lost his child, but also other Americans awakening to this reality, but also “not only other Americans who don’t want to make decisions about online safety for my children, but also the point of showing today that their parents are really upset,” Gardner said.