Deb Schmill has become a fixture on Capitol Hill. Last week alone, she visited the offices of 13 lawmakers, one of more than a dozen trips she’s made from her home near Boston over the past two years.
At each meeting, Ms. Schmill talks about her daughter Becca, who died in 2020 at the age of 18. Ms Schmill said Becca died after taking fentanyl drugs she bought on Facebook. Before that, she said, her daughter was raped by a boy she met online and then cyberbullied on Snapchat.
“I have to do what I can to help legislate to protect other children and prevent what happened to Becca from happening to them,” Ms Smill, 60, said. “It’s my coping mechanism.”
Ms. Schmill is among dozens of parents lobbying for the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, a bill that would require social media, games and messaging apps to limit features that could increase depression or bullying or lead to sexual exploitation. The bill, which has the most momentum of any sweeping tech legislation in years, would also require tech services to enable higher privacy and security settings by default for users under 17 and allow young people to opt out of certain features that can lead to compulsive use.
Modeled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which pushed for the 1984 federal law setting the minimum drinking age at 21, about 20 of the parents have formed a group called ParentsSOS. Like MADD members, parents carry photos of their children they say died because of social media and explain their personal tragedies to lawmakers.
Dozens more parents have created organizations to fight social media addiction, eating disorders and fentanyl poisoning. They all press KOSA, who is swarmed by Capitol Hill to share how they say their children were hurt.
The bill, introduced in 2022, has bipartisan support in the Senate and is ready for a vote. It recently passed a key vote in the House subcommittee. President Biden also supported the bill.
Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, said this week that social media has contributed to an “extraordinary” mental health crisis among young people, adding further impetus.
But KOSA still faces steep obstacles. Tech lobbies and the American Civil Liberties Union are fighting it, saying it could undermine free speech. Others worry that limiting children’s access to social media could further isolate vulnerable young people, including those in the LGBTQ community.
To build pressure as the August congressional summer recess approaches, ParentsSOS launched a Father’s Day ad campaign in New York’s Times Square and a streaming TV commercial. (Fairplay, a nonprofit child advocacy organization, and the Eating Disorders Coalition provided funding.)
“I’ve had friends say, ‘Just let it go and move on because it’s so painful,’ but I couldn’t shut up about what I learned, which is that social media companies have no responsibility,” Kristin said. Bride, 57, living in Oregon. Her son Carson took his own life in 2020 at the age of 16 after what he said was relentless bullying through an anonymous messaging app linked to Snapchat.
Snap, X and Microsoft have declared their support for KOSA.
“The safety of young people is an urgent priority, and we are calling on Congress to pass the Children’s Online Safety Act,” Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, said in a statement. Snap no longer allows anonymous messaging apps to connect to its platform.
YouTube and Meta, which own Facebook and Instagram, declined to comment. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
The parents’ push aligns with a global movement to regulate youth online safety. The European Union’s Digital Services Act 2022 requires social media sites to block harmful content and restricts the use of features that can lead to addictive use by young people. Last year, Britain passed a similar online safety law for children.
Domestically, 45 state attorneys general have sued Meta over claims it harms young users. Last year, 23 state legislatures passed child safety laws, and this week New York passed a law restricting social media platforms from using recommendation feeds that could lead to compulsive consumption by users under 18.
Many of the parents-turned-lobbyists cited “The Social Dilemma,” a 2020 documentary about the harms of social media, as a call to action. They said they were also angered by revelations in 2021 from a complaint by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who testified to Congress that the company was aware of the risks to young people in its apps.
“For the first time, I realized it was the plan, it was the companies,” said Christine McComas, 59, who lives in Maryland. She said her daughter Grace died aged 15 by suicide in 2012 after being bullied on Twitter.
Many of the parents said the Center for Humane Technology, a nonprofit organization that advocates for social media regulations and was part of the documentary, had connected them after they got in touch.
Maurine Molak’s son David took his own life in 2016 at the age of 16 after being cyberbullied on Instagram and messaging apps. Another of her sons found an online memorial page for Grace McComas and encouraged his mother to contact Ms. McComas by email.
The two mothers began to have phone calls and connect with other parents as well. Ms. Molak had created a foundation to educate the public about cyberbullying and push for state anti-bullying legislation.
By early 2022, some of the parents had begun working with Fairplay to push for state child safety legislation. That February, Senators Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, introduced KOSA.
It had early but moderate support, making its way out of a Senate committee before stalling for months. Being impatient, several parents showed up at the Capitol in November. Ms. Bride and other parents said they walked into the office of Senator Maria Cantwell, the chairman of the Commerce Committee and a Washington Democrat, and asked for a meeting. He met with them the next day.
Ms Cantwell was visibly moved and rubbed the backs of several parents as they talked about their children, Ms Bride said.
“To have to look at us and know that our children are no longer with us is hitting them and it’s taken a toll,” Ms Bride said. Ms. Cantwell’s office declined to comment.
Ms. Cantwell became a staunch supporter of the bill and then tried to attach it to a year-end spending bill, which failed.
For much of the past year, the bill has been in limbo, in part because of concerns that the language requiring companies to design websites to protect children was too vague. Some lawmakers also worried that the bill would give attorneys general too much power to police certain content, a potential political weapon.
Frustrated, the parents called each other to stay motivated. In September, Ms. Schmill rented a short-term apartment a 10-minute walk from the Capitol. She changed and took off sneakers that she carried in a duffel bag as she visited the offices of all 100 or so senators to talk to them about Becca.
“As I thought about facing another year from her birth date and her death date, to face the need to experience another anniversary, I had to feel that I needed to do something productive in her memory,” Ms. Schmill said.
Late last year, around the time the Senate Judiciary Committee announced a January hearing on child safety with technology principals, parents decided to found ParentsSOS. The initiative, to help them gain more support for KOSA, was funded by Fairplay and Ms Molak’s foundation focused on cyberbullying.
Parents — communicating by email and text and via Zoom — decided to go to the child safety hearing to confront the executives of Discord, Meta, Snap, TikTok and X with photos of their children.
At the hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, tried to force Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, to apologize to parents. Mr Zuckerberg turned to the parents and said he was “sorry for everything you’ve been through”.
Todd Minor, a member of ParentsSOS who was in attendance, said the apology was hollow. His 12-year-old son, Matthew, died in 2019 after taking part, Mr. Minor said, in a “blackout challenge” on TikTok in which people drown.
“We need KOSA. It’s that simple,” Mr Minor, 48, said.
The parents then met with Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, who promised to bring KOSA to a vote by June 20, according to Ms. Schmill and others at the meetings.
In April, the House introduced a companion bill.
Ms. Molak, 61, a San Antonio resident, met with Representative Randy Weber, R-Texas, last month to talk about her son David.
“Why am I not on this bill? Let’s get on with it!” Mr. Weber, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told his staff during the meeting, according to Ms. Molak. Mr. Weber’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
But progress on that committee stalled this month. The Senate version of the bill still faces objections.
Ms. Schmill and three of the other parents returned to the Capitol again last week.
“I have to keep busy, keep trying,” Ms. Schmill said.
If you are having suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
