As a mom and grandmother, I don’t stay awake at night worrying about which bill a tech company is pushing — I stay awake worrying about the things my kids and grandkids are being exposed to before they’ve even had a chance to grow up. Childhood should be a time of wonder, safety and learning. Instead, the algorithms too often serve up content that steals innocence far too soon. That’s not a policy debate — that’s a crisis every family is facing.
Social media is magnifying anxiety, normalizing harmful content, and pushing children into a world they’re not ready for. And the tech giants behind it? Rather than protecting kids, they’re perfecting the algorithms that keep them trapped. and pushing children into a world they’re not ready for. And the tech giants behind it? Rather than protecting kids, they’re perfecting the algorithms that keep them trapped.
Meta — the company that owns Facebook and Instagram — is one of today’s biggest threats to kids online. Their platforms are engineered to keep kids scrolling: endless feeds, targeted content and algorithms that seem to know exactly how to make kids feel insecure or mad. It’s not a glitch — that’s the business model. And Meta’s leaders know exactly what they’re doing.
Even when their own research revealed how much damage they are doing, especially for teenage girls, they buried the truth. When whistleblowers spoke up, Meta responded with denial, delay and distraction. Now they want us to believe they care about child safety. I’m not buying it, and neither should you.
Just last month, U.S. Senators grilled Meta executives over the company’s failure to protect children. The hearing exposed disturbing new claims that Meta put profit over safety, even when internal research showed real risks to kids using their products. One whistleblower said Meta’s executives ignored warnings just to protect the company’s image.
While Meta recently announced that they will begin training their chatbots to address child exploitation, their willingness to target children is not isolated to chatbots. A lawsuit in New Mexico alleges that 100,000 children every day are being sexually harassed on Meta’s platforms. If 100,000 kids were hurt in schools or playgrounds, we’d call it a national emergency — why not here?
The Federal Trade Commission is also investigating how Meta handles kids’ private data and whether they’ve violated children’s privacy laws. It’s all part of a pattern: deny the harm, dodge responsibility and keep the money flowing.
If any other company allowed this level of abuse, there would be public outrage and tough consequences. If a toy company ignored warnings and kept selling a product that hurt children, we wouldn’t shrug and say “parents should just watch their kids more closely.” We’d hold them accountable. Social media should be no different.
I don’t need bureaucrats in Washington or tech executives in Silicon Valley telling me how to raise my kids, but I will not stand by while those same companies exploit them. The greatest danger isn’t doing nothing; it’s passing phony laws that pretend to protect children while giving the predators in boardrooms a free pass to keep cashing in on their pain.
Every day we delay, more kids are being exploited. Every click they make is another dollar in Big Tech’s pocket. And every loophole in the law is a green light for predators to keep going. Our kids cannot wait for another hearing, another press release, another excuse — they need real protection, and they need it now.
We’re doing everything we can as parents. We talk to our kids. We set limits. We protect them as best as we can. But we shouldn’t have to go to battle every day against a trillion-dollar corporation that deliberately designs its products to override our rules and keep our kids hooked.
It’s time for real change. Lawmakers in Utah and across the country: Don’t let Meta write their own rules. Please hold social media companies accountable for how their platforms are designed and how they hurt our kids, our most precious resource. That means setting real safety standards, banning manipulative practices and empowering families to be in control.
Let parents be parents. Let families lead the way. And stop letting Big Tech profit from our kids.