The act of initiating a movement
Families who claim that social media killed their children frequently use it as motivation to contact lawmakers. In 2022, Gail Flatt filed lawsuits against Snapchat and Meta, claiming that her 14-year-old daughter Sarah’s “addiction” to the platforms caused anxiety, insomnia, and ultimately, Sarah’s suicide in 2019. Gail Flatt has been meeting with lawmakers over what she claims are issues with the algorithms of the websites.
According to the case, which is currently pending in a Northern District of California court, Sarah would frequently check Instagram and Snapchat and would go down “rabbit holes” that would eventually cause her to consider suicide and self-harm.
In order to support the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, which would give kids more online protections like the ability to opt out of algorithmic suggestions and ensure better privacy settings for young users, Flatt recently met with Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Sen. Blackburn extended an invitation to her to attend President Biden’s State of the Union speech last month, during which he spoke about the need to reduce the risks associated with social media use for children.
At a recent congressional hearing, Flatt was one among the parents who held up images of their deceased children as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the families who had suffered due of his platform.
“I’m trying to help save the lives of other children,” Flatt stated, adding that she hoped her daughter’s injury would serve as a signal to other parents that unless anything changed, more children would suffer harm.