Dozens of grief-stricken parents held a demonstration outside the corporate offices of Snapchat in Santa Monica, California, on Feb. 12, urging more action to protect young users of the popular social media platform.
Organizers said 43 parents participated, coming from multiple U.S. states; one came from the UK. Demonstrators held placards, sang, gave speeches, and painted names of 108 deceased children on the public roadway in large white letters. Those actions were taken to create “a memorial to honor their kids and call for stronger safety measures from the company,” a news release said.
Nearly all the participants were parents of youths who died from pills poisoned with fentanyl; those parents allege their children obtained those deadly doses from drug dealers on Snapchat. Some of the participants, including Amy Neville, are part of a lawsuit that remains pending against the social media platform. That suit alleges Snapchat is a defective product and that its design is faulty.
Neville’s son, Alexander, was a 14-year-old Snapchat user when fentanyl killed him in 2020. He obtained the pill from a dealer on Snapchat, his mother said. She has been on a crusade ever since, seeking to inform parents, pressure companies to change, and forge changes in laws.
“I think our children were honored beautifully today, in a way that sent a message to Snapchat and other social media companies. ... Safety has to be the priority,” Neville told The Epoch Times after the demonstration concluded.
The demonstration was intended to “help bring accountability to the company’s doorstep,” the organizers’ news release stated, adding that parents were demanding certain changes to protect children. Measures they are seeking include “removing all addictive features,” improving default privacy settings, verification of users’ ages “to ensure all minors are protected,” and prohibiting algorithms from promoting “harmful information including child sexual abuse and drugs.”
Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc., did not comment on the demonstration specifically, but released a general statement to The Epoch Times.
“Snap unequivocally condemns the criminal conduct of the drug dealers whose actions led to these tragedies,” a spokesperson said via email. “Addressing the fentanyl crisis demands a united front, bringing together law enforcement, government officials, medical professionals, parents, educators, tech companies, and advocacy organizations. We have long recognized the urgency of this issue and have devoted substantial resources to combating illegal activity on our platform, including decisive action against drug dealers.”
The company also noted that it was the first social media platform to publicly support the Kids Online Safety Act. That proposal would require social media companies to implement certain “tools and safeguards to protect users and visitors under the age of 17,” a congressional summary says.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), has been referred to the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
Heat Initiative, an online child-safety advocacy group, organized the demonstration, which lasted less than an hour. The group’s CEO, Sarah Gardner, alleges that Snapchat “has fought to avoid any meaningful accountability,” a release said.
The demonstration was held miles from a Los Angeles courthouse where a landmark trial involving alleged social-media addiction is underway. In that case, YouTube argues that it is not addictive to children, and is not even a type of social media. Snap settled its part of the case, involving the same plaintiff, in January. Multiple other online companies remain defendants.
After receiving a report of a protest around 9 a.m. local time, Santa Monica police arrived in the area of 31st Street and Ocean Park Boulevard. “Participants temporarily blocked traffic and wrote messages on the roadway about social media and the impact on teens,” police Lt. Lewis Gilmour wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.
To ensure public safety, officers controlled traffic and “monitored the demonstration,” he said, adding, “The protest concluded without incident, and the group dispersed peacefully.”
