WASHINGTON—Silicon Valley has for years brushed back attempts to make internet platforms more accountable for harm to young people. Online safety advocates are hoping to turn the tide with a new force: Moms.
Mothers who say social media devastated their sons and daughters are stepping up efforts to pass legislative remedies, including by making personal appeals to lawmakers and working with congressional aides to fine-tune legislation.
The power of the lobby of mothers was demonstrated in November, when about 10 women walked into Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D., Wash.) office, demanding to know why they hadn’t been able to secure a meeting with the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Kristin Bride, 56, of Mesa, Ariz., clutched a picture of her late 16-year-old son as she approached the reception desk. Several more mothers followed, holding their own photographs of children whose deaths or struggles they blame, in part, on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat.
Ms. Cantwell “needs to come out here and tell these mothers whose children are dead why their children don’t matter,” Tracy Kemp, 34, of Lubbock, Texas, who is one of the mothers, recalls saying.
Ms. Cantwell’s staff set up a meeting the next day. The senator sat with the mothers for an hour, participants said, hearing about young people who made connections with drug dealers and predators via social media apps, or who suffocated after attempting a viral “blackout challenge,” in which users film themselves choking and passing out.
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