My name is Joann Bogard. A little more than three years ago, my 15-year-old son Mason came home from school like any other day. He ate dinner and said, "I love you, mom," as he headed upstairs to take a shower and get ready for bed. Those were the last words I ever heard him say. Moments later, my husband and I were standing over his unconscious body with a belt wrapped tightly around his neck.
My son wasn't a big social media user. He would rather be outside, fishing, or playing with his friends, but he did love learning. That's what led him to watch "how-to" videos on Youtube and other platforms. One of the things that popped up in his feed was the "choking challenge" — a "game" in which kids try to self-strangle themselves for likes online and a momentary sense of euphoria. In these videos, you see the young "challengers" laugh as they come to after choking. They make it look like harmless fun, but it is anything but. What these videos don't show you is the children that don't come to and a family is changed forever.
Mason was one of those stories. He never woke up. Mason had unknowingly used a belt that fastened in place when he tried the challenge, and he was unable to get it unbuckled before he passed out. He was declared clinically brain dead and died shortly after.
Will you sign this petition to ask Big Tech companies to do more to protect kids like Mason?
After Mason's death, I began to investigate these challenges. What I found online was shocking. There were thousands of challenge videos on platforms like Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. They came with no warnings" or age restriction. But once you watched one, the algorithm would suggest more videos and more dangerous challenges, and with autoplay, you could easily pass hours watching them. After hours of watching hundreds of kids try their hand at these challenges, it's no wonder so many kids are convinced to try it themselves.
The choking challenge isn't the only viral trend out there that can cause death. There are hundreds of them across all the social media platforms, reaching millions of underage children.
These companies know that challenges like these are dangerous, but they also know they go viral. Time after time, we have learned they're willing to allow dangerous and even deadly content in the name of profit. Their bottom lines don't suffer, but we do. The only way we can make the internet safer for our children is to force these companies to do so.
That is why, along with several other families who have lost children to social media, I'm going to Silicon Valley this month to deliver this letter to demand that the heads of Facebook, Google, Snapchat, TikTok, and others take action. I want them to know the pain they have caused can be avoided by taking simple steps to stop dangerous challenge videos and other types of content from spreading to underage, vulnerable, and impressionable kids.
Will you join me? Please stand up for our children and our children's safety and tell these social media companies that enough is enough. They have a responsibility to protect our children.
Sign to tell Big Tech CEO's:
1. Stop designing products to addict kids: Turn autoplay and endless scroll off by default on children's accounts or content and stop pushing kids to be online with "nudges" to share or engage.
2. Protect kids from predators: Make children's profiles private by default and turn off location tracking on kids' accounts to make it harder for strangers to contact and track them.
3. Stop using algorithms to promote harmful, dangerous content to kids: Train 'recommender algorithms' to stop pushing risky content – like white supremacy, eating disorder how-tos, and dangerous viral challenges – on kids.
4. Don't sell kids' private information: Opt all children under 18 out of all targeting advertising and don't sell their data to 3rd parties.
5. Stop hiding information on the real effect of your products: Release all internal data about how your platform impacts kids so parents and families understand the risks and can make informed choices.
