In 2020, Amy Neville found her 14-year-old son Alexander dead in his bedroom. He had taken what he thought was an oxycodone pill, bought \u2013 according to Neville \u2013 from a drug dealer he met on Snapchat. The pill was a fake, laced with fentanyl. Four years later, his mum stood up in the California high school where Alex would have been a student to warn other parents and teenagers about social media. \u201cWe give our kids these smartphones. We let them have these apps. And that is the equivalent of dropping them off in the worst neighbourhood in our area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neville is featured alongside other bereaved parents in Can\u2019t Look Away, a terrifying new documentary about kids and social media directed by Matthew O\u2019Neill and Perri Peltz, based on extensive investigative reporting by Bloomberg News journalist Olivia Carville. It follows American families who are filing lawsuits against social media companies and campaigning for stricter legislation; they are represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center, a crusading legal firm run Matthew Bergman, a lawyer so charismatic he could probably play himself in a Hollywood movie.<\/p>\n
The directors ask if the kids have ever watched a suicide. Almost every hand goes up<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The conversation around teenagers and social media has evolved beyond kids using their phones at the table. In his 2024 bestseller The Anxious Generation<\/a>, Jonathan Haidt warned of the links between young people\u2019s mental health and smartphones<\/a>. Last month, the technology secretary Peter Kyle apologised for the delay in legislation to keep children safe online. Australia plans to ban social media for under 16s from December<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In Can\u2019t Look Away, the agony on parents\u2019 faces as they tell their stories, and relive the trauma, is hard to watch. Toney and Brandy Roberts filed a lawsuit against Meta over the death of their 14-year-old daughter Englyn in 2020; she killed herself after watching a video of a mock-hanging on Instagram. \u201cThe social media companies know that our children are so vulnerable,\u201d Brandy tells the camera. \u201cI feel that the only way that they\u2019re going to be forced to change is through a lawsuit. So that\u2019s why we\u2019re joining this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I talk to the film\u2019s directors before Can\u2019t Look Away\u2019s UK premiere, they do not mince their words. O\u2019Neill says he previously had no idea how extreme the content that children are exposed to on social media is. \u201cIt\u2019s so much more than just addiction, or screen time, or wasting time. What young people see is so different because of the algorithms. What they\u2019re being fed, what they can\u2019t look away from, this is not what they\u2019re searching for. Children are essentially entering into a hellscape that adults don\u2019t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Algorithms decide what you see on social media, based in part on what you have previously liked or commented on, and how much time you\u2019ve spent on other posts. If you linger on a piece of content, the algorithm will feed you more of the same. What that means is that teenagers don\u2019t have to actively search for harmful material for it to appear in their feed. A 13-year-old girl might look for healthy eating advice and end up down a rabbit hole of pro-anorexia content. \u201cIt can very quickly turn very dark,\u201d says O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
Mason Edens was 16 when he broke up with his girlfriend; normal teenage stuff his mum Jennie DeSerio thought. In his heartache, Mason turned to TikTok, searching for phrases such as: \u201cMy girlfriend broke up with me.\u201d In the film, his mum plays one of the depressing videos that ended up in his feed. It shows a gun in a hand, then an image of blood splatter and the words: \u201cMy hand. My head.\u201d Mason killed himself in November 2022. Jennie doesn\u2019t believe that he\u2019d ever searched for the term \u201csuicide\u201d on TikTok.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill says he was shocked by Mason\u2019s feed: \u201cThis is not someone crying. It\u2019s not just sad music. It is an image of a gun going into a hand with the exhortation to blow your effing head off. That is not content that a product should be feeding to a child. I think we could all broadly agree on that as a society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is it possible, I ask, for the social media companies to filter out harmful content? \u201cIf Meta knows what I want to buy before I buy it, there\u2019s no way they can\u2019t figure out how to make sure children aren\u2019t fed content that demonstrates how to die by suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018It can turn dark very quickly\u2019 \u2026 the directors of the documentary, Matthew O\u2019Neill and Perri Peltz. Photograph: Bryan Derballa\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
After screenings of Can\u2019t Look Away, the film-makers often ask the kids in the audience if they have ever watched a suicide on social media. \u201cAlmost all the hands go up,\u201d says co-director Peltz.<\/p>\n
In America, 95% of 13 to 17-year-olds use social media. In 2022, social media companies made an estimated $11bn from advertising directed to under 18s in the US. The longer kids are glued to it, the more billions the companies make, which means there is a huge incentive to design sticky algorithms, says Peltz. \u201cWhy are they feeding children material that they can\u2019t look away from? Because it keeps children on their sites for as long as possible. And we know from whistleblowers that that is a business plan. This is not an accident. They are prioritising time on screen over safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
The film features interviews with such whistleblowers, who say companies have been warned that their products harm children. Arturo B\u00e9jar held senior positions at Facebook and Instagram, and became increasingly alarmed by their parent company Meta\u2019s own research. In one poll, one in eight 13 to 15-year-olds said they had received an unwanted sexual advance on Instagram in the past week. B\u00e9jar emailed his concerns to Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and other top executives. He says he never received a reply.<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t Look Away tells the heart-breaking story of Jordan DeMay, a popular, outgoing 17-year-old from Michigan who killed himself after being blackmailed in a sextortion scam. In March 2022, he received a message on Instagram from someone he thought was a girl his own age. After some flirting, Jordan sent her nude photographs. Immediately, the threats started: send money or we\u2019ll share the photos with your friends and family. Less than six hours after the first of these messages, Jordan was dead.<\/p>\n
Sextortion is one of the fastest growing cybercrimes. Peltz is keen to share with parents the advice she has picked up from several professionals about how to protect children. \u201cTalk to your child. Tell them, \u2018If this ever happens to you, do not be afraid to come to us.\u2019 It\u2019s very specific advice that can make a major difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Showdown \u2026 parents demonstrate outside the HQ of Snap Inc, the maker of Snapchat. Photograph: Courtesy: Can\u2019t Look Away<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t Look Away ends with some real-life courtroom drama in Los Angeles. Amy Neville, the woman whose son took the fake oxycodone pill, is the lead plaintiff in a case against Snapchat by parents whose children died or were injured after allegedly buying fentanyl-laced drugs. Their lawsuit claims that Snapchat\u2019s design makes it an ideal marketplace to sell illegal drugs, with its disappearing messages that make it difficult for police to trace illegal activity. Another feature is Quick Add, which suggests other users to add. Laura Marquez-Garrett is a lawyer at the Social Media Victims Law Center and explains how it works. \u201c[A dealer will] just find one high school kid in your area. You add them, and then you add all their friends, and then you add their friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a courtroom showdown, Snap Inc\u2019s defence relies on a piece of US legislation drafted before Zuckerberg hit puberty. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 has for years acted as a shield (or a get-out-of-jail card, depending on your perspective) protecting social media companies from liability for user-generated content posted on their platforms. In court, Snap Inc\u2019s attorney describes the platform as a tech-service provider, like a phone company. You wouldn\u2019t sue a phone company if a drug deal was made over the phone. The back-and-forth between the lawyers and the judge is a gripping intellectual tennis match.<\/p>\n
Peltz tells me that parents often feel powerless. \u201cBut this is not a blame-the-parents situation. Companies need to make the changes so that these sites are responsible and are safe for children to be on. Parents can\u2019t be expected to keep up with their children when it comes to digital advances. It\u2019s time for these companies to stop blaming parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for teenagers, people can be judgmental, she says. \u201cI think it\u2019s human nature to say, \u2018Well my child wouldn\u2019t buy drugs online.\u2019 Or, \u2018My child couldn\u2019t be sextorted.\u2019 The answer is that we can all hope that our children won\u2019t do things like that. But children are children. We all know about the frontal cortex, that it doesn\u2019t get fully developed until your 20s. Children make mistakes. They should be allowed to make mistakes and not have to die as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media is in UK cinemas and streaming on jolt.film<\/a> from 8 August<\/p>\n
In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus<\/a> can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org<\/a>, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans<\/a> can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org<\/a> or jo@samaritans.ie<\/a>. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline<\/a> is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline<\/a> is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2020, Amy Neville found her 14-year-old son Alexander dead in his bedroom. He had taken what he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-317549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114971400585068624","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}