Original subtitles

[intense music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

[Hawley] Mr. Zuckerberg, let me start with you.

Did I hear you say there's no link between mental health

and social media use?

[Zuckerberg] Senator, what I said is I think it's important

to look at the science. I know people...

[Hawley] Here's a quote from your own study.

Quote, "We make body image issues worse

for one in three teen girls."

This is your study.

You increased anxiety and depression.

[Zuckerberg] That's... that's not... that's not...

[Hawley] That's what it says,

and you're here testifying to us in public

that there's no link.

You've been doing this for years.

Have you apologized to the victims?

-Would you like to do so now? -Well...

[Hawley] They're here. You're on national television.

Would you like now to apologize

to the victims who have been harmed by your product?

Show 'em the pictures.

[cameras clicking]

Has social media changed who we are?

Super light question.

[laughs]

Um, okay. This is cool.

Take one.

[clapperboard clacks]

When I got my first smartphone in 2008,

I was convinced it would help me

be a more productive person.

[Trisha] I got my first smartphone, I wanna say

when I was maybe 10 or 11.

I thought it was super cool, super sleek, super shiny.

That you have the ability to go anywhere in the world,

pull up your phone and know exactly where you are

and get directions, that's a bit of a miracle.

I can, you know, seek information at my fingertips.

I can see what my friends are up to.

You know, I... I think like a lot of young people thought,

"What could go wrong?"

[snap]

Students around the world are performing worse

academically now.

[teen 2] I wanna show you guys what I've done

to get success so quickly.

[woman 1] When you reach a lot of people

with your social media content,

you increase the chances of you worrying.

[notification dings]

[Ilya] We sleep less than ever before.

[woman 2] Mental stress at night increases cortisol,

blocking deep sleep.

[teen 2] Is it a form of escapism?

[influencer] Three ways to enhance your natural beauty.

Number one, get a lash lift.

Number two, when shaping your eyebrows, remove...

[Kristin] Oh my God, am I being a bad parent

by letting them have screen time?

[teen 2] Instagram is kind of like your résumé.

[news anchor 1] It's a constant battle

between immediate pleasure and self-control.

But what is all of this screen time

doing to our brains?

This is the defining public health issue of our time.

When you become enslaved

in your phone

you lose your freedom.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Trisha] They thought we'd be happy living inside our devices.

Hello?

[banging]

[Trisha] I think it's time we fight back.

[dramatic music]

[projector whirring]

[Trisha] Do you remember the world before cell phones?

[birds chirping]

[soft relaxing music playing]

[tires whirring]

[Trisha] We didn't use to know where everyone was all the time.

We showed up at each other's houses unannounced.

[Tyler's mother] Oh, hey, Sammy. I don't think Tyler's here yet.

[Trisha] We made vague plans to meet somewhere,

and like magic, both people just showed up.

We didn't always know how to get somewhere...

so we asked strangers for directions.

We counted dollars and cents to buy our movie tickets.

Riding in the car meant choosing one album.

Having a sleepover meant choosing one movie.

[car whooshes]

[rain pattering]

[Trisha] We watched raindrops racing on the window

and wrote movies in our heads.

[camera clicks]

[Trisha] There was more boredom, more uncertainty...

but those things made space for us to notice the world...

and each other.

When we stood in line, we just waited.

Do you remember that time?

Because I barely do.

Really, those early years of my childhood

was just that last piece of time where the default

was something different.

I spent a lot of my young years just running around outside,

playing with friends, being creative,

um, chasing after the ice cream truck on our bicycles.

[interviewer] When do you think that changed?

I mean...

[interviewer] Like, did it happen fast?

It did happen really fast. You know, I was born in 2000.

[news anchor 2] One! Happy 2000!

[Trisha] You know, Facebook was launched in 2004.

[Zuckerberg] And you make a profile about yourself

by answering some questions.

And now we're at 100,000 people.

So who knows where we're going next?

[Trisha] The iPhone came along in 2007.

IPod.

[audience laughs]

A phone. Are you getting it?

[audience cheering]

[audience clapping]

[Trisha] My adolescence was defined by this rapid shift

in how people related to each other.

[train whooshes]

[Trisha] And that kind of sparked my whole career

in responsible tech.

[Host 1] Trisha Prabhu, inventor, founder, and CEO,

the author of Rethink the Internet.

I thought, "Why don't I leverage technology to design

the internet that I want to build?"

We've seen everything from democratic movements

to, you know, movements for justice

started on social media platforms,

and it really has democratized, right, who gets a voice.

There's so many positive applications,

and that really excites me.

[keys clacking]

[Trisha] I strongly believe in the power of technology

as a force for good.

And what I experienced as a teenager

was unfortunately the opposite of that.

-[traffic whooshing] -[soft music]

[Trisha] Growing up, I was very happy with who I was,

the way I looked.

It felt like difference was celebrated.

But when I got online, I started to see this ideal of beauty

that was not me.

And that shook my confidence.

[women laughing]

[camera shutter clicking]

[Trisha] A lot of the faces, the images...

the so-called beautiful people I was seeing were white.

[phone clicks]

[Trisha] All the things that made me,

didn't fit the criteria.

[slam]

[shoes squeak]

[keyboard keys clicking]

[text pops]

[notification dings]

[Trisha] My friends decided to play a cruel trick on me...

as if what they said online didn't really matter.

[texts popping]

[people laughing]

[Trisha] Our culture was condoning this behavior,

Saying, "This is normal."

But really, it made it harder to trust your friends.

That confidence, that sense of self

that I'd had as a child was on shaky ground.

It was just very isolating, very lonely.

You know, at the time, no one talked about...

I mean, the term "cyberbullying" was not even in the vernacular.

This idea of social media harms, you know,

there was no conception of that.

Each of these technologies is asking us to forget

something very essential about being human.

[dial-up modem beeping and screeching]

Well, I was a champion of the internet in the 1990s.

[dial-up modem white noise]

[Sherry] I was basically saying

that when you go on the internet...

[keys clicking]

[Sherry]...you have an opportunity

to express aspects of yourself

that, in the real world, you're kind of shy about.

In some of the cases, the least likable parts

of themselves.

You could be more aggressive, you could be more introverted.

I had just written a book that celebrated our life

on the internet,

and Wired magazine called me up and they said,

"Do you wanna be our cover person?"

[Sherry] S... it was... it was wonderful.

We would use what we learned in the virtual world

to live better lives in the real world.

In 2009, that changed.

You could say, with the like button.

[digital data processing sounds]

[AI voiceover] You've got likes.

[upbeat music]

Because now, people were going on the internet

not to experiment, but to please.

[teen 3] It's all about likes.

[teen 4] You want to be liked.

-[teen 5] I like. -[teen 6] I like.

[teen 7] I like.

[Adam] Giving people currency like numbers of views

or numbers of likes,

they create these artificial goals that we strive for.

And those goals are really irresistible.

The visible numbers beneath each post,

that have become indicators for the popularity of content,

that has trained us to want more of those numbers

and trained us to attach ourselves to the outcome

of every post, uh, in a way that is really toxic.

[Joni] We go into performance mode.

[camera clicks]

So if you're performing for an audience on social media,

that is not the same as building a trusting relationship.

Social media is a bit of a misnomer.

It's not really socializing.

It's more of, like, a social capital measuring machine.

Teenagers have this intense need to be accepted by others,

and that's what drives them more than anything.

And you give 'em a tool that quantifies popularity.

It's not only something they're keenly aware of,

it's something that's then published to the whole world.

So-and-so has X amount of friends.

It has been a global social science experiment.

If you step back now, the results are in.

Individuals, society, being the most digitally connected

and the most emotionally disconnected.

We're kind of compelling kids to social media,

not fully understanding its detrimental effect

it's having on their levels of depression and loneliness.

[birds chirping]

[water rushing]

[footsteps rustling]

[Kristin] As much as I love our house here

and I love the green,

[Melancholic music]

it's always really hard to return...

because it brings it all back.

[chair scrapes]

[Kristin] Carson was very high energy.

He was funny, really, really funny.

And as he got older, he loved to do jump scares on me.

And I... and I told him,

"You're gonna give me a heart attack one of these days."

We did not allow Carson to have a phone

until eighth grade.

[keys clacking]

[Kristin] He said he just absolutely needed a Snapchat

because that's the way the kids were connecting.

He was 16.

It was COVID, and I was thrilled to have my boys with me.

He was safe at home with us.

It just couldn't have been further from the truth.

We immediately saw a change when he was on Snapchat.

I could hear him talking to friends,

this focus on number of likes and number of followers,

and it... it was like a status symbol

of how many friends you had.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

[Kristin] Push-up challenge with Carson and Tom Bride.

[Carson] Two, one.

[together] One.

[Kristin] Two.

Happy birthday, Iñaki.

I was assigned the letter K for kindness,

because throughout your stay here, you've...

[Kristin] He was 16, and we just believed

that it's a really good experience for kids

when they turn 16 to try to get a summer job.

Carson really wanted to learn how to make pizzas.

He applied and he got the job,

and we were just over-the-top thrilled.

He took a picture of himself in the uniform.

[camera clicks]

[Kristin] He said, "I'm working at Papa Murphy's.

Come pick up a pizza on Wednesday."

We had no idea he was experiencing

online harassment for months before that.

[tense music]

[phone clicks]

[electrical buzzing]

[Kristin] The response through the anonymous apps on Snapchat

were nothing but repulsive.

[phone buzzing]

[Kristin] He was tormented by a group of his peers.

[phone buzzes]

[Kristin] Who hid their cruelty behind anonymity.

[phone buzzing]

[electrical buzzing]

[dark music]

-[melancholic music] -[wind whooshing]

[Kristin] I had gotten up early.

I looked and I saw that his bedroom door was open

and he wasn't in it.

I thought nothing of it, because sometimes

if he had a hard time sleeping, he would sleep upstairs.

I looked down at my phone

and saw a text message from Carson.

It said regarding a suicide.

I jumped up in horror.

And the garage door was open.

There was a light showing.

I ran down and he was hanging.

[birds chirping]

He will ha... would have been 20 in... it's hard to imagine,

in November.

[soft music]

[Trisha] I remember seeing headlines in 2021...

but I did not meet Kristin until a couple of years later.

She is such a force.

The story that you're telling and the work that you're doing

could not be more important.

Thank you, Tricia. That means a lot.

Once I started doing more research,

I realized how many other kids had been cyberbullied

and how quickly that can lead to suicide.

The US Surgeon General is issuing a new warning

about social media and its impact on teens.

And now America's top doctor wants warning labels

on those social media platforms.

Why now for this advisory?

We're issuing this advisory to sound the alarm.

[clapperboard clacks]

There's no question that we are living in the middle

of a youth mental health crisis that has become global.

Uh, right now in the United States,

if you had a high school with 1,000 kids,

450 of those kids are saying that they feel persistently sad

or hopeless,

200 have considered taking their own life,

and 100 of those kids have actually attempted

to take their life.

That is an extraordinary indictment of the world

that we are living in,

of the environment and culture that we have created.

We saw in the data that kids who were on social media

for three and a half hours or more per day

face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms.

At that time, the average amount of time adolescents

were spending on social media was almost five hours per day.

We have not had enough of a conversation about that

as a society.

I don't think that companies, technology companies,

have done enough to protect our kids.

And I also think policymakers have fallen down on the job

when it comes to protections that we need

to make sure our kids are okay.

[woman on video] Um, Kristin, do you wanna start out?

Sure. Um, my name is Kristin Bride.

And I lost my son, Carson, three years ago to suicide.

Whether it's cyberbullying,

whether it's sexual exploitation,

whether it's compulsive use,

whether it's exposure to self-harm content,

eating disorder content,

it's all traced to the business model,

where these companies are trying to keep our kids online

as long as possible by any means necessary.

[soft music]

[Kristin] Carson had been cyberbullied

leading up to this suicide over YOLO.

[mouse clicks]

[dramatic pensive music]

[Kristin] Then we started to look at his phone,

which revealed hundreds of sadistic messages

from a few of his peers.

He was reaching out to have conversations

with people because he was lonely,

and he was getting just garbage back.

They looked at their policies and they said

they monitored for cyberbullying

and that they would reveal the identities

of those who do so.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[Kristin] I reached out four times,

told them what happened to my son,

and that I needed to know who did this to my son,

and they need to be banned from the app

so they didn't do it to somebody else.

[mouse clicks]

[Kristin] And never heard anything back.

I was ignored.

[car honking, vehicles whooshing]

[Kristin] You know, my kid is dead.

How am I going to continue living

when there's no accountability?

[elevator bell dings]

[Kristin] Hi, Eric.

So nice to meet you.

I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.

Take a seat.

Getting out of bed every day is a challenge.

It is empty in our house.

Carson was our bright light, he was our funny guy,

and we should've been looking at colleges for Carson.

And all that is gone.

I believe we have a misrepresentation claim

because YOLO misrepresented that they would reveal and ban

anonymous users for bullying, for inappropriate conduct,

and they were not truthful with Carson, your family,

and the rest of the world.

And I believe we really have the ability here

to do something historic, to change precedent,

uh, to change policy.

A... a... and that's what we really want.

We want to create change.

[Eric Baum] After Kristin came to see us,

we brought a class action lawsuit against Snapchat,

YOLO, and LMK.

Within days, Snapchat banned YOLO and LMK from the platform.

But then our case was dismissed

in the Central District of California

based upon Section 230.

These platforms were being insulated from liability.

From there, we filed our appeal.

[Kristin] At that point, I was ready to go to battle.

An important story for parents and kids now internationally,

[Jake] Kristin Bride,

she's one of the parents who went to Capitol Hill today

to urge lawmakers to try to hold social media companies

accountable.

[Kristin] I am testifying here today to bring a face

to the harms occurring every day

resulting from the unchecked power

of the social media industry.

Our complaint against YOLO and LMK for product liability

design defects was dismissed in the Central District Court

of California last month, citing Section 230 immunity.

I... I think it is just absolutely vital

that we change the law to allow suits like yours to go forward.

There's just no rules of the road

because, uh, these social media companies

have stopped everything in their tracks that we have,

uh, tried to do.

To me, it seems like an enormous amount of progress

would be made if we would repeal Section 230.

[tense music]

[Laura] Section 230 basically says that online service providers

cannot be held liable for what third parties say and do

on their platform.

And really, social media companies have sort of gotten

the benefit of the doubt on that.

This law is truly revolutionary legislation

that will bring the future to our doorstep.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

was in 1996 when the internet was first being born.

- [notification chimes] - [AI voiceover] Welcome.

[Tristan] And we thought that the internet was

a bulletin board.

You had Yahoo website directories

where you would have to actively go there

and then click on exactly what you wanted to see.

[cat meows]

[messages ping]

[keyboard keys clicking]

[message ping]

[Tristan] We didn't have persuasive design.

[AI voiceover] Goodbye.

[Tristan] We didn't have recommended content.

Today, all of the systems that you interact with

are calculating the perfect next thing

to keep you scrolling

as frequently as possible and as long as possible.

[static crackles]

I mean, really, it's that this handful

of technology companies are holding and rewiring

the consciousness of humanity in their designs.

When they make a design choice,

they're rewiring which way information flows,

which relationships we spend time with,

the way our attention and our brains work.

That is a totally different kind of power,

and we haven't updated the laws since then.

[Laura] You're looking at almost 30 years of no updated laws,

no reassessment of, uh, "Is 230 appropriate?"

I was born in 2000, I'm 24 today,

and quite literally, I have not seen

any internet safety legislation in my lifetime.

Yeah, one of the things that's hard about this problem

is that the social media companies don't make available

to psychologists all of the research that they have

about the usage patterns of these products,

um, because they lock it up, and usually they only make it

available to researchers who will say there's not a problem.

And... and so it almost is sort of like we woke up one day,

um, and more specifically,

I think you had the Facebook whistleblower say,

"Hey, I need to tell you what's happening

behind the curtain."

[clears throat]

[interviewer] Frances, thanks so much for being here, uh, today...

Happy to be here.

[interviewer] Um, let's jump right in.

I have worked on multiple algorithmic products.

So I worked on search quality at Google.

It's like how do we pick out the search results.

I worked on feed ranking at Pinterest,

so it's like what pins should we show you in what order.

So I came into Facebook to see if I could improve

the safety of the platform without focusing on content.

[indistinct chatter]

[Frances] After a little while there,

I started to flag some alarming internal research.

[keyboard keys clacking]

[soft music]

[Frances] Facebook had noticed some

negative mental health outcomes

were coming back from internal studies.

[electrical buzzing]

[Frances] And at the same time,

I was also seeing these negative patterns globally

tied to misinformation.

Third-party fact-checking budget is allocated

based on fear of regulation, not based on need.

Facebook has willingly let the temperature rise

in some of the most fragile places on Earth

until people are dying.

I'm laying out these problems and he goes,

"These are all bad problems to work on.

They're not measurable."

[globe whirring]

It was a symptom that Facebook had given up on trying

to actually solve these massive problems that it had caused

around the world.

They dissolved the civic integrity team,

and when they did that, I knew that they had taken one of

the most important things off the change checklist, right?

Facebook was not gonna be able to heal itself from within.

That was the moment where I knew I was going to have to act.

Her name is Frances Haugen.

Frances Haugen.

Frances Haugen, a Facebook whistleblower.

Let's start with the question of why.

Imagine you know what's going on inside of Facebook,

and you know no one on the outside knows.

There was one bite at the apple.

I understood that after this incident happened,

they would change how access to information worked.

[camera clicking]

[Frances] Every single day, I was just

taking picture after picture after picture of the screen.

[Scott] She secretly copied tens of thousands of pages

of Facebook internal research.

[Frances] During my time at Facebook, I came to realize

a devastating truth.

Almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens

inside of Facebook.

The company intentionally hides vital information

from the public

about what its own research reveals

about the safety of children.

One of the studies that you found

talks about how Instagram harms teenage girls.

[data processing]

[Scott] 13.5% say Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse.

17% say Instagram makes eating disorders worse.

And what's super tragic is Facebook's own research says

they end up in this feedback cycle

where they hate their bodies more and more...

they get more and more depressed...

and it actually makes them use the app more.

[mouse clicks]

[keyboard keys clacking]

[dramatic music]

[keyboard keys clacking]

A company with such frightening influence over so many people,

over their deepest thoughts, feelings, and behavior

needs real oversight.

I came forward at great personal risk

because I believe we still have time to act...

but we must act now.

That and tobacco litigation, that was the turning point.

[voiceover artist] More doctors smoke Camels

than any other cigarette.

You know, we have something that seems innocuous,

that... that everybody's doing, that feels okay...

and there's sort of this set of warning signs.

Then we get the 60 Minutes interview.

We have the whistleblowers who are telling us the truth.

We have the evidence of the problem.

[Laura] You have a memo that shows

these tobacco companies knew

that... that their products were causing cancer.

In late 2021, we have a very brave individual

who gave us 2,000 of those memos.

[keyboard keys clicking]

[mouse clicks]

[Laura] But as a society, what's so wild

is that we haven't really taken those documents

and looked at them as a society and said, "Wait a sec!

Wait a sec!"

[Tristan] Because, ironically, of social media,

our mind is constantly just thrown to the next thing.

Like, boom, here's this horrible life-changing thing

that I should really pay attention to,

but then I swipe, and then there's a panda that's dancing,

and I just forget about it.

And that is part of the problem that we have to deal with.

Our ability as a society to focus our attention

on anything and be in a dedicated way saying,

"How do we fix it?"

That capability is being disrupted by social media.

You know, this can't be a system

where the powerful get to grade their own homework anymore.

And I really want us to start talking about what would

these products look like if we designed them

to respect autonomy and dignity.

[plane whooshing]

Doing tech advocacy work, it's very US-centric.

Um, and the truth is, building a better internet

means building a better digital world

for every digital citizen.

[laughs]

[Trisha] I am going to to speak with young people

who are really passionate about rethinking the norms

that govern our interactions online and offline.

[plane whirring]

- [Trisha] Trisha. - [man 1] [indistinct speech]

[Trisha] Nice to meet you.

So... I can speak a little Spanish. But not super well.

[motorbike whirring]

What is happening behind our cellular devices?

We can communicate more rapidly.

However there are other ways this space

of cell phones can transform into a place of harm...

And so... with that, thanks so much for being here.

We have Trisha here, are you ready?

[audience clapping]

- [host 2] Welcome. - [Trisha] Thank you so much.

- [host 2] Welcome here. - [Trisha] Thank you so much.

As was said, my name is Trisha Prabhu,

and I'm the founder and CEO of ReThink,

a global movement with a mission of tackling cyberbullying

and redefining internet culture to be more positive.

According to UNICEF, 33%, that's a third

of the world's children, have been cyberbullied.

They face some sort of online violence.

Um, in the US, the number is closer to one in two.

You know, why is it that youth are so willing to be vicious

from behind a screen?

And so I really wanted to shift the paradigm

and focus on the cyberbully, on the person sending

the content.

What's motivating them?

They're struggling in some way, so their response is to put

someone else down to feel better about themselves.

Trisha, tell us about your app.

So, um, ReThink is actually the world's first

proactive solution to stop cyberbullying before it happens.

It is so much easier to say something hurtful online

than it is in person

because the digital world is completely frictionless.

[upbeat music]

You don't have to see the person that you're talking to.

You don't have to hear your own voice

delivering content to someone else.

It just seemingly disappears into this ephemeral space.

[keys clicking, notifications chiming]

[Trisha] You don't have to see their reaction.

[phone buzzes]

[camera clicks]

In the digital world, psychologically,

it's really easy to skirt that... that ownership,

that responsibility for your words.

That's when I had my aha moment.

I thought, "Okay, so we know that young people"

can't really think through the consequences

of their decisions.

We know they're already in this environment

where it's really hard to understand

how other people are feeling.

What if I could get them to pause and think?

I could get them to have that moment of reflection

"that they're currently missing?"

And that is when the ReThink concept was born.

Let's just say I try to post something,

like, "You are so ugly."

ReThink is able to detect that that message is offensive

and then it alerts the adolescent.

Like, "Whoa, hold on, are you really sure

you wanna post this message?"

So, we actually conducted a 1,500 trial

Google acclaimed study.

So I went ahead and compared the young people

who received the ReThink alert to the young people who didn't,

their behavior, their willingness to say these things.

And what did I find?

But 93% of the time, youth aged 13 to 18

that got that chance to rethink changed their mind.

And when kids get this alert, like, "Hold on,

stop for a second,"

they actually change their mind and decide not to post

an offensive message on social media.

Really? Really?

I know, it's incredible. I was stunned.

I think we know the difference between right and wrong.

I think it's just really easy to forget.

[laughs]

Especially when you're looking at a device.

And it turns out reminding young people

about their humanity is a really powerful way

to rethink hate before any damage is done.

[audience applauding]

I see a question right here in front.

I would love to know...

Why doesn't social media apply

that kind of technology or tools

to prevent cyberbullying? For example, - [Trisha] Hmm.

Why Meta or X doesn't apply those kind of tools? [Trisha laughing]

[Trisha] Ah, such a good question.

I'm so glad you asked.

Um, so it's a really complicated answer,

but I'll try and make it very simple.

Pretty much from the inception of these

social media companies' creation,

negative toxic content has been at the core

of their business model, right?

When there is awful content in your social media feed,

what happens?

You tend to look at it, right?

Even if you're horrified, you're so horrified

you can't take your eyes off of it,

and your eyeballs make money for them, right?

So a combination, I think, of really poor leadership

at these companies, and then even then,

if you have good leadership, still an underlying

profit motive

has led to platforms that just fundamentally are not safe.

And I... I think it's hard to imagine how they can be

unless we design differently, right?

Which is what I was trying to do, or re-legislate.

And certainly, there's been big, big, big

pushes for policy in the United States,

policy change.

[Kristin] This has been a completely

unchecked industry for three decades,

and this is where we are.

We...

These companies feel like they can create products

that are intentionally harming our kids,

and they don't have to worry about it.

This is Alexander.

Um, coincidentally, we lost Alex the same day

Kristin lost Carson,

uh, which always blows my mind every time I say it out loud.

Like, how could two kids die from the same platform,

different harms, on the same day?

-[Kristin] Yeah. -It just...

It just seems so outrageous to me.

Uh, Alex was linked with a drug dealer on Snapchat,

and this drug dealer offered him oxycodone.

What Alex thought was oxycodone turned out to be fentanyl

and, um, unfortunately, Alex lost his life.

I found him in his room the next morning.

At least for us, we thought that big tech

and the people that put this together

would put these safeguards in place.

We... we were naive.

We thought it was just like planes and cars.

Safety measures was put in.

It's horrible, and it's great that the Senate is finally...

-Yes. -You know, it's taking a step.

Your willingness to... to let people hear those stories

and turn it into something for good

so it doesn't happen...

-Yeah. -Anymore.

It's incredible.

[calm music]

[Deb] She loved gymnastics, playing guitar.

Um, she loved pushing the line a little bit, you know?

Um, wonderful daughter. We were very close.

[Christine] Literally born happy.

Just a joyful light, um, and a...

And a great communicative teen.

[Cheryl] She was a travel hockey player.

She was a goalie. She was fearless.

Um, McKenna was like any other 16-year-old,

using social media to communicate with her friends,

and it... it backfired.

She was damaged and was viciously cyber bullied.

Death wishing, malicious.

"I hope you see this, cry yourself to sleep,

then wake up and kill yourself, and might as well.

You're a lousy piece of..."

And I had never ever heard anyone speak like that.

The days leading up to McKenna taking her own life,

she was trying to stay away from her phone

and stay away from social media.

She left her phone at one point the two days before in her room

so that she wasn't looking at it.

At the time, nobody understood how interconnected kids were,

and how far and wide and inescapable that becomes.

There's that addictive nature, too,

the 24/7 nature of social media.

[interviewer] She was trying to self-regulate.

She was trying to self-regulate,

but she just kept going back to it to look.

[Christine] It was a month later

when everything started to fall apart,

and she never went to another dance again.

She didn't play sports or do music again.

It just... the world fell in on her.

So without smartphones and social media,

I think it would've been different.

Uh, I always say we're, uh, brothers and sisters

brought together through tragedy.

And... and just look what we can do

when we... when we come together for a great cause such as this.

The online harms that so many are experiencing,

and it's preventable.

Like, there are things that can be put into place

and safeguards that KOSA spells out

that would... could help so many.

[Kristin] We are meeting with senators to get more co-sponsorship

for KOSA

to get it scheduled for a Senate floor vote.

[Trisha] KOSPA, the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act,

previously KOSA.

KOSPA, in effect, what it does is make the internet

safe by design.

[mouse clicks]

[Trisha] First, it creates a duty of care

so platforms become liable for the harms they create.

[teen 8] Hey, guys. Are you depressed?

Like, comment and subscribe.

[Trisha] It gives you, you know, the opportunity to opt out

of certain algorithmic recommendations.

It creates new transparency requirements

so platforms have to report on the harms taking place.

[thunder clap]

[Trisha] And it bans targeted advertising to kids,

and also turns on the highest privacy settings by default

for young people.

[birds chirping]

[Trisha] In a nutshell, what KOSPA is doing is simple,

commonsense stuff that should've been in place

for a really long time.

Big tech is... is hell-bent on not wanting this to pass

because it will cut into profits.

Um, you know, if they can't use

all of these manipulative techniques

in order to addict kids and keep them online,

you know, basically 24/7, it will cut into profits.

But it will also improve children's well-being

and mental health immeasurably.

[elevator bell dings]

[dramatic strings music]

[birds chirping]

Hi, I'm Kristin Bride.

Kristin, thank you for doing this.

-Yes. -I really appreciate it.

This is, um, one of multiple trips to Capitol Hill

for the sole purpose of advocating

for the Kids Online Safety Act.

[melancholic music]

[news reporter] How do you as a family move forward

from a tragedy like this?

[Kristin] I think by helping others.

It is absolutely essential that we pass legislation.

[Kristin] They have to prevent and mitigate cyberbullying.

It's time for Congress to finally stand up

to these tech giants.

[Christine] Our children died because of the toxic content

that has been allowed to run rampant

on these platforms.

It relies on algorithms that purposefully addict

children.

[news reporter] How do you want Carson to be remembered?

This boy with the amazing smile and his laugh.

He had a great sense of humor. He was super creative.

And he would hug me so tight, he would lift me off the ground.

[birds chirping]

[Juliette] I had gone on a walk

and I ended up sitting at the bench

and I was kind of felt like connected to him

even though I had never met him before.

"I decided to take a walk around sunset."

I stopped at the neighborhood park

and sat on a bench at the bottom of the hill.

I needed a breather because last time

I felt this way, I felt the only way out

"was to put an end to my story."

[calm music]

[Juliette] As I sat in my thoughts, I looked around

and saw that this bench was dedicated to someone.

It was dedicated to the 16-year-old boy, Carson,

who took his life in 2020.

It read, "In the end, kindness is all that matters."

I knew this was a sign...

and took one white flower and one yellow flower

and placed them on the left side of the bench.

[Kristin] Juliette came over

and we sat in front of Carson's apple tree.

She told us about her experience.

I didn't realize this she used to bring flowers

to the bench and she used to talk to Carson.

And she felt like she really connected with him.

[insects chirping, animal howling]

[bird calling]

[Juliette] "And now every time you can look up at the moon

and its crescent shape like the letter C for Carson,

you'll see that he's looking down,

proud and smiling."

[Kristin] That was beautiful. Thank you, Juliette.

Yeah.

This is the left side where, like, I would say is his spot.

[Kristin] You know, it really felt like a personal

and spiritual experience.

It made me feel like Carson is still there with us.

He always wanted to make the world a better place,

and he is.

[soft piano music]

Feeling tired.

I hope that my brain and my mouth work together.

I want it over with...

[sighs] So badly.

I want this day over with so badly.

[groans]

[tense music]

[Durbin] This meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee

will come to order.

If you do not believe this is an idea

whose time has come, take a look at the turnout here.

[indistinct chatter]

[Durbin] Your carefully crafted algorithms

can be more powerful force on the lives of our children

than even the most best-intentioned parent.

The witnesses are here today to address a serious topic,

we wanna hear what they have to say.

Could all of the witnesses please stand to be sworn in?

Do you affirm the testimony you're about to give

before the committee will be the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

so help you God?

Let the record reflect that all of the witnesses

have answered in the affirmative.

We live in an America in 2024 where there is no regulatory

body dealing with the most profitable,

biggest companies in the history of the world.

They can't be sued and there's not one law

on the book that's meaningful protecting

the American consumer.

To all the victims who came and showed us photos

of your loved ones, don't quit.

It's working.

[Durbin] Mr. Zuckerberg.

With so much of our lives spent on mobile devices

and social media, it's important to look

into the effects on teen mental health and well-being.

I take this very seriously.

Mental health is a complex issue,

and the existing body of scientific work

has not shown a causal link

between using social media and young people

having worse mental health outcomes.

Mr. Zuckerberg, let me start with you.

Did I hear you say in your opening statement

that there's no link between mental health

and social media use?

[audience shouts]

Senator, what I said is I think it's important

to look at the science. I know people...

[Hawley] Here's a quote from your own study.

Quote, "We make body image issues worse for one in three

teen girls."

Here's another quote, "Teens blamed Instagram,"

this is your study, "for increases in the rate

of anxiety and depression.

This reaction was unprompted and consistent

across all groups."

That's your study.

Senator, we try to under... understand the, uh,

the feedback and... and how people feel about the services.

-We can improve... -Wait a minute.

For years you've been coming in public

and testifying under oath that there's absolutely no link,

your product is wonderful, the science is nascent,

full speed ahead, while internally you know full well

your product is a disaster for teenagers.

[Zuckerberg] Senator, that's not true.

And yet you keep right on doing what you're doing.

[audience applauding]

There's families of victims here today.

Have you apologized to the victims?

I...

-Would you like to do so now? -Well...

They're here, you're on national television.

Would you like now to apologize to the victims

who have been harmed by your product?

Show 'em the pictures.

Would you like to apologize for what you've done

to these good people?

This is why we invested so much

and are going to continue doing industry leading efforts.

To make sure that...

no one has to go through the type of things

that your families have had to suffer.

Lip service on how important kids are to these companies

and to these CEOs.

Um, especially, you know, when Mark Zuckerberg was forced

to turn around and apologize to us,

um, it did not seem sincere.

Um, he was really put on the spot to do that.

Um, you know, I... I just...

Every single time they were asked to

if they would support a bill, um, it was very rare

that somebody said that they would.

[crew member 1] Um, I don't know if you saw this.

Teen Instagram accounts, protection for those

who contact them and the content they can see.

[Kristin] Yeah, so this is what happens.

Every time we get close with this bill.

They come out with a PR move, but without legislation.

Um, they can take it away at any given point.

[René] All right. Hi, everybody.

Today I want to talk about the stock of Meta.

The share price of Meta stock will hit 1,000 US dollars.

Tech seeing some serious strength today.

That sector hitting a new high.

All eyes are on these big tech names this week.

We do like these big tech names as long-term core positions

in our portfolios.

One of the reasons that it's been hard for us

to act on social media

is that it became so entangled with society.

It became entangled with our GDP and our stock markets.

You know, how much of the big, you know, growth

in the stock market was due to our largest tech companies.

[Cal] If we look at big oil,

we see that ExxonMobil is worth around $450 billion.

In 2023, Meta was worth only about half of that.

But since then, they have shot up to a nearly

$2 trillion market cap.

So it's five times as profitable to mine your attention

as it is to mine oil and natural gas from the ground.

So the stakes here are huge.

These are some of the largest companies

in the history of the world.

That is how valuable our attention is.

This sort of dressing up of what sounds like

a kind of service as a product, and that you are the customer,

we're not the customers.

The customers are the advertisers

that give all their money

to these platforms, and... and we're the product.

I mean, how much have you paid for your Facebook account

or your YouTube account, or your TikTok account

in the last month?

-[interviewer] Nothing. -Nothing?

How is it worth like a trillion-dollar market cap?

The business model is that they sell your attention

to the highest bidder for advertising.

And if every human only used a technology for an hour a day,

there wouldn't be enough to monetize.

So as humans, we're being domesticated to be the version

of ourselves that is maximally harvestable

for the attention-based business model.

So I think it's absolutely exploitation.

And there is, I think, an interesting question

this raises.

Autonomy.

To what degree do you have control over how you spend

your time?

People are trapped in thinking that this is the only way

it could be,

when really it's that we're caught in bad incentives,

bad business models that reward the wrong thing.

It is pulling us away from being able

to actually act on these deep instincts

for what makes a life well lived,

and giving us this impoverished simulacrum,

which can satisfy us temporarily in the moment,

can numb us in the moment,

but keeps us away from what really matters.

[birds chirping]

[church bell ringing]

[Valentijn] The smell of that.

[Ilya] Oh, my gosh.

Great color.

Great color.

[water splashing]

Yeah. No, it's because actually there's a hole in the bottom of the boat.

[engine spluttering]

[Ilya] Fucking shit.

[laughing]

Can't go wrong with cheese.

[ringing tone]

Okay, and now it won't start.

The documentary is watching all this.

Come on!

[engine splutters and roars]

[cheering, clapping]

[upbeat music]

12,000 bikes

that are being fished out of the water, right?

Do you want to see the Dutch chardonnay?

[Ilya] Okay.

Because you would think it's dirty, right?

[Ilya] Oh, no.

Ew.

- Dutch chardonnay. - It's actually not!

[Ilya laughs]

It looks like chardonnay.

[Jordy] Yeah.

-Cheers. -[Jordy] So who's...

Who's drinking that?

Yay-hey!

So I was actually one of the first people in my grade

who got a smartphone.

I was 13 years old, and I felt super cool.

[Ilya] From that point, you just grow up with it,

and you don't really think about those things.

Only when you're older, you start thinking

about how these devices actually impact your life.

Although we're more connected than ever

with anyone around the world...

we're less connected with the people

we're actually with.

And what The offline Club does, it brings that back.

[indistinct chatter]

No, yeah, you know the drill.

[customer] You know the drill. Thank you.

-[Jordy] Number 36. -[attendee 2] Yes.

Perfect, thanks so much.

[Jordy] Enjoy.

Yeah. Nice to meet you.

Uh, so first things first, you guys can hand in your phone

with Jordy.

Uh, after that, you can just order a drink at the bar,

make yourself feel at home.

- [Jordy] There you go. - [attendee 2] Thank you.

[Jordy] Is your phone off or on airplane mode?

Uh, it's silent.

[Jordy] Silent?

Perfect. Enjoy.

What do you think about giving in your phone?

I'm happy to do so.

Otherwise I'm gonna be on it.

Let's take a break.

Enjoy.

[bicycle bell dings]

[Ilya] Okay, awesome.

Well, hello, everyone.

Thanks so much, uh, for coming to our, uh, community,

uh, offline hangout at the place where we started

The Offline Club

about seven, eight months ago on the 4th of February.

[attendees applauding]

So it all started about two years ago

when Jordy and I were working together

and Jordy went offline for a couple days,

uh, just to see what it would do for him as an experiment.

Yeah, I think that's... in the camera, right?

[interviewer] Yeah.

So why I went offline for a few days...

[notification chimes]

[Jordy] I identified as a reader...

but I felt like I didn't read a lot actually.

[pages rustling]

[wings fluttering]

[birds cooing]

[Jordy] Felt very enticing to me to go offline for a few days...

just read books and relax.

No screens.

It's just not an option to get on your phone.

And I shared my experience with Ilya.

So I was inspired to do the same,

just because earlier that summer, I had,

for the first time in my life, two panic attacks.

[gibberish]

[Ilya] I was doing way too much.

[notification chimes]

[Ilya] And then in... in between moments, not taking enough rest

being on my phone.

[static crackles]

Uh, so a weekend completely off grid for time to myself

in nature felt like the perfect thing to me.

[birds chirping]

[Ilya] So in general, I just felt better.

I felt like I was really reconnecting to myself

and to my dreams...

and had more time for the things I really value in life.

[fire crackling]

[Ilya] And from then on, this whole journey started.

[soft music]

So, ladies, how did you hear about Offline Club?

I found it on Instagram.

I started getting ads about it on Instagram.

This event, I found out about

thanks to social media on Instagram.

Yeah. So, I mean, pure irony of course,

but that says that the world was screaming

for less screen time.

[upbeat music]

Uh, like we thought, okay, we could record a few videos

to promote the event.

[Ilya] And it was like the third reel

I had ever posted in my life.

And I remember joking like, "Ah, we're going viral,"

you know?

And then a couple days later, we were just like,

"What is happening?"

We got messages from everywhere.

[news anchor 4] The gathering is called The Offline Club.

[news anchor 5] The Offline Club drew big crowds in London.

[Valentijn] The first month, we had one event.

The second, six events.

We knew we had resurrected something old

and created something new.

100,000 souls had clicked a button saying,

"This is something I wanna believe in."

And the people that come here, like, they see this

as a movement more than just an event.

Feeling the other person in your presence.

You have a meaningful conversation.

This device doesn't replace the physical connectedness

a person actually needs.

- You guys know each other? - No!

We just connected over a puzzle. [woman and crew member laugh]

Puzzle definitely brings people together.

[Valentijn] "The community was born as more and more eyes

were torn from their screens as they dared to stand

for their right to disconnect."

"'Look up, ' I say to those lying dormant still.

Look up and free yourself to do what you will."

[attendees applauding]

[traffic whirring]

- [audience member 2] Hi, Trish. - [Trisha] Yes.

Thank you for your presentation.

So in order to make

social media better for humanity

what design changes do you think are effective?

[Trisha] That's a great question.

My... my dream social media, if I could start over,

and I had, you know, control and I could create Instagram

from scratch,

I would say first we probably wanna rethink our algorithms.

[calming music]

Social media is designed to maximize the speed

and spread of information,

to get as close and as fast as possible to the next swipe,

the next click, the next, uh, point of consumption,

versus it being designed for this reflective

and more, uh, more conscious process of our brains.

So just for a moment, imagine if you're designing

how to connect millions of people around the world,

There are so many ways to design these products.

There's this wide open green field of ways

that you can connect people.

[birds chirping]

[Tristan] You know, sort information for people.

[keyboard keys clicking]

[Tristan] Help people have healthy conversations.

[messages popping]

[Tristan] And of that wide spectrum of possible designs

that we could be living in every day...

[wind howls]

[woman gasps]

[Tristan] Because of the business models of engagement,

of maximizing how much time you spend...

we get this very narrow set of design choices...

[door opens]

[Tristan]...that are all about notifications...

[notifications chime]

[Tristan]...infinite scroll...

[notifications chime]

[Tristan]...the most inflammatory content...

[notifications chime]

[Tristan]...and that causes division.

Imagine a different algorithm that is sorting

not for a personalized engagement,

but sorting for unlikely consensus.

Like, "Oh, we're all navigating this more complex conversation

together rather than only getting this one-sided,

inflammatory newsfeed."

If the algorithm was designed for our well-being,

it wouldn't just be giving us, like, more health content

over and over and over again.

'Cause well-being is living a life well-lived.

It means being in your body, it means being out in the world,

it means feeling connection to yourself, to other people.

[wings flutter]

[dramatic music]

[Tristan] So an algorithm that was optimized

for well-being would be steering us back into the world,

doing things that promote human thriving.

[player grunts]

[Tristan] If all of the newsfeeds

we're surrounded by routed us,

let's say, 25% of the time to in-person belonging

and community, whether it's dance classes

or choir groups or sewing clubs or book clubs,

there's just so many things that we could have access to,

how quickly would that f... change how you feel

about what the world is?

[Kristin] We need to get a Senate floor vote on KOSA now.

We have 70 bipartisan cosponsors,

and so it will pass in the Senate

without a filibuster.

[tense music]

[Kristin] We don't have a set answer what is holding this up.

It passed 10 months ago unanimously out of committee...

and we are running out of time.

[Taylor] There's a really shocking piece

of legislation in Congress

right now that you should know about.

It's called the Kids Online Safety Act,

or KOSA for short, but don't let the name fool you.

[Cory] And opponents are saying that they feel

that this is a violation of their First Amendment.

A lot of LGBTQ groups and the ACLU are still opposed

to this because it leaves too much room for interpretation

by the government.

This bill would do the opposite of protecting kids.

It's a censorship bill.

It's not a censorship bill.

There used to be a provision in KOSPA

that allowed state attorney generals to define

and enforce harm.

It's gone.

And I think rightly so.

That was, uh, a change that I very strongly pushed for,

and it's a really common piece of mis and disinformation I see.

"The power's going to the state attorney generals,

and maybe some conservative state attorney general

is gonna define harm as pro-LGBTQIA+ content,

and you're gonna take that content away

"from young people."

It's not in the bill anymore.

Um, it's still being brought up,

and possibly it's being fed by the big tech lobbyists

as a way to stall this bill.

[Josh] This bill is really about regulating these algorithms

which are pushing all sorts of harmful content to kids.

It's not about taking down the content itself.

So right now, we have 70 cosponsors in the Senate,

um, and we are trying to get a floor vote in the Senate.

But we don't really know why it hasn't come

to the floor yet with that much support.

I just don't know what's-what's gonna happen.

[Josh] We are deeply concerned about the $90 million

that big tech has spent on lobbying

over the past three years.

Parents are so frustrated,

and we feel like they're being kept from these leaders

in Congress precisely because they know

how powerful their stories will be. [elevator bell dings]

[Vivek] When you look at the public conversation

around social media,

it has actually fallen on parents and kids themselves

to come forward and to raise these concerns.

You know, I had the privilege of meeting with...

With Kristin Bride, uh, some time ago.

And Kristin, I don't know that I would have the strength

and the wherewithal to do what you have done

after experiencing Carson's loss.

Uh, but the inspiration that you have brought,

not just to me but to so many people across the country,

have helped get us to a place where we are now

actually talking about how to make social media safer.

- [audience applauding] - [Vivek] So I... I just wanna

thank you so much for your leadership

and your courage.

When I issued the Surgeon General's advisory

on social media and youth mental health,

I was thinking about her and Carson.

So her story has had a powerful impact on me.

I'm so grateful to parents like Kristin,

because they have helped fuel a movement in our country

to push for the policy reforms that we need,

and to fundamentally change public awareness.

[soft piano music]

[Chuck] We've heard from so many parents whose kids sadly

took their own lives because of what happened to them

on social media.

To their everlasting credit, these parents,

instead of cursing the darkness, lit a candle.

They turned their grief into grace, an amazing thing.

I ask unanimous consent the scheduled vote

occur immediately.

[presiding officer] Without objection.

[clerk] Mr. Blumenthal. Aye.

Mr. Durbin. Aye.

Mr. Rubio. Aye.

Mr. Graham. Aye.

Ms. Warren. Aye.

Mr. McConnell. Aye.

Mr. Kelly. Aye.

Mr. Cruz. Aye.

On this vote, the ayes are 91, the nays are three,

and the motion is agreed to.

The Senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m.

[hammer thuds]

[indistinct chatter]

It felt good.

Every single aye vote was amazing.

Okay, one more. Okay, one more cheer.

One more...

[cheering]

Ninety votes to three?

If you would have told me that even a year ago,

I would not have believed you.

These parents have already made history.

We've moved from talking about is there a problem

to debating what the solutions are.

He's in my heart and in my soul, and I know

he's cheering me on today.

We're gonna use this momentum and we're gonna get it passed

in the House and signed into law.

[bus whirring]

Yes, sir. Good morning, good morning.

Have a great day. Have a great day.

Good morning, good morning.

Well, the first reaction students had

when they heard about the policy is,

"It's never going to happen."

It's the first time I see your face without the hair

covering it.

They were committed that this would not come

to fruition in September.

And when it did, it was a shock.

[upbeat music]

If we don't think there's a phone in the pouch

we can open it and check.

We've found weird things in there.

Yeah.

We appreciate it too when they come ready.

You guys can come this way.

This policy's annoying!

Oh, I think it's fine.

- It's stupid. - It's hard.

The pouches? They're calm, they're calm.

Bro, I don't use my phone much in school

so it doesn't really bother me. Yeah.

It's alright I guess.

People get to interact more and stuff.

More people are like more involved in class

than before I feel like.

[announcer on PA] Winston Macdonald.

They catch 'em.

[announcer on PA] Please come to main office.

- They catch 'em. - [announcer on PA] Winston Macdonald.

That means a student just got... got through.

But what happens, you're the odd person out

using the phone.

Yeah, I arrived in Brockton High School

January 2nd of 2024,

and I've been the principal since that time.

Try this. Unbelievable.

Even Sam likes it.

He's just so funny. I love Mr. McCaskill.

For me, uh, the arrival of our current principal here

in the high school is a game changer.

[student 10] Mr. McCaskill was able to kind of give everyone

the same idea and it makes everyone feel important.

So when he does step into dad mode...

[Kevin] Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Get the hoods off, please. Thank you, thank you.

it's effective,

because he already has built a relationship.

Uh, my son, who tends to not trust a lot of the adults

around him, uh, loves this man.

-Hey, hey. -Hey, how you guys doing?

So coming in, there were just a multitude of things

that we really had to address.

There was some obvious violence issues.

[news anchor 6] Fights in the high school

really dominated the headlines.

Teacher morale was down.

It was just that how do we settle?

How do we just settle the ship?

How do we just get everything to an even keel?

[news anchor 7] Have you ever witnessed a fight here?

[Anthony] In my four years, I've never seen a fight in person.

Snapchat's a different story.

Last year, like, with the phones,

every time there was a fight,

there would always be, like, people, like, you know,

reaching out for their phone, like, trying to record it.

[news anchor 7] The new major challenge lies

in the palms of students' hands.

And instead of being a situation between two students

that could be diffused quickly, um, you'd have students trying

to take pictures, getting the inside scoop,

and who had the best view of the fight.

It was definitely obvious there was a problem

because I would be walking around the classroom

trying to redirect kids' attention

and they would just be constantly staring

at their phones.

I'm not a boring teacher, but I'm never going to be

as exciting as the latest Netflix special

or, you know, Taylor Swift's latest drop.

I mean, I'm just not.

I'm... I'm just not that exciting.

And big tech, they know exactly what they're doing.

They... they know this is an addiction.

And how... how do you feed an addiction?

You just continue to give things that... that are distracting,

that are quick hits.

And so by removing that obstacle,

we're creating that phone-free environment.

The key to working with technology,

especially with young people, is to get buy-in.

Principal was very clear in saying,

"This is not meant to be a punitive change.

This is meant to be a cultural change."

It's not a ban.

We are just simply having you hold on to your device

and remove the distraction from education.

[interviewer] When the school went phone free,

how did you feel?

I cried. [laughs]

I cried a lot.

I had such a big attachment to my phone.

I felt, like, if I didn't have my phone on me

at that second, I would just pass out.

[tape whirring]

[Cristal] But after I got to school

and I just learned to adapt

without it for a couple of days, I'm just like, "You know what?

I could feel myself just kind of bursting out of my bubble

and not inside of my comfort zone as much."

I feel like it definitely

adds more community, especially like at lunch.

Like the other years, I would just stay at my lunch table

mostly on my phone.

So it kind of, like, pushes you to meet more people

in a... in a sense, especially in class,

'cause you don't really have another form of communication

like last year.

So, yeah, there's that. You get to meet more people.

We are seeing extraordinary change happen at...

At a school level, and it's accelerating.

I've been encouraged to see the positive feedback

that's come from educators, parents, and students

as they see academic performance improving, and as they see

social skills and social connection improving as well.

So what's that? Eight X squared minus four X.

[Sarah] It's made everything so much nicer.

I mean, the kids are talking to each other,

they're talking to me.

I can ask a question and actually get an answer

because kids are paying attention.

I have eye contact.

Whoa, what did I write?

[teacher] I don't know what you wrote.

I got X times eight X...

It just really helps me so much just not having a phone

on me all the time.

[interviewer] Was that surprising?

It was.

I never thought I would be able to let go of my phone.

I'm telling you, like, I would be cooking food,

my phone is right next to me whilst I'm cooking.

But at school, I'm just allowing myself to focus

on one thing alone and not just my phone.

[soft music]

[Vivek] Sometimes people ask me, "Is this worry about social"

media just another moral panic,

like the panics we've had about TV, radio,

"and other new technologies?"

I think this is fundamentally different.

We never had a technology that we can put in our pocket,

carry with us at all times, that fundamentally transforms

how we absorb information in the world...

that changes fundamentally how we see ourselves.

One of the things that we achieve when we get phones

out of schools and allow kids to focus on learning

and social connection is we also give them a chance,

uh, to be still, to be not engaged constantly

100% of the time.

And the fact that social media and our devices

have soaked up all of our attention

and taken away any moments where we may be bored,

that actually has not been a positive thing.

Because boredom, the capacity for boredom,

turns out to be crucial to the human spirit.

When we're bored, our brains are not bored.

Our brains are using that downtime to create

what's called the default mode network,

which is the brain structure to really create

a sense of self, literally a sense of a consistent self.

Your brain used to do that while you were sitting

at the back of a taxi, or just kind of watching the water.

If now you're, like, glued to the blue light,

and you're jumping around, and you got reels and Instagram,

and you're photographing your food,

your brain never has that time.

Humans feel bored so that we'll get up

and invent fire,

so that we'll actually go out and improve the shelters.

We feel boredom because we need to actually expend energy

on things that don't give us an immediate return.

Boredom in some sense drives the human creative project.

So if we can just look at that, and now I'm no longer bored,

we never actually get to the intended purpose

of the sensation,

which is to actually go out and do higher energy,

more meaningful activity.

[Sherry] But then also connection to something larger

isn't happening.

Who am I? Who's around me?

What do I care about?

These conversations with the self happen in quiet.

And social media, which is supposed to put you in touch

with all these people, all these new experiences,

all these new friends,

actually is subverting our ability to form identity.

That's a big cost.

That's a very big cost.

[upbeat music]

[Ilya] What tennis clubs

And what football clubs used to be,

people got together there, they stayed the whole day.

It doesn't happen anymore. People go in and out.

I think we all have this tendency

to go super fast-paced.

We don't really have time to process much

and everybody's more or less on their phones

when we're going somewhere or even at restaurants or bars.

The focus of this space

is to normalize again

a way of socializing without being interrupted.

[crew member 2] Moni, Moni! [speaks Spanish]

[camera clicks]

[Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, I'm from Nigeria,

and I'm at Offline Club in Dubai.

And I just gave up my phone. Everybody's, like, very in sync.

The synergy is great. Everybody's very present.

I mean, now I understand why I needed to give up my phone.

It was a bit weird

to enter and leave behind your phone

because the first thing I thought

when I checked my pockets,

"Oh God, where is it?"

But in reality if we think about it carefully

It helps us focus and remain in the present

without thinking I'll take a photo because I want to post it

and I want to show it to someone.

[Ilya] It's definitely our dream to build a worldwide community.

We wanna make being offline the norm

so everybody can have access to offline spaces.

The most beautiful thing we have in life

is human relationships with our friends and family.

[cheering]

[static crackles]

Exactly that is what we're gonna lose.

Creativity, human connection, and a feeling of being present

because of technological advancements.

Do we have the power to turn that around?

So although I think there's really

an offline movement going on in the world right now,

I definitely think that most of the world is going towards AI

and unregulated technological advancement.

[dramatic music]

So with the roller coaster ride for years,

we're down lower than we've been.

Um, Schumer said, "If we don't get this done this year,

we'll get it done next year."

But that's not how it works.

If we don't get it passed this year,

the process starts from scratch under...

Under the new administration.

You know, I don't know

if the door is still open.

There's things happening to get to Trump.

I have no insight at all into that world

and like the people he's talking to

whether it's going to make a difference or not.

I don't want to get anybody's hopes up

and I don't want anybody to give up.

[birds chirping]

[Ainsley on TV] So there's... there's a bill,

the Kids Online Safety Act.

[Steve on TV] This is a bipartisan bill.

Both sides like it.

It has passed the Senate. It is sitting on your desk.

We had a guest a couple of days ago

who suggested that one of the reasons

you're not taking it up is because Meta,

which would be impacted, is gonna build

a $10 billion facility for AI in Northern Louisiana.

[chuckles]

That... That's a creative argument.

I mean, that... that's not even in my district, okay?

Everyone who worked so hard to get KOSA,

that's the bill, KOSA,

together are to be commended for their work.

We all share the same urgent desire,

and that is to protect children.

But, um, we've gotta make sure we do this right.

And when you're talking about regulating online content,

you have to make sure that it doesn't provide an avenue

-to censor conservative speech. -Right.

And we're almost there. I just feel like this bill...

It's not a content bill.

Doesn't go far enough

in that protection,

and we'll get it done early next year.

They'll be able to take a victory lap,

and we'll protect children.

We have to get that right. You cannot do it, uh, you know...

[scoffs]

[melancholic music]

[Kristin] All the people that have supported

this bipartisan bill,

all the changes that were made so that everyone felt good

about this, and, um, it didn't work.

And so, KOSA is dead.

In the end, $90 million in lobbying fees and big tech

were too insurmountable for 20 grieving parents

to get Congress to pass legislation

that would prevent future online harms.

I'm getting so many nice supportive messages from people.

Um, "Momentum is indeed growing.

The old system is collapsing.

Hang in there and know that work done out of love

is never, never done in vain."

[sighs]

Oh, man.

"You must be devastated, Kristin."

Those of us who understand the implications of this

stand and grieve with you.

And it may not feel like this right now,

but I believe the men... momentum is growing

across the world.

"Don't give up."

[sniffles]

[sighs]

Just...

[sighs]...heartbreaking.

[indistinct chatter]

Hi.

Oh, Kristin.

Oh, good to see you, too.

I had given it my all for KOSA,

and then to get so close and to have it not pass.

Yeah. Yeah.

We are up against such an incredible force of money

with big tech and lobbyists.

If KOSA had passed, it would've been held up

in the courts for years anyway.

Yeah.

Um, and so I am so glad that we ended up winning

our Section 230 appeal,

and will hopefully get our day in court.

Yeah.

Doing my work for 10 years, I've been up against companies

that actively design features to counteract...

-Right. -The benefits

that I'm trying to promote, right?

Getting young people to be more intentional,

getting them to think twice.

I... I'm stuck in this system that is fundamentally flawed.

Yes.

So that... that was really at the crux of law school.

I never really thought I'd want to be a lawyer,

-you know? I was never... -Yeah.

But I wanna give other innovators a chance to know

that their ideas to make the internet better

actually have a fighting chance.

Yes.

To see big tech at the inauguration...

[news anchor 8] The nation's richest

and most powerful tech tycoons

had some of the best seats in the House.

I'm doubtful that we are gonna be able to pass

a meaningful bill like KOSA, the version that passed

in the Senate.

We're gonna have to take it on ourselves

because Congress didn't.

To announce the largest AI infrastructure project by far

in history,

and it's all taking place right here in America.

I mean, we're at a crossroads right now.

We are birthing the most powerful technology

that we as a species have ever invented.

Truly, AI is that. And we have a choice.

You won't have to work the long hours

that you work today.

You won't, uh, have a shortage of doctors

and huge waiting lists.

That will empower humans to create, to flourish,

to escape the widespread poverty and suffering

that exist in the world today.

There's just so much stuff we can all do

if we do get to this world of abundant intelligence,

where you can sort of just think of a new idea

and it... it gets created.

So, we often get sort of seduced by the possible

of a new technology.

Like social media could connect the world,

make the world more peaceful, give everyone a voice,

democratize speech.

That's all possible.

But we don't look at the probable

of what's actually likely to happen

given the incentives that are at play.

Like the reality.

And I think with AI, we are also seduced by the im...

Unimaginable possible.

[Brook] Education and medicine will soon be transformed.

Climate change could be solved.

World of abundance, of, you know, free everything,

and, you know, amazing science and technology advancement.

We'll get some of those things, but the probable is this sort of

all-out race...

A kind of AI arms race.

Hundreds of billions have been spent on AI...

to take as many shortcuts as possible.

That data center is gonna be 2.2 gigawatts.

Like, more than most cities.

Data centers across the nation,

draining the nation's aging power grid.

How are we gonna get all that power?

This is a major, major national issue.

And deploy it into society as quickly as possible.

[Dylan] Everyone is doing this, right?

-Everyone is doing this, right? -[laughs]

And that, in a race where you have the maximum incentive

to take shortcuts, is not gonna end well.

Joining us now to discuss, Geoffrey Hinton.

You left your job with Google in part

because you say you wanna focus solely

on your concerns about AI.

You've spoken out saying that AI could manipulate

or possibly figure out a way to kill humans.

H... h... how could it kill humans?

It knows how to program, so it'll figure out ways

of getting round, um, restrictions we put on it.

It'll figure out ways of manipulating people

to do what it wants.

Were you disappointed when Google went back

on its promise not to support military uses of AI?

Very disappointed.

[Brook] But it's part of a pattern, Hinton says,

adding Meta and xAI to the list of companies racing faster

than they should.

The near future does look dystopian,

and you don't need crazy sci-fi to see it.

Generative AI algorithms are going to become

far more effective in the next few years.

This feedback loop, this constant feedback loop

of you consuming information,

and it watching your consumption patterns,

and it will be able to generate con... content on the fly.

This... this world becomes more interesting

than the difficult, messy outside world.

Welcome to the future of entertainment.

This is Character. AI

where you don't just watch a story happen, you create it.

I'll take the bandit.

[Cartoon character] There's limitless possibilities,

all in your hands.

Takes less time than making a TikTok.

[tense music]

One of the things that we're already seeing

is what was the race for engagement in social media

is becoming the race for intimacy with AI.

People are gonna have relationships with AIs.

How... how do we make sure

that these are healthy relationships?

Well, I think there are a lot of questions

that you only really can answer as you start seeing

-the behaviors. -Hmm.

[news anchor 9] And tonight, it's a Florida mom

suing a chatbot startup

after her 14-year-old son died by suicide.

Sewell Setzer got into a relationship

with this chatbot.

[messages beep]

[news anchor 10] Garcia claims that Character. AI chatbot

encouraged Sewell to take his own life.

[messages beep]

How is it possible that this ever

could have happened?

Like, why would we ever release this to children?

In Silicon Valley, it's typical that they say

move fast and break things when it comes to innovation.

That's reckless.

Um, you shouldn't move fast and break things

when it comes to my child.

And I worry that we've made a devil's bargain

with technology.

We can just chat with bots online,

we don't need to actually speak to a human being

and hear a voice.

Those might seem like small moments

that are dispensable,

but it turns out that's all part of what makes us human.

We have traded community for convenience.

There's literally a quote from the recent

Wall Street Journal article you might've seen,

that Zuckerberg said, you know, he felt bad that Facebook

kind of lost against TikTok

because they were too anchored around connecting people

with their friends.

And so, he said, "We should be more aggressive

in going after kids and AI companions."

[Zuckerberg] There's this stat that I always think is crazy.

The... the... the average American,

I think, has, I think it's fewer than three friends.

-Hmm. -When... when he says

that people only have three friends and they're lonely,

does he realize

that it's because of his products

that people, in part, are so lonely?

Because you have, you know, a trillion-dollar supercomputer

pointed at your brain, calculating

what's gonna keep you by yourself scrolling, you know,

on a Tuesday night, feeling alone.

He created that.

We're just, we've, like, lost and forgotten

that we're capable of choosing.

So... so much of what I see is this, like,

collapse of imagination.

Um...

Yeah, we're treating AI like

an asteroid hurdling towards Earth.

That there's nothing that we can do about.

We're creating the asteroid that's hurtling towards Earth.

And it's, like, why aren't we learning

the lessons of social media from before?

♪ How long will it take to understand ♪

♪ There's been too much suffering ♪

♪ Too many tears ♪

♪ How many people have to die ♪

♪ Before you finally decide enough is enough ♪

♪ Enough is enough, enough is enough ♪

♪ Enough is enough, enough is enough ♪

♪ Enough is enough, enough is enough ♪

♪ Enough is enough, enough is enough ♪

Build a future where children are protected.

Build a future where children are protected.

Build a future where children are protected.

Build a future where children are protected.

Build a future where children are protected.

[Kristin] Five years ago, when Carson died, I felt so alone.

I felt like I was to blame and, um,

I had no one to turn to.

And today, there's youth stepping up, saying,

"We don't want loss."

Our numbers are... are getting bigger

and bigger by the day.

And eventually, we're gonna put them at that tipping point.

[wheel whirring]

[Ilya] I don't think that we have to have anyone else

or any of the big tech firms decide

how we are gonna interact with technology.

[uplifting music]

[Frances] One of the things that I think is really powerful

and we need to remember

is the way major changes have happened in history,

is one person talks to another person.

They all began with people recognizing

that they had value as human beings.

Regulations come after the will of the people.

If we start the movement, then we have a voice together.

[Tristan] We've done this before.

You know, we... we protected national parks.

We said, "These are our national treasure."

"This is not open for drilling."

[Bird] Save me.

[Tristan] So, right now, with the attention economy,

it's like you can drill for attention anywhere,

including in children's brains.

[Bird] Save me.

[Tristan] We can just say, "Hey, children's minds

are national parks."

[Bird] Save...

[Tristan] "Let's not drill for attention there."

[birds chirping]

[Trisha] This narrative that we hear constantly in Washington

and Silicon Valley, you know, "I'm just...

Well, you know, I'm... I'm... I'm responsible to, you know,

my shareholders and I just... I have to make money.

And so, this is why I have to do it this way."

No, you don't.

You can get a little creative and do both.

You're making a choice when you prioritize profit

over people.

[birds chirping]

[wings fluttering]

[Trisha] Do we wanna raise a generation of empathetic, humane

young people?

[uplifting music]

[uplifting music continues]

[soft music]

All I want you to do is think in your mind

about an experience, a memorable

and significant experience that you've had in your life.

I would say that it looks something like this,

scrolling on a device.

-[kids] No. -[man 2] No?

- [kids] No. - [kid 1] Going on a cruise ship.

Am... am I off a little bit?

-[kid 1] Yes. -[kid 2] Way off.

I want to defend our world.

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

So, maybe that incredible experience, that amazing day,

maybe it had nothing to do with being on a device at all.

Had something to do with probably being outside

under the sun or under the stars.

It may have had something to do with you being with people

that you love, and those people love you.

It had something to do with you being active, being in motion.

There's a reason for that. That's not just a coincidence.

It turns out those are the things

that add real value to our lives.

[slate clacks]

[interviewer] Um, and do you own smartphone?

No, I do not.

Nope.

Do you have social media?

No, I don't have social media.

The truth is... I don't see the reason.

It takes up lots of time.

And... And it can hurt your eyes.

I think some things are posted that are inappropriate

and some things are unkind.

The older kids use it to bully each other.

I think that technology is... is good.

If you use it to learn or something.

[interviewer] Do you find it strange how so many people

are on social media so much?

Kind of. Yeah.

But it's probably addictive.

It's like you watch something short,

it gives you dopamine or something like that,

and you're like, "Oh, that one's bad.

I wanna go look at another one."

[interviewer] Do you know, like, when you'll get a phone?

Did your parents say?

Probably, like, when I'm 14 or 15.

They don't think I'm ready for a phone yet.

[interviewer] How do you feel about that?

I am grateful that they... they're not having me

get a phone earlier than I want to.

[interviewer chuckles]

[interviewer] Awesome. All right.

Thanks so much.

You're welcome.

[calm music]

[electrical hum]

[birds chirping]