NEW YORK CITY — More than a dozen parents assembled in front of Meta’s lower Manhattan office on Friday morning, advocating for two New York Senate bills that would limit the ability of social media platforms to collect children’s social media data and algorithmically recommend content to them.
The group, founded and led by former New York Times journalist Julie Scelfo, is called MAMA — Mothers Against Media Addiction. They wore neon green beanies and held signs that said “#KidsBeforeTech.” Many of its members, some of whom lost children after being exposed to harms through social media, had demonstrated in January during the U.S. Senate hearings around Big Tech and child safety. During the hearing, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned to them and said, “I’m sorry for everything you’ve all gone through.”
“He actually looked me in the eyes for a few minutes and I thought ‘You have no idea who I am,’” Scelfo told NBC News in an interview after the rally, referring to Zuckerberg’s acknowledgement of grieving parents during the Senate hearings. “And who I am is someone who has for years been asking people to think more critically about how all these technologies are wreaking havoc with basic institutions in our democracy.”
The issues discussed by parents and child safety advocates at the Friday rally extended far beyond the aims of the New York state bills, with actress and author Sheetal Sheth, a MAMA member and event speaker, calling them the “bare minimum” of regulating Big Tech.
One parent, Mary Rodee, was holding a picture of her late son Riley, who died by suicide at age 15 in 2021 after being targeted with online sextortion on Facebook, she said.
“Nothing has changed in nearly three years since Riley’s…
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