We continue our conversation with attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett and victim advocates Lori Schott and Lennon Torres about their fight to hold tech giants accountable for the damaging and even deadly effects of social media addiction on children and young adults. We’re also joined by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who blew the whistle on several of the company’s harmful and manipulative practices in 2021. Haugen says mega-rich tech “oligarchs” like Mark Zuckerberg cared about teenagers only as people who could bring others onto the platform. “They worried about public perception, not the actual health of the kids,” says Haugen, adding that companies like Zuckerberg’s Facebook “under-invested in the safety of children,” ignoring years of warnings about the psychological impacts of their products on child development in favor of “optimiz[ing] for spending more and more time on these platforms.”

We continue our conversation with attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett and victim advocates Lori Schott and Lennon Torres about their fight to hold tech giants accountable for the damaging and even deadly effects of social media addiction on children and young adults. We’re also joined by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who blew the whistle on several of the company’s harmful and manipulative practices in 2021. Haugen says mega-rich tech “oligarchs” like Mark Zuckerberg cared about teenagers only as people who could bring others onto the platform. “They worried about public perception, not the actual health of the kids,” says Haugen, adding that companies like Zuckerberg’s Facebook “under-invested in the safety of children,” ignoring years of warnings about the psychological impacts of their products on child development in favor of “optimiz[ing] for spending more and more time on these platforms.”

Meta — the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram — and Google are on trial in Los Angeles following a lawsuit accusing them of fueling and profiting from addictive behaviors aimed at children and young adults. We speak to three people attending the landmark trial, including TIME “100 Most Influential People in Health” honoree Laura Marquez-Garret, an attorney at the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Law Center who has filed more than 1,200 complaints against tech companies throughout the country. Their work is part of a nationwide fight on behalf of victims and families, including two of our guests, parent advocate Lori Schott and Lennon Torres, a former child performer who now works to hold tech companies accountable for facilitating online child sexual abuse. Schott’s daughter Analee was just 18 years old when she died by suicide in 2020, following a struggle with depression and body dysmorphia that Schott says was aggravated by “predatory tech.” Schott and Torres say Meta knew about the dangers of products like face augmentation filters and easily bypassed age verification, yet did nothing to improve its systems. “I was receiving hundreds of messages from grown adult men trying to groom me online because they understood I was vulnerable,” says Torres, now 26. “The social media platforms could easily stop strangers from being able to contact kids … [but] when I look at big tech leadership, I just see lazy. I see lack of innovation. I see a lack of accountability.”

Meta — the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram — and Google are on trial in Los Angeles following a lawsuit accusing them of fueling and profiting from addictive behaviors aimed at children and young adults. We speak to three people attending the landmark trial, including TIME “100 Most Influential People in Health” honoree Laura Marquez-Garret, an attorney at the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Law Center who has filed more than 1,200 complaints against tech companies throughout the country. Their work is part of a nationwide fight on behalf of victims and families, including two of our guests, parent advocate Lori Schott and Lennon Torres, a former child performer who now works to hold tech companies accountable for facilitating online child sexual abuse. Schott’s daughter Analee was just 18 years old when she died by suicide in 2020, following a struggle with depression and body dysmorphia that Schott says was aggravated by “predatory tech.” Schott and Torres say Meta knew about the dangers of products like face augmentation filters and easily bypassed age verification, yet did nothing to improve its systems. “I was receiving hundreds of messages from grown adult men trying to groom me online because they understood I was vulnerable,” says Torres, now 26. “The social media platforms could easily stop strangers from being able to contact kids … [but] when I look at big tech leadership, I just see lazy. I see lack of innovation. I see a lack of accountability.”