POLITICS: I’m suing social-media platforms like Snapchat — so someone else’s child doesn’t die like mine did

I never imagined I would be a plaintiff in the landmark social-media-addiction trials that started last week in Los Angeles.

But when your daughter is taken from you tragically because of a dangerous product that targets kids, you have no choice but to fight back. 

That’s why I am one of more than 1,600 parents, school districts and other plaintiffs suing some of the most profitable companies in history — Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and Alphabet — for knowingly designing addictive products that expose kids to peril, predatory exploitation and self-harm.

Just two weeks after my daughter Coco turned 17, in 2022, she left our home just outside New York City to meet an older man who had messaged her on Instagram.

He promised to sell her Percocet. She never came home. 

What this man gave her wasn’t Percocet. It was a fake pill laced with fentanyl.

A dose smaller than the tip of a pencil was enough to kill her.

Like so many parents, I did everything I was told to do.

I talked to Coco constantly about being careful online. She was in therapy for the anxiety and depression that social media had fueled in her life.

I monitored her accounts, limited her Snapchat use to just 15 minutes a day and warned her about the dangers of drugs and strangers.

But I couldn’t read every direct message — no parent can.

And when that dealer reached her on Instagram, I didn’t see it in time.

That’s the part Big Tech doesn’t want you to understand: Their defective products put kids in danger.

Our kids aren’t growing up in the real world anymore. They’re growing up online — surrounded by strangers instead of neighbors, algorithms instead of trusted adults.

Social-media companies deliberately engineer their platforms to keep children hooked, pulling them deeper into digital spaces that are far more hazardous than anything we would ever allow in our physical communities.

You can limit screen time. You can install controls. You can take phones away at night.

You can follow every expert recommendation and still watch these platforms exploit your child’s developing brain, undermine your authority and push dangerous content straight into your home.

It was like there was a drug dealer right in my living room and I didn’t even know it.

These companies designed it this way. 

Social media today are addiction machines built to track kids, manipulate them and keep them engaged at all costs.

Platforms prioritize the most captivating content, even when it’s dangerous: drug dealers, sexual predators, pro-suicide material, eating-disorder matter and abuse.

The companies’ own research showed that safety features could save lives and protect kids.

But Big Tech executives hid those findings, doubled down on their corrosive products and used parents as scapegoats for precious lives lost.

While Instagram had a public “zero tolerance” policy for child-sexual-abuse material, for example, the platform did not offer users a simple way to report such content and internally had a “17x” strike policy for accounts that were flagged as engaging in sex trafficking.

And Instagram’s own internal research showed that teens talked about the platform in terms of an “addicts narrative,” spending too much time indulging in a compulsive behavior that they know is negative but feel powerless to resist.

Employees even joked about the open secret in company chats: “oh my gosh yall IG is a drug. . . . We’re basically pushers.”

After Coco died, I tried to get the dealer’s Instagram profile taken down. It took five months.

Later, I searched again, guessing what his new handle might be. There he was. Same photo. Different name.

I reported it to the police. And again, months passed before anything happened.

These companies move fast when it comes to profit. When it comes to protecting kids, they move at a glacial pace — if they move at all.

That’s why these lawsuits matter.

This isn’t just about accountability. It’s about uncovering the truth and forcing real change.

For too long, Big Tech has acted as if it’s untouchable — above the law, immune to tragedy, insulated from consequences. That era is ending.

This is a moment of reckoning. The ground is shifting. And now it’s on all of us to make sure this moment leads to lasting protection for our kids.

Your voice as a parent matters. Don’t accept this as the status quo. Speak up. Tell your representatives that we need guardrails to ensure Big Tech doesn’t harm any more kids with their products.

Because one preventable death is one too many. 

Julianna Arnold is the founding member and executive director of Parents RISE! — a survivor-parent-led grassroots organization demanding tech accountability, advancing systemic reform and championing child-centered digital design.