My Interview With Kristin Bride
Mom, advocate and featured subject of the new documentary, Your Attention Please
Hello!
For my new subscribers— welcome! Also— my posts aren’t usually this long— but this interview is worth it! Today’s post means a lot to me. I have long admired Kristen— so when she agreed to let me interview her, I was over the moon. But first the latest Tech Headlines and some timely, topical and related items Worth Flagging!
Tech Headlines
Literally all of them are about Meta
Meta is threatening to shut down Instagram in New Mexico because, it claims, verifying that children on its platform are at least 13 years old with 99% accuracy is unfeasible. More here.
Meta has launched AI Insights to help parents see what teen are asking AI about. More here.
Meta is launching new facial recognition AI to stay in compliance with Australia’s social media ban. More here.
Worth Flagging
Must Watch Documentary, Your Attention Please - Watch the trailer here
Non-profit corner: Learn about Parents RISE here and the The Carson J Bride Effect here
TV Time: Check out my appearance on Chicago Today here! I talk Snapchat, Snooping and Summer Screentime.
Interview
Kristin Bride is a mom, child safety advocate and the subject of Your Attention Please. She lost her son to suicide because of a cyberbullying incident on Snapchat. Here is a portion of our conversation edited for clarity and length.
S: Hi Kristin! Its so nice to meet you! Please tell us about your amazing son, Carson. You talk about him so beautifully in the documentary.
K: Oh, he was so full of energy. He was the kid that was a runner. Very early on he was diagnosed with severe ADHD and he definitely kept me on my toes. He had a great sense of humor, and could do imitations of different accents. He was a jokester and so loving. And so sensitive. He wanted to be liked, like most teens. He would hug me so tight that he would lift me off the ground and he was a little bit shorter than I was.
He was our spark in our family. And now there is a very significant hole.
S: How did you get involved in the documentary?
K: It was about three and a half years ago. Sarah Robin, the filmmaker, had seen a video of me testifying before Congress and had gotten my name through a mutual friend, with the center for Humane Technology. She talked to me about the project and asked if I would be interested. What I liked about Sarah is that she didn’t feel like she was an outsider looking in at this problem. She had experienced social media addiction in her own life. And I felt like we were viewing this story side by side.
S: You have two nonprofits:The Carson J Bride Effect and Parents Rise. What do they do?
K: When Carson died (6 years ago in June), I felt completely alone. I did not feel like these stories of harm were out there. Many of us founding members were in DC advocating for section 230 reform. We came together to form Parents Rise, which is the first parent survivor led group like this. We are growing now beyond just parent survivors, working in many different areas.
Also a year ago I started my own nonprofit focusing on tiny tech because it was tiny tech that harmed my son. Snapchat had allowed anonymous apps integrated into their platform, And so while we knew he had Snapchat, we didn’t know that they had allowed anonymous apps, like YOLO and LMK into Snapchat through their SNAP kit. These small apps that are, in some ways. more dangerous because they get onto a larger platform and they might have literally one employee, then they go viral and there’s no safety built into it at all.
In the case of YOLO, they promised kids that they would monitor for cyber bullying and reveal and ban the users that did so. Yet when I reached out to them (after Carson’s death), they never responded. We found out later that they really had no way to do that. They had one employee and millions of users.
The last search on Carson’s phone was for hacks to find out who was doing this to him.
The day after we filed our lawsuit, Snapchat removed those apps from their platform. And I’m so glad that they did that so that no other child would be harmed and bullied like my son was. But I’m sad that it took my son dying and a lawsuit to make that happen.
S: The documentary does a masterful job of addressing that there are many groups that need to look out for kids. How should tech companies and legislators need to step up in your opinion to do better for our kids?
K: I honestly feel from the tech company side that they need to redo the business model. The whole business is based on kids being online longer so that they can take their data and sell it to advertisers. When you have a company whose whole mission is based on attention and average time spent. I just don’t know where you can go with that.
I hope with every country that’s banning it, market share is going down. On the legislative side, we need to make elections about this issue.
Parents: talk to your legislators. Say that this is important to you so that they are forced to choose American families over big tech money.
But I do really feel like the climate is changing. And I do think people are making phone calls to legislators in a way that perhaps they haven’t before, which gives me a lot of hope.
S: There’s a lot of positive momentum around the documentary. What do you want viewers to take away from it?
K: I hope that parents, kids and educators will see it and realize that we can’t wait for legislation. We can’t wait nor count on litigation. This film definitely shows the rollercoaster that I went through working so hard to get the Kids Online Safety Act passed, and then having it not brought to a floor vote in the end. And, but it also has other stories interwoven in it about the phone free schools and the log off movement, where millennials are putting their phones away and reconnecting with each other.
S: I am also a mom of two boys, also about two years apart. My younger son also has an ADHD diagnosis. Your story, Carson’s story, hits very close to home. I will carry it with me as I continue my work, and as I continue to navigate as a parent. You speak in the documentary about how careful you were with technology for your sons. What advice would you give to parents about technology choices for kids?
K: Delay, delay, delay. And even though we delayed, I don’t think we delayed long enough. We waited as long as we could. We waited until Carson was past middle school to give him his first phone. It was an old iPhone with no apps on it. We prayed that he wouldn’t ask for an app. But of course when he got to 10th grade he said, ‘that’s the way all the kids are connecting.’ It was also COVID. So there really wasn’t any other way to socialize.
We let Carson have Snapchat in 10th grade. He didn’t live to see 11th grade.
I have never heard a parent say “I wish I had given my kids social media earlier.” It’s just the opposite. You are delaying this technology because when is a kid ready to see porn or be bullied or have a predator approach them or see beheading videos? And remember this is what is fed to them through the algorithm so that they stay online longer.
Let’s reclaim innocence and let our kids be kids and develop real friends.
When when you have the ability to understand what a real friendship is, the like button means nothing. The number of followers means nothing.
The phone is just a tool, not a lifeline if you have real in-person connections.
S: Do you think there are reasons to be hopeful?
K: I recently asked some high schoolers,”does your school have phones?” They said, “no! And we are so much happier.” That just made me so happy. We CAN do something about this. We really can.
S: Thank you for talking with me today, Kristin. You are so inspiring!
