I expect it will be quite an emotional
thing for me to be in the heart of
Silicon Valley given what's happened to
our family that was her birthday weekend
and then two days after she died they
are turning over our kids lives to
algorithms
children are literally dying every day
it just needs sound this isn't just for
Molly this is for every young wasted
life
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the government tells social media
companies to take more responsibility
for harmful on 14 year old Malik Russell
took her own life in 2017 now the
government is urging social media
companies to take more responsibility
for harmful online content these are
companies that count their profits in
the billions and they turn around and
say to us that they can't protect our
children I think that's why Molly
story's probably taken off that it is a
modern-day nightmare
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I'm interested to find out what the
attitude is in the States I believe that
although things have changed I don't
think they've changed quickly enough and
I don't think that the companies have
taken it seriously enough I personally
have had as young as seven year old who
have had a full-on attempt of suicide
free Hess is a pediatric doctor that
works in an emergency room in Florida so
we're going to see a young adult male
who's here for a suicide attempt
when did you start hurting yourself
about the age of twelve well this one
probably required stitches but I didn't
get it stitched at the time any of these
this one probably needed stitches also
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the numbers are rising rapidly the ages
are decreasing significantly do you
think this is connected with social we
have soily absolutely exaction with
social peer Instagram which is not
working in the ER dr. Hess Rancic
website there's a blog which in regular
does its videos with advice so that
parents can understand the sort of
things they children might be getting up
to online and that's pretty graphic
it doesn't miss graduate it doesn't get
much more graphic than that and it just
continues on and I don't know that
there's one picture here that's not
showing blood or a scar of some sort
like a grooming process that's happening
on these platforms and especially in
Instagram because you know you follow
one hashtag to another hashtag to
another hashtag and it's grooming that
person to self-harm or consider suicide
more and maybe even take action on that
and so many of them are our videos a
young girl
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slitting one wrist followed by the other
I even I get teary watching it it's just
it's awful if it could be one post that
makes that child say she did it I can do
it too I think I'm probably disappointed
that there's so much material so just so
easily found as rather hoping that the
steps taken would have made at least
harder to find that stuff didn't think
it would have all gone money well I knew
I hadn't all gone but it's just so much
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and at 5:38 he found her lifeless body
Dyan Grossman is the mother of Mallory
Grossman sadly Diane's another parent
bereaved by suicide and she goes into
schools and gives extraordinary talks to
quite young children there I remember
when I went to Kansas City Missouri one
building one high school had nine
suicides in one year nine children
hindsight is cruel hmm hindsight is very
cruel that's the toughest thing to cope
with isn't it as it is I share that
people think that the worst day of my
life was the day that she died and I
would say no it's the day before it was
a day before there's a million things
you wish you'd done differently defined
images like this telling people how to
self harm to people different ways of
self harming you can't fix me with the
scars and the background the tech
companies they should see parents like
you and I and invite us to their
boardroom and say help us help you right
if I could sit down at the table with
Mark Zuckerberg right I would ask him
could I make your product better could I
make it safer
what a great way for you to add a boy
each other and high-five each other in
the boardroom if you actually put in
infrastructure in a system to protect
children
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this being them it's been amazing
yeah keep up that work you too
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bit of a pilgrimage because Molly could
sing her way through all of Hamilton and
we've got tickets to see in London she
was looking forward to going to see as a
family but January after her death we
all went along missing one of us
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Common Sense Media is a big American
nonprofit organization and it's run by
Jim Steyer it's amazing to me that as a
father you're willing to come out he's
determined to make the internet a better
place for people this is a huge problem
and the lack of responsibility of the
social media platforms is absolutely
mind-boggling and absolutely disgraceful
they are literally turning over our kids
lives this is a matter of life and death
in some cases to algorithms algorithms
that are focused on one thing only
increasing the number of views and
therefore the advertising revenue for
that platform
it is beyond disgraceful and beyond
reprehensible so it is clear to me that
they can and should be regulated
they're much harder to find I think that
there are still some even if it's one in
a hundred
that's stay on the site because we
haven't found them yet
our technology hasn't get us hasn't
become as strong as it needs to be to
find all of them I don't think we'll
ever be in a place for every single
image that violates our policies is off
of our platform but it's our
responsibility to get that number to as
close to zero as possible Molly's death
and more specifically the work that our
parents have done in the wake of that
tragedy which I honestly can't begin to
imagine what they have gone through I
have children of my own but the work
that they have done has raised an
immense amount of awareness and an
important issue for me personally for
Instagram more broadly but also for the
industry and it has translated into a
lot of concrete changes changes in
policies changes to what shows up where
an Instagram more investment in finding
people who might be at risk and those
effects are real and they're important
her legacy may be to make social media a
safer place I I i would our deeply hope
so absolutely sounds sincere just hope
he delivers because every week that that
content is still there and in the UK
there are four more school-aged children
who are dying by suicide for example
it's there is a pressure of time as a
pressure of time and the price is the
price of children's lives
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so we're in Manhattan and we're here to
see the CEO of crisis text line we can
talk to you in a decision-making moment
am I going to swallow this bottle of
pills
Nancy Lubin sent crisis text line up and
she's a real live wire real dynamo lots
of energy lots of Drive in our
conversations with Molly's age group
with that 14 to 17 year old age group
38% of those conversations explicitly
mention the suicidal ideation it is the
most suicidal age group that we see
here's the strange thing I'd love to be
put out of business my my dream I'm not
a for-profit crisis tech sign shout we
are not-for-profit we are NGOs we are
here for the public good my real dream
would be for us to go out of business
someday because people don't need us
anymore yeah unfortunately right now I'm
in a growth business pain mm-hmm pain
seems to be a growth business in both of
our countries
it's just such a waste it's just so sad
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so Alicia Vallauris is another era
bereaved by suicide daughter Alexandra
ended her life completely unexpectedly
we thought we had a daughter who was
happy we thought she was okay and inside
she was she was now that's um you could
be describing Molly so these were these
were Alexandra's journals we found these
on the bridge that's just like a thing
we found in Molly's books these big
scroll the angry words yeah I can't do
this yeah it just wasn't it wasn't the
girl we know um yeah this is kind of
hard yeah
there's a lot of other kids out there
that are just like her and don't say
anything you know because it's not okay
to talk about you know so I'm glad it's
starting to get talked about it's not
one of the reasons you're doing I am
yeah like I want parents to know and I
want kids to know that uh this is what
happens when you don't speak up
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I think in many ways
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Molly's with me every day and I've
wondered what she might might have
thought had she still been alive about
such things
and I think she was such a such a force
for good she always wanted to help
people
so I'm pretty certain that she would be
pushing for change
so that young people were safer when
they were online and if they need help
they could more easily find it
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you
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