Washington Summit Puts Online Child Safety in the Spotlight

0:00 Speaker 1 Lynn’s Warriors. Well, protecting our kids. Lynn Shaw is with us right now. Actually, if you want to go to our website, it’s lynnwarriors.org. Well, Lynn, what is on the front page of today’s show?

0:16 Speaker 2 Good morning, John. Very exciting news I want to share with all of our warriors out there. This past Wednesday, I was in Washington, D.C. at the historic Willard Hotel for this most important summit hosted by HHS, Health and Human Services, the Maha Institute, Make America Healthy Again. And we did a summit called Screen and Social Media Harms. Look,

0:41 we have to talk about with kids not only the food, the nutrition, getting back with nature, the education. We have to incorporate the screen time as well. So I moderated a panel called Lived Experience. And, John, not a dry eye in the house. These were mothers. okay who experience the unimaginable heartbreak their families affected by online harm their

1:04 children dead that the bottom line from extortion cyberbullying buying pills online on what it exciting about this which is a hard work to use john when you know we’re talking about dead children but what’s exciting about HHS taking up on all of this is that we were joined by scientist and researchers and policy expert attorneys and a

1:25 lot of advocates to confront the public health and child safety issues. And this is what made the gathering different. We can’t keep discussing, John, you know, oh, it’s bad, children’s digital safety and the predators, and just roll out all these numbers and congressional hearings and corporate presentations. That’s a snooze fest, okay? We must listen in America to

1:47 the families living with the consequences. And my mission at this summit, and I was given this job, John, was to help bridge the enormous distance between the American public and the people making decisions in Washington. I want to bring everybody together, but we need to take the experiences of the mothers and fathers and connect them directly to

2:05 the research and the public policy and make meaningful government action. We can’t just keep saying, you know, it doesn’t resonate, John. It goes in one ear, out the other. Let’s be real here. We always tell the truth on WABC. A child, you know, to anybody out there could just be a statistic.

2:20 But behind all this tragedy, John, is a family. And behind every preventable failure is a question about responsibility. And it’s not about anti-technology because we’re pro-innovation at the Warriors. We are pro-technology. It’s about protecting kids from exploitation, dangerous online interactions, all this manipulative design that big tech is putting out there because now we know. We have whistleblowers.

2:43 We have internal memos. And we’ve got the proof now and these systems. are placing commercial interest and making money above our American kids. So we can’t wait anymore for another tragedy to unfold before Washington decides to really act.

2:58 We believe communities will change. Lynn, are they listening to you?

3:04 Speaker 1 Is the majority of the people listening to you, are they getting the pulse of the situation?

3:09 Speaker 2 They’re getting the pulse, John. If we use platforms like we’re using right now, the Cats Roundtable, if I keep talking about it on a daily basis... They’re getting it. It’s like chipping away every single day. We just have to keep talking about it. And we also have to give them hope. Things seem very overwhelming and dark for people.

3:27 We have to give them hope that this is happening, hope that there are resources and a lot of free ones for the public, and also that your kids will be safe. Come along with us. We’ll help you. You don’t have to travel to Washington like we do at the Warriors. Do it in your own home. Do it

3:41 in your community. Do it at your school. We are there for you. So people are getting, compared to, I will say, two years ago, we have more parents stepping up, more educators stepping up, more communities stepping up, places of worship. Again, it’s like chipping away, but we can’t. We have to use our platforms to tell the public what is going

4:00 on and also give them some resources and takeaways. But things are changing, and I’m happy to say there’s a lot of hope out there because a lot of people are on board to protect our kids.

4:11 Speaker 1 Lynn Shaw, lynnswarriors.org, thank you for what you do in protecting our kids. God bless you, and God bless America.

4:18 Speaker 2 Thank you, John. We’ll talk again soon.