← Parenting in a Tech World
Parenting in a Tech World
Kelly Stonelake: Meta Whistleblower on Big Tech's Child Safety Crisis
01:20:27
Loading summary
Transcript86 lines
- [00:00]
A
Kelly Stonelake spent nearly 15 years climbing the ranks at Meta, starting as an hourly employee and rising all the way to Director of Product Marketing, including a senior role on Horizon Worlds. But when she discovered that children were accessing the platform through adult accounts, being exposed to predators, and inappropriate content, while Meta knowingly looked the other way, she refused to stay silent and paid a steep price for it. Today, Kelly is a whistleblower, a lawmaker facing advocate, and the voice behind overturned her substack, where she documents the fight to hold Big Tech accountable for the harms it causes to kids. In this episode, we're getting into her story from the inside. Her sworn testimony to the ftc, her work alongside the ongoing civil trials against Meta, and what she thinks parents actually need to know about raising kids in the digital age. My Slack DM's notifications are blowing up. It's like the universe knew that Kelly and I were gonna talk today. Kelly, thank you so much for being here. We have so much to talk about.
- [01:17]
B
Oh, thank you so much. That was such a kind introduction, and I'm so happy to be speaking with you.
- [01:22]
A
I mean, it's all true, and it's. It's leaders who pay attention to their conscience, like you, who have turned the tide. People like you and Arturo Behar, and there's so many other people who put a lot on the line to speak up for the bad things they were seeing happening. And because of that, we are seeing things like what happened this morning take place. Can you. You break the news to everybody? Like, what happened actually what happened yesterday in New Mexico and what happened this morning in Los Angeles?
- [01:57]
B
Yes. So thank you for that honor. I. You know, there are a couple of. There are several really important civil cases right now with regard to social media harms in kids, and one of them reached a verdict yesterday and the other today. So yesterday in New Mexico, a verdict was reached on a lawsuit that was filed in December of 202023 by their attorney General, Raul Torres, that found that Meta was negligent in protecting kids, that they failed to follow state laws in New Mexico, that they knew that there was sexual predation on the platform and did not take adequate action. And so that was a $375 million penalty that they've been ordered to pay. And then we've also been watching very closely the trials happening in Los Angeles. So the first bellwether case in a collection of over 1600 cases alleging social media is harmful to kids. That jury has been. Today would be the ninth day of deliberation. And we Found out, like, as we were getting on this conversation, that Both Meta and YouTube, who are the defendants in that case, were found guilty. And, you know, I'll pull up the. I'm just going to pull up really quick set of questions. I mean, I'm. I'm trying not to cry. I might cry. But the, you know, in this civil case in Los Angeles, they needed to answer seven questions, you know, was, you can swap Meta and YouTube out. They had to answer for both companies. Was Meta negligent in the design or operation of Instagram? Was this negligence a substantial factor in causing harm to Kayleigh, who is the plaintiff in this first case? Did Meta know that design or operation of Instagram was dangerous when used by a minor? Did Meta know that users would not realize the danger? Did Meta fail to adequately warn of the danger? Would a reasonable platform designer or operator have warned or instructed safe use? And was Meta's failure to warn a substantial factor in causing harm to Kaylee? And so it. It was a yes across the board for both defendants, which is just.
- [04:24]
A
Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I am. I am like, finding this out in real time directly from an amazing human. And I just, I will never forget this moment.
- [04:38]
B
No, I mean, I'm thinking about. I mean, I know both of us, I think, made it to the courthouse at some point. And I'm thinking about all the parents, the survivor parents, who, you know, have been the leaders in this fight for years, some of them 15 years, who are experiencing a moment of critical validation. And I am just so grateful to the jury of our peers who saw through the smoke screens that many policymakers, regulators, and parents have been unable to see through, in large part due to the PR and propaganda mechanisms that these companies are able to deploy.
- [05:28]
A
A hundred percent. I was in the courtroom on Friday when I thought we would have a verdict announced. And it was honestly, by the grace of God, like, just. Just to be able to walk up and walk in and be like, you want to come in the courtroom? Like, yeah, front row, front row. Sitting in between Kaylee's lawyers, her legal team, her. And then Meta and YouTube's legal team, and Meta and YouTube's legal team did not look happy. They. They were. I mean, it was like I was. It was being a part of history. It was. It was insane. And speaking to the parents who showed up every single day showing the pictures of their children that they lost because of the harms that that happened to them on social media, it was just. It was wild. It was wild. And so now we have it now. We have one of over 1600 pending cases that went the way that we all believe it should have, and this will set a precedent.
- [06:41]
B
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And, you know, it's what we're here to talk about today, too. But I think even for me, on a personal level, it's. It feels, you know, it feels in a way, like I've been talking now for almost a year about how Meta knows that they're harming kids and does it anyway, and that has impacted my life in pretty profound ways as well. And just to see that finally there seems to be some actual acknowledgement of that and justice for families that are impacted, it is just so incredibly meaningful.
- [07:22]
A
Oh, my gosh, you know, we'll take a win. There's a lot of craziness and hard, dark, terrible things happening, but we'll take a win, you know, and we'll celebrate those wins. So. Kelly, I was. I freaked out. Not, like, really, but, like, when you responded that you would come on our podcast, I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, truly an honor. We have so much to talk about, and I want to be respectful of your time, so I'm going to get into it. You know, you started at Facebook at age 21. What drew you in? And what did the early version of Facebook feel like compared to what it eventually became? And before you answer that, I will admit that while I was like a mom of an infant, like, pumping at home doing freelance social media stuff, I think I saw, like, a opportunity to apply to work at Facebook. And I was like, I think I probably applied. Definitely didn't get the job. Now I'm glad I didn't. But anyway, we all had stars in our eyes, so.
- [08:30]
B
Oh, yeah. I mean, I was. I mean, I've always loved technology and I've always. You know, I started a. My first company when I was 14 and have always kind of had that, like, just excitement about pursuing opportunities that seemed really challenging. And when I got the opportunity to join Meta In 2009, I was so excited. I mean, it was a dream come true. This was a place where we had what felt like some of the biggest and most complex problems in this technology space to address and some of the smartest people that you could imagine to work with on addressing them. And it was a place where it felt like. It truly felt like we were changing the world. It felt like we were going to change how information was shared. We were going to create opportunities for people around the world, and we were going to bring the world Closer together. And you know, for years it was a place where I was rewarded and experienced kind of rocket ship career growth by making principled decisions, saying no to money, focusing on our customer. And it was, you know, it was a place that I really thought that I was going to work for my entire career.
- [10:11]
A
Wow. Wow. Yeah. 2009, that's, that's when my son was born. That's when I was sitting there working to build a community for brands on Facebook. And it was, it was such an amazing opportunity to connect people for good, for information and crowdsourcing and help people not feel so alone. And my, how it has spiraled.
- [10:38]
B
Yeah, I mean the Meta has certainly changed the world, but not in the way either of us would have hoped, truly.
- [10:45]
A
And you know, full disclosure, there's a lot of things I love about meta properties. I use WhatsApp to communicate with family overseas. I love Instagram in terms of being a consumer and the content it serves to me, they, they know what I want to see. It is entertaining. I love the ability to create and the tools that gives me to create and educate and empower ironically about things that are happening on their platform in some cases. And Facebook groups, I mean that's how I stay in touch neither with my local neighborhood, what's happening, or with parenting in a tech world. The Facebook group I started in 2017 that now has over 660 something thousand parents in it. And hey, Facebook Marketplace scored some great deals there that said there are so many things that they could do that they have chosen not to do to protect our most vulnerable and that's what we're here to highlight and fix. So take us inside. The moment that things shifted for you, you were on the senior leadership team for Horizon Worlds. Excuse me, what was Horizon Worlds for? People who don't know.
- [12:03]
B
Yeah. So I had, I was asked to step in to fill a vacancy. We had the woman who was leading product marketing for Horizon Worlds was heading out on a maternity leave and the that was going to be six or seven months and coincide with some pretty big expansions. And so I was asked to continue doing the job I'd been doing, which was also a product marketing director job, but then also look after Horizon Worlds, which to answer your question was, is it's complicated these days. Meta's flagship virtual reality software. So kind of the social layer that exists within the Oculus headset, although now it also exists in on iPads and mobile and cross screens as they would say. It's a lot like Roblox. It's a World building environment. But the difference is that it existed at that time primarily in VR. And I was so excited when I was asked to take this on because I had not worked on a consumer facing product in the, at that point it had been, you know, 13 or 14 years that I had worked there. I, I had spent a lot of time working with third party developers. I had spent almost 10 years of that time working with our top advertisers and basically running an in house creative agency. And then, and then I was back to developer platform just prior to Horizon Worlds and I, you know, my kids, you know this is before I knew so much that I know now but my, my kids loved Roblox. I just, and I just listene your episode with your Attorney General about that. I could talk about roadblocks a lot as well but at the time I was extremely naive to the harms and was just like this is so cool. Yeah, but it was, it was, you know and I think it's important context that in the, in the probably five years leading up to that moment, this is the summer of 2022, as more and more of these kind of public criticisms had been mounting about Meta things, you know, including the documents Francis Haugen leaked and the articles associated with that, things like genocide in Myanmar, you know, all of these, all of these stories. I think the, I really lacked the capacity to even consider that there would be a world where Meta would be knowingly causing harm to people. You know, the experiences I had had and the way that I viewed our leadership was that this would just be bad business. Of course people are taking this seriously and there's no one sitting in a room saying let's harm people. Until I got to this senior most product leadership team for Horizon Worlds. And that's exactly what I found. It was a room full of. It was all men on this leadership team that I had joined and I was immediately read in on the open secret that the vast majority of the people using Horizon were children. I mean, and at the time children were technically not supposed to be there. And so it meant that they were accessing the product using adult accounts, which meant that they had completely open and unrestricted access to speak. I mean you're in this virtual world where you're having conversations with other avatars. So it's children, sometimes under the age of five, sometimes teenagers having conversations with unknown adults. And we were building this in the likeness of Roblox which was, you know, by the time I learned pretty quickly was actually proven and at that point even established Breeding ground for predators. So this is a violation of COPPA as well, in the federal law that prohibits collection of data, kids data without parental consent. You're talking about a headset that's taking tons of photos of faces, of environments, physical environments that you're using the product in. And all of that was done, being done without parental consent or control.
- [16:22]
A
Okay, so you have set the stage for what you discovered. And before we talk about what happened when you tried to raise the alarm, I want to go go deeper to help parents understand just how problematic it is. You know, you have strangers of all ages able to communicate in real time verbally. Problem number one, what are the other problems that spiral off from this? The ones that immediately come to my mind are. Excuse me. The ability for predators to convince children through voice, maybe even chat. Did it have a chat function?
- [17:08]
B
Yeah, I believe so, but most of it was, was over voice.
- [17:11]
A
Okay, so predators having the ability to convince children to go to other platforms to continue the conversation where photo and video sharing and personal information disclosure, including physical addresses can be shared. I also heard reports of simulated sexual acts and violence of the avatars, which is. It's abuse. Even if it's digital, it's abuse. So what, what does this look like in terms of children being harmed?
- [17:40]
B
Yeah, you've really covered it. Well, we call, you know, in the, in the online space, it's called off platforming, where a predator is going to take a kid and say, let's go to. Oftentimes it's a place like WhatsApp or another encrypted safer channel to start having kind of continue to develop these grooming conversations to exchange photos to, as you said, yes, get physical addresses, pick them up. All has been reported on. And then, you know, about a year ago, Laura Bates did a big piece in the Guardian about the misogyny and kind of sexual abuse and sexual harassment that's existing in this space in these like virtual sexual assaults, which I know sounds kind of. It gives a lot of people pause at first, like, what is a virtual sexual assault? But if you consider the narrative that a company like Meta would use when they're trying to sell this product, that this immersive technology feels like you're really there and is so much more powerful than an otherwise digital interaction when you have a screen strapped to your face and you're really in this immersive space and you're being held down and I mean, reports of gang rapes and groping it, the data is clear that this has a pretty profound psychological impact. On folks and beyond the sexual predation, it was an incredibly racist environment. So in my first couple of weeks I came across this. There were some internal employee reports in our kind of black at Meta Employee Resource group saying, hey, if I get into Horizon, I am encountering racial slurs immediately. And it's like all kids. But the research I came across was that it took 34 seconds on average for someone in a black or brown avatar to be called the N word or another racial slur.
- [19:46]
A
That's horrible. That's horrible.
- [19:49]
B
And these were products. And what I was asked to do, like the job I had in this six to seven months that I was to be leading the product, the go to market, was to expand internationally to new countries, to expand officially to teens and kids as young as 10, and to expand the product to cross screens, which is mobile and iPad, really to become competitive with Roblox, but also to reach as many kids as possible.
- [20:23]
A
So let's tell everybody what happened when you tried to raise the alarm.
- [20:29]
B
Yeah, so when I, when I raised the issue, I became the issue. It was, there was a senior woman kind of just outside of the leadership, kind of that senior most leadership group who was responsible for the actual kind of marketing campaigns, like buying the meeting, you know, buying the media, figuring out how does this campaign actually function. And she was concerned about like, hey, there's so many kids in this product. And there also were some kind of product stability issues that were being glossed over. And it's like if we put, you could imagine how much marketing dollars were to be poured into this product, the campaigns won't work. I mean, for those with experience in marketing, you can't kind of bring people down the marketing funnel if they never come back to the product after being there once. And when I went to my peers, the rest of the product leadership team and said, hey, we need to talk about what Carrie is saying. A man named Jeff Lynn, who was the product design director, said, yeah, Kelly, we need to talk about that. We need you to shut her up. And we're going to find out if you're as good as they say you are.
- [21:48]
A
Oh, wow.
- [21:50]
B
Yeah. I mean, and it was like it was, it was a such a, it was as if everyone else in the room had just heard what someone had for lunch that day. Like there wasn't shock, there wasn't concern. And obviously I refused to, to do that. But pretty quickly, as I continued pushing the issue, I was excluded from the leadership meetings. They just disappeared from my calendar. And when I kind of asked about that and tried to push on that. The response I got was that there were concerns about confidentiality. And this is on a backdrop of we were explicitly told we can't create any record that's discoverable of our knowledge that there are kids in the product. And so I think they were concerned that that's what might happen if I continued having access to information and to the just complete, like the complete disregard that my fellow leaders had for both. You know, I was concerned for kids, obviously I was concerned about racism, but I was also like, you know, I remember positioning it like the state of consumer trust in our product. We're still recovering from Cambridge Analytica and you know, we can't afford to do this. And you know, the plan of record, for instance, was that, you know, we were going to launch the product officially to kids before the parental controls were ready, but we were going to have a big education campaign for parents that implied that those parental controls would exist even though they weren't ready yet. And it was just like, are we kidding? Like, this is bad, this is, this is bad and we have to address these problems. We can't launch it. We can't launch this product based on the plan.
- [24:00]
A
Correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, while Roblox has been under a lot of fire, some of the things they have done decently are, you know, automatically blurring any profane words or racist words. Sexual, you know, drug related. It's like if somebody goes to type that in, it will show up as asterisks, not the actual words. So if Roblox could do that, Meta could do that.
- [24:26]
B
Yeah, I mean, there's so much that they could do. And I mean, back to what you were saying earlier about the things that you love about Meta products, like, I, I consider it just the huge tragedy that, you know, because Meta, if there's any company that has the, the kind of political, financial capital to actually make the world a better place to have technology that doesn't harm and in fact keeps people safer. It's, it's a company like Meta, they just don't have the capacity morally to prioritize that. And I think it's also a technology leadership failure as far as kind of long term business health. I think it's a complete immaturity in strategy to be willing to prioritize profit over the safety of the most vulnerable people using the product.
- [25:26]
A
It's so sad. It's infuriating. It's a lot of, a lot of adjectives. Meta allegedly instructed employees not to document the very obvious presence of underage users on the platform. What does it look like when a company of that size decides to make a problem disappear instead of fix it? Like, did they really think it would just go away?
- [25:53]
B
You know, I think so. I think that the mentality was, we can fix these problems, but not if we don't have a swing at being competitive in this space. We've got to get to market dominance before we're eclipsed by Roblox or other competitors, and then we can address these safety issues. That wasn't explicitly stated, but that was the implication. And it was, you know, just like I said, an open secret. Like, there are so many kids using the product, and this could create a problem, a legal issue for the company. So we have to take precautions to make sure that we don't, you know, sell ourselves short and miss the chance to grow because of these, you know, small details, which are not small details.
- [26:52]
A
No growth at all costs has a human cost and the opportunity cost for the business that is trying to grow at all costs, it's in the long term, not going to benefit you.
- [27:07]
B
Yeah. There was one day when my peers and I were going into Horizon with our Oculus headsets to do some play testing, to actually experience the product ourselves, and we couldn't even hear one another over the sound of kids screaming. And the response was to move the playtest to a private world so that that wouldn't be an issue. Instead of, you know, say, huh, maybe we should consider the fact that these kids are all in harm's way and that we are, are not only not fixing the issue, but we're making parents feel safe about their kids using this product, even though it's not
- [27:53]
A
what could have been done to age Gate or prevent children from mentoring this platform.
- [28:02]
B
Well, it's such an eye roller because Meta. Meta knows so much about each of us, the products and, you know, the. The age prediction technology is so sophisticated and effective, and Meta has no reluctance or resistance to using that when it benefits them for advertising purposes primarily. But, you know, so that. That would be like, step one, right? Figure out how to either because this is linked to another account, or it's a new account, or, you know, through. I mean, anyone can hear a voice and kind of have a sense of like, this is probably an elementary school or not an adult. And so I think there were so many potential technical solves. But, you know, what I was advocating for was we have to completely pause the expansion of this product. We can't drive more people into a product that not only doesn't work well, but is full of kids. Bullying, harassment, predation, probably, which now that's been established. And we need to wait until we've solved these problems before driving more people into this product who are trusting us to do the right thing.
- [29:28]
A
You mentioned that you're a mom. Are you comfortable sharing how many kids their age ranges?
- [29:35]
B
Yeah, yeah, of course. So my oldest is 12, he's in sixth grade. And then I have a 10 year old and a seven year old daughters. So it's a first, fourth and sixth grader. And I, you know, when the pandemic hit, the first thing I did, actually the very first thing I did was buy myself an infrared sauna. And then I bought iPads for all of them. And you know, it was like, okay, this is. And they spent a lot of time on Roblox using messenger kids. So I mean, I really offer a lot of non judgment to parents who might have made choices with regard to their kids access to technology because I made those same choices. And I encourage folks to give themselves permission to change their mind, especially as new information comes out, because it's not fair that the kids that get protection are the ones whose parents have had to experience this firsthand, whether within the companies or because they've been personally affected in another way.
- [30:40]
A
Yeah, I'm right there with you. My son was in like 5th and 6th grade around the time of the pandemic. Only child. And so that was one of the only ways for him to not only attend school but have social interaction was through Roblox Fortnite. And I Let him have TikTok. Worst mistake of my life. You don't give a fifth grader TikTok. But at the time I was like, oh, it's just like his friends dancing and doing funny things. And all of a sudden he's learning about, you know, people getting killed in the streets and protest and it's like, good job, mom. So been there, made some mistakes and we can only move forward. And actually one of our episodes that's gonna be going live soon with Dr. Carrie MacKenzie, who's an amazing, amazing doctor in this space. And studying the field of brain science gives us hope in terms of neuroplasticity. You know, I asked her, is it too late? Have I messed my son up because of what I didn't know? And she was like, it's never too late. So anyway, we'll get back to that. You walked away from millions in unvested stock, refused to sign a severance agreement that would have Held meta harmless. How did you have the strength to make that call?
- [31:58]
B
You know, I wish that it had been like a epic moment of screw you, I'm out. But it wasn't. It was a gradual process. I basically experienced a catastrophic medical event in that I pretty, almost overnight lost my ability to form words, to move my arms and legs, to get out of bed. Thought I was experiencing the worst anxiety and depression of my life. And now I've understand and have learned a lot about what happens, especially for neurodivergent folks. I'm autistic and adhd, and it's. This autistic burnout is a complete collapse of capacity to function that often comes either in response to a moral injury or when demand exceeds capacity. And I think that the coming to terms and being confronted with this experience, that there were people at this company that I helped build and all of the lawyers and leaders and folks around them that weren't on the same page as me about how urgent and problematic this was. It wasn't just, you know, difficult in that context. But then, you know, I mentioned to you, like, how I'd kind of tuned out a lot of the other external criticism, and so you start kind of rerunning the tapes and it's like, oh, my God, is this. Have I built. Have I helped to build this company in this industry that is that I believe is, like, potentially evil? And even when I. So I took this medical leave, there had been in product marketing, which is really, we say, the voice of the product in the market and the voice of the market and the product, what do we build? And then strategically, how do we take that to market in a way that's going to make sense for people and meet regulations and all that of the 20 of us across reality labs. So this includes the, you know, meta glasses and the actual Oculus hardware and the games and Horizon. Out of the 20 of us that were VPs or directors in that function, there were, I think, like four or five women. And by the time I left on my medical leave, all but one were out on leave either due to. There was one, the one on maternity leave, and then the others had left on medical leaves also. And the team was really worried about it. Like, the other women on the team were like, really what? All the folks that are potentially looking out for me are dwindling away, like, what does this mean for me? And so I, you know, interestingly enough, and like, I kind of attribute this in hindsight to kind of just another way that, that, like, deep loyalty and almost Cult like environment was still impacting me. Like, I thought, I'm going to take a medical leave, I'm going to get better, I'm going to show people that these aren't quiet exits. I'm going to come back and, and keep fixing this. Because at the time that I left, I had successfully influenced a, a pause in the rollout. So the plan to roll out in December of 2022 was no longer happening. Although the VP responsible for the product, his, you know, his public expression of that was like, oh, this is a product quality pause. No mention, of course, of, of kids or safety, right? But I had thought, okay, you know, you know, what's right is going to prevail here and I'm going to come back and fix this. And you know, I was in really bad shape. Like the experience, experiencing what I experienced led pretty quickly to, you know, severe suicidal ideation. And I was in like full time treatment for that. And it had been, it had been eight months when I, and I'd been kind of in contact a little bit here and there with my boss, who's a guy who had both apologized for not doing more to get me in the room, but then also told me that I wouldn't be recognized for the work I did, pausing the product rollout because of the way it would reveal the shortcomings of this senior man I worked with when I, he and I had been in contact a little bit about what role I might return to in my recovery. But eight months into the leave, I was laid off. You know, I was told, hey, we've got to find another person. We got to keep the business moving. And from a business standpoint, I understood that like I, I wished I could have been in a place to go back. I had at that point. It had been, you know, nearly 15 years. This is, this is a company full of people I love deeply. And the thought of not being working there was still really hard for me to even wrap my head around. But I understood and I was in no place to go back. Like, just, you know, not able to work. And it was, it was when I got the package offer, the kind of separation agreement at that point that it just did not sit right with me. It required that I, you know, the last line of the documents that I hold meta harmless. And I was thinking about the children that were in the product exposed to harm. I was thinking about the, you know, the women and other folks on the margins working at the company that, you know, I couldn't protect anymore and knew that they had the potential to experience, like, what I had. And I just thought, you know, I can't sign this. Even though, of course, signing it would have meant a huge check. It just. It wasn't. It wasn't possible. And I did briefly engage with, you know, trying to kind of negotiate with them a little bit. And, you know, I can't talk about the details of that, but some things that I had asked for that I thought might reflect their. The level of accountability that they were taking for the way I had been treated and the implication on the safety of the kids using the product. And their response just made it so clear that there wasn't accountability and there wasn't even regard for the way that their operating was impacting folks inside and outside of the company. And so, you know, that, you know, that conversation ended and it wasn't until, I think, several months later. So now, you know, it was, I think, in the spring of 2024 that I went to lunch with my friend Brian Boland, who he testified in the case in LA and in New Mexico, and he was the person of the company before he left on principle that called me up and said, hey, you should consider these product marketing leadership roles. And I went to lunch with him and, you know, I had not been doing a lot of anything like that, so it had been a while, and I talked to him a little bit about what I'd experienced and just asked him, like, what do you suggest I do to actually make a difference here? Like, I just feel so heavy about the environment for women and the Inside the company and how vulnerable people are being affected outside the company. And, you know, his response was immediate. He said, discovery. Discovery is how you're going to make a difference if you, you know, if you're serious about it. And so that's. It wasn't until then that I thought, oh, man, I should file a lawsuit. Like, I have the power to do that. And so, you know, got that process going. And then it wasn't until after the lawsuit was filed that I heard pretty quickly from Fairplay, which is a child safety nonprofit, and they said, hey, you know, we've been doing research in Horizon for months documenting the harms to kids and the exposure to predators and the lack of action. We're preparing a request for investigation to the ftc. Would you be open to writing us. Writing a statement to go with that? And I was very happy, too, you know, and it's just kind of. It's been like that, you know, after working with Fair Play, I met, you know, Nikki Petrosi I know, has been on your show and you know, Sarah Gardner at Heat Initiative and Laura Marquez Garrett and, you know, through them have gotten involved in advocacy efforts and it all is just kind of snowballed. But it is really interesting that it has. It was a step by step process to get to this point.
- [41:32]
A
It's absolutely incredible. And thank you for being so candid about what you personally went through. To have to go through that is a lot. And then to be able to talk about it, it's not easy. And so just thank you on behalf of anybody that has struggled with anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation. We need more examples of strong women in leadership roles who are mothers who, you know, are candid about the tough, rocky times they go through and how they can overcome. So thank you.
- [42:20]
B
I appreciate that. It really matters to me to be open about it because of the way that I know these kind of practices and the ways that whistleblowers are treated within companies when they leave those who raise ethical issues. It's harmful. It's harmful. Not only I believe that that misogyny and that disregard for people gets coded directly into the products when these practices exist within companies, but these are real people with real lives. And I just. I think in some ways that experience really gave me an edge in the sense that I remember just thinking, like, when I first started calling lawyers about filing a lawsuit, you know, it was initially just a string of dudes saying, could you be so stupid? Like, you know, that every detail about your life is going to be exposed, that every mistake you've ever made is going to be pointed to, that they are going to drag you through the coals and make an example out of you. It just pissed me off more because I just remember thinking like, I almost died. Like, how, in what world does it make sense that I would be more concerned about my reputation than about doing what's right, when, I mean, my kids almost grew up without their mom because of practices like this. And, you know, when we make the decision to protect our own, whether it's, you know, emotional or financial selves, instead of speaking up about stuff like this that we've seen, I mean, we're literally choosing our safety over a child's. And so that's. It was just pretty black and white for me and pretty clear that if I'm going to be an example, if I'm going to be made an example, I hope that I can be made an example of. You don't have to have a. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have kind of no skeletons in your closet to be able to tell the truth of your experiences and to be able to hold companies like Meta accountable.
- [44:43]
A
Wow.
- [44:44]
B
Wow.
- [44:45]
A
So you've mentioned you testified before the ftc, the Washington State Senate, you've been a key voice in the ongoing civil trials against Meta, which thankfully had a positive outcome just today. Do you feel like lawmakers are actually listening?
- [45:04]
B
You know, I think that lawmakers care and are recognizing more and more what a problem this is. And I do feel like, you know, like Brian Bullitt and I have testified together, Arturo, Brian and Sarah, and you know, other Horizon researchers, Dr. Jason Satazon and Casey Savage, they've all testified as well. But I think that a lot of lawmakers are also listening to the tech lobby. I think they're also listening to, you know, the money when Meta pours billions into their states for data centers or, you know, all these other kind of various incentives. And so that's the part that is really sad to me. And I think we just really have to think about motivation on one side of the aisle, you know, of the situation. We have people like, you know, those that I just mentioned who are standing up to these trillion dollar companies at huge personal cost versus professional lobbyists, lawyers who are being paid by these billionaire run trillion dollar companies to confuse the public. And so I wish that that was not so difficult to sort of see through. And that's why these cases are so important, because they're the evidence that's unsealed and the truth that's coming out. And, you know, that I hope will start to turn the tides. Like when this, when la. The trials kicked off, to me it was the beginning of the end.
- [46:40]
A
The dominoes, they will be cascading. I just, I can see it, I can feel it. And you know, we at Bark, we've been at this since 2015. We've known the harms that have been happening to kids. We've been surfacing the harms that have been happening to kids. And early on we had hope that the platforms would be like, wow, Bark is great. Bark can handle this heavy lifting for us. Let's work with them. Let's open up our API and let Bark do the monitoring and learning and let us continue to build and grow our businesses. And we soon realized that they did absolutely not want to work with us. They did not want to disclose the rate at which children were being harmed either through content or other people on their platforms. And I think it was about a year ago Instagram revoked Our access to certain data. And our CTO emailed a key contact there saying, like, you do realize that more children will be harmed because of this decision. You are choosing to harm more children by revoking access and just. It's just so wrong. Thankfully, we're able to still monitor places and spaces that don't want us to monitor them, because androids are awesome and our engineering team is awesome, but it's just like, who in their right mind can say, you know what, we don't want to surface and prevent the harms that are happening to kids?
- [48:27]
B
Yeah. The only group, an entity that would say something like that is one more interested in protecting themselves than kids. Which should tell you everything you need to know.
- [48:36]
A
Exactly. So, you know, these civic trials are targeting product design itself, which you can very much speak to the algorithms, the notification systems, the infinite scroll. Does that feel different to you than the cases that came before? And if so, why?
- [48:54]
B
Yeah, I mean, one reason why there have not been many significant cases before, despite, you know, I think the. I'm thinking of like, Judy Rogg lost her son Eric over 15 years ago. So, like, these have been going. These kind of horrific outcomes of social media on kids have been happening for a very long time, changing, of course, you know, and. But for a very long time. In the 90s, 1996, I believe, a piece of legislation was passed called Section 230 of the Communications Decency act, which was actually really intended to encourage moderation and to make it such that message boards and AOL and the Internet that we knew then wasn't going to be held accountable for. If they do take some stuff down or they do or don't moderate that. That they, they wouldn't avoid that for fear of being sued for an action they. They didn't take. Right. And for years, decades, since the dawn of social media, these companies have quite successfully hid behind protections from section 230 in the sense of, hey, we're not. We don't make the content, we just host it. And, you know, I think it is important to recognize that the Internet as we know it today wouldn't exist without Section 230. Like, it is important legislation in the sense that, you know, I wouldn't have a substack. Like, we wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't. You. Your podcast would not be listed, you know, in. In a podcast directory. Like, there would be no Yelp, no Glassdoor, no kind of LinkedIn. Right. Those exist because of Section 230. And Section 230 was not built to consider algorithmic content delivery. When companies decide what is getting amplified and what isn't, that no longer fits the newsstand metaphor that birthed these concepts. And as you've mentioned many times in this podcast, like product design decisions, like Endless scroll, like Snap scores, like connecting adults and kids directly and making that part of the recommendation engine. Things like choosing to give children notifications in the middle of the night or when they're at school. These are not issues of content. These are issues of predatory design.
- [51:38]
A
Yes.
- [51:39]
B
And that's why. That's why this case in LA that we just heard the verdict on is so important and was so important regardless of the verdict. Like, even if the verdict had been unfavorable for this movement, it still would have started the wheels turning and the evidence being exposed that shows that companies like Meta, YouTube, Snap and TikTok settled, but they're in this boat too, that they know that these products are built to addict built. They know that they're causing harm and they're not doing anything about it. And so I think that it's. It's pretty genius, the legal team that. That kind of brought these cases. And I think there's a couple of legal teams actually. But in the sense that this. Okay, cool. Yeah. This is not about content. This is about the product design decisions that have led to these outcomes.
- [52:38]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. You, man. Yes, you write a lot on overturned, which we will link to, so everybody can sign up, subscribe, but you write a lot on overturned about the gap between what tech companies say publicly and then what they actually do internally. What's the thing you think the public still doesn't fully grasp?
- [53:05]
B
You know, I talk a lot about how there. There was a bag over my head for so long while working there, where I really, you know, I talked about that here today. Really couldn't have held capacity that this could be real, that people would be making choices, that it could be as bad as it seems. And I think, I think that the bag is still over a lot of our heads publicly. Like, I think if we have, if we actually accept, like, okay, there are kind of things, individuals leading these companies who are becoming among the wealthiest in the world, doing so, and they're getting there by deceiving us about the harms to everyone, really, but kids especially. And we're all a part of that. Right. Like, it requires that we confront our own roles in these systems and it just, it's uncomfortable. And so I think that until folks have to confront that, it's much easier to not. It's much easier to think. That cannot be, that has to be overblown. Of course they're doing as much as they can. Right. And yeah, it's not, it's, you know, I experienced as an employee there and now watch it happen as someone who does not work there. But the sophistication by which companies like Meta can convince, well meaning people that they are, that they care and are doing everything they can. They're really good at it. I believed that for a very long time when Frances, when her documents were leaked, I was a director at the company at the time and the communications around that were just so smart, like internally it was. They showed us like, here are examples of what was in that leaked kind of trove of documents. And it's like screenshots from internal message boards that were people talking about a project that might not have worked on it directly. And so you get this really convincing argument where it's pretty easy to think like, oh, of course that was taken out of context.
- [55:18]
A
Rental employee.
- [55:19]
B
Yeah. And oh, we're misunderstood. And like, I believed that I ate it up. And when the truth is that there were also a bunch of, of documents that were written by the people that were leading those products that were about mental health, body image, you know, impact to teens. And that wasn't what they chose to talk to us about. And it's the same strategy that plays out over and over kind of in the public sphere too.
- [55:45]
A
You know, some of the tactics that I'm watching happening that turn my stomach, you know, Meta partnering with the National Parent Teacher Association. Now, thankfully they, the pta. The National PTA has stopped working with Meta because good gosh, how could they continue? But you know, I, I used to attend this conference called Mom 2.0. I have spoken at that conference before and I received some emails from them over the past few weeks saying, we welcome Instagram teen accounts as a sponsor and then we welcome Snapchat Safety center as a sponsor. And I'm like, of course, of course you are. Of course. These companies are working to try to infiltrate mom, to convince them that they care, that they're safe, that the parental controls exist and actually work. And it's such bs. It's such bs. So we need to wake up.
- [56:46]
B
Yeah. And Girl Scouts, you know, that's an organization I spend a lot of. Both my girls do Girl Scouts. I did. I loved Girl Scouts and I spend a lot of time volunteering with Girl Scouts. And yeah, they have a pretty deep partnership with Meta. And it's like, this is A company that's enabling child predation at a massive scale, that's destroying sleep and creating kind of, you know, divergent brain development for kids. And how is this compatible with the mission of this organization? But, you know, I'm sure the people that are working at Meta that whose job it is to go out and negotiate these partnerships think they're doing a good thing too.
- [57:29]
A
Right.
- [57:30]
B
Like, it's really, it's just, it's hard. But yeah, I was happy to see the PTA walk back their partnership and you know, it's going to be interesting to see if more organizations do after these verdicts. And it's also, I'm really paying attention to what advertisers do. Like, we have to remember that these, these systems are funded by advertisers. And you know, I worked in, when I worked adjacent to our advertising business again for almost a decade. I can't tell you how many conversations I had about brand safety, right, where there's, you know, advertisers concerned about will my ad show up next to a problematic piece of content. Like, that's how we kind of see brand safety today. And I'm really trying to shift that conversation to think about it being less whether or not your ad shows up next to a piece of pro suicide content, but whether your ad is funding the system that delivers that. And I hope that more and more advertisers wake up and we can kind of have supply chain reform when it comes to, to social media advertising. Yeah, I think that's really important.
- [58:40]
A
It's hard. I mean, it's very hard because I was the per.
- [58:46]
B
Yeah, I mean I was the person that got on planes. I think I travel, I mean, hundreds of thousands of miles a year to meet with CMOs and say this is the most efficient media. Here's why it matters, here's why it's relevant. And I watched the kind of reluctance of, by which the budgets turned from TV or out of home to come to social and then, oh my God, wow, this really works. And I really believe that advertisers can turn the other way. And at a certain point, like it will be a shame. I know that at a point it will be a shame to be marketing on exploitive platforms. Like there's a reason they aren't pouring their budgets into other harmful sites because it would just be bad for their brand. And you know, I'm really looking to media agencies and media leaders to start thinking about how they can, they can coach their clients that if you want to be ahead of this kind of exodus, like, now is the time to start thinking about how am I divesting from media, social media, media. Because at a certain point, point there's, there's got to be a backstop by which we. The cheap, the cheapest, most effective CPM in the world is not worth enabling the, you know, sexual trafficking, enabling suicide in young people. It's. And that's actually what's happening.
- [60:14]
A
Damn, Kelly. Yeah. I mean, full disclosure, we advertise on social media because that's where our audiences are. And this. We want to reach mom and we need to find the places where mom is that isn't contributing.
- [60:39]
B
Yeah, it's really hard to exist within a system you also want to dismantle. Right. And that's why it's. It's not just on any one group. It's kind of got to be. Everyone's got to take some small steps because in the same way that, like, you're right, it's the best place to reach people. I mean, even Scott Galloway did his whole, like, opt out of tech thing and then was like, but don't delete Instagram, because how will we talk to you? We have to find other ways to communicate as well that, you know, and we need founders to build alternatives that are as compelling. And, you know, we need, you know, we need to sign up for more substacks and, you know, all of these different, all of the newsletters, like, all of these little actions we take, like, I think it's important. That's an important takeaway for a consumer. Like, if you are also frustrated with, you know, advertising, you know, funding these platforms, like, as consumers, we can go other places so that we can be reached by advertisers in environments that we. That are more aligned with our values. And it is just really sad that this is on us. Like, ideally, you know, like, I don't use. I got off of these platforms when I sue the company. But I. Yeah, but I wish. I mean, I miss it. I. I grew up on Facebook. I, When I was, you know, senior in high school was, you still had to have a college email address to get on Facebook. And I emailed my college in April of my senior of high school and said, I need my Edu email address. I have to be on Facebook. So I get it. And it's sad that this is on us.
- [62:32]
A
It is, it is, but it's changing. That's the hope that we're conveying here is that it is changing. And, you know, for busy, overwhelmed, tired parents, myself included, not policymakers you know, not people working at tech companies, but just regular people raising kids that have phones and tablets. What's the most important thing they should actually understand about how these platforms are designed?
- [63:01]
B
I love that question. I think that what's probably most important is to understand how these platforms are not designed, which is they're not designed to consider the safety and well being of your children kind of beyond what could create PR issues for them. Right. And it's, I think a lot about how I mentioned this briefly, but parents have to. In the same way I loved your example about your son in fifth grade on TikTok because it's like you've got to give yourself grace and understand that the decisions you may have made to this point are based on this kind of sophisticated engine of, of propaganda and marketing meant to make you feel like it's safe, but it's not. And you know, we need to, you talk a lot on, on this podcast about keeping tech out of bedrooms at night. You know, services like Bark that allow parents to kind of have, have that, that oversight in a way that I think really feels like a partnership with their kid and use those tools to also create conversations with your kids so that they have some context and kind of a soft landing ground to hit when they need to come to you and say, oh my God, this cute girl asked me for a nude and I sent it and now I'm in hot crap. Like I'm in trouble. It's facilitating those kind of conversations with, with your kids and yeah, like being, being willing to, you know, help. I think as a society, like we're really afraid of negative emotions and that's part of what like social media has, has created is this like everything's got to be this kind of fast solve, how do I distract or avoid. And as parents, it can be really hard to be on the other side of these decisions when your kids are maybe the only one in their class without an iPhone or really sad that they don't have access to Instagram or whatever it is. And it's just, you know, I really want parents to understand that they have to choose their heart. Right. It is a matter of are we supporting our kids through this sadness that's real and valid like, or are we signing them up for a lifetime of that divergent brain development of body image issues, of mental health challenges, which isn't going to happen to every single kid that uses social media. But the research is really clear that it is a very predictable outcome of social media use for young people.
- [66:02]
A
I was interviewing Just yesterday, a retired Internet Crimes Against Children detective and I asked him, you know, what will change this propensity towards human trafficking and pedophilia? And he was like, honestly, people need to accept the fact that evil is real. So many people just can't fathom that executives and leadership at companies would know about these harms about kids and look the other way and do nothing about it. It is so hard for us to fathom, but it is true. It has happened. It is happening. There are bad people in this world that do bad things and you hope it never happens to you, but you also can't think that it won't happen to you. So, I mean, it's there, right? And we have to fight it. We have to talk about it, not stick our heads in the sand. And then we have to fight it
- [67:03]
B
completely.
- [67:05]
A
What does a world, yeah, what does a world where kids are genuinely safer online actually look like to you? Is it regulation, cultural shift, something else? All of the above.
- [67:18]
B
You know, for some reason, when a company makes a dresser and kids crawl on top of it and it tips over, they're expected to, to make it right, to take accountability, to fix the issue and make a product that's safe. I mean, that's why, I mean, every time we buy something at Ikea now, it comes with a load of, you know, wall anchors, right? And so, you know, I think ideally a safer Internet for kids looks like one where incentives are aligned such that the products that are built for them are consider them. And, and you know, I think that there I have been, I have been, I have gone to Capitol Hill to advocate for the Kids Online Safety Act. I have, you know, been involved with kind of advocacy around a lot of different legislation. But I have, have become more and more of the mind. And now especially, especially with the verdicts we saw today, the product liability law is a much higher standard than even a duty of care. And so the more that we can keep our courtrooms open to those who have been harmed, that is going to shift incentives. And I would like to see our lawmakers thinking about things like how do we bring section 230 into the kind of modern age. And I don't mean totally get rid of it. I think that would be bad for the Internet. But I mean, reform it to the place where folks can't hide behind it because of algorithmic, when it's a matter of algorithmic amplification, I also think about the importance of transparency. So, you know, lawmakers, researchers, regular people should be able to see like what is data being trained on and how can I kind of reset my algorithm? I think a safe Internet for kids looks like one where they can opt out of algorithmic feeds, where, you know, we see Pinterest kind of making some of these moves proactively, like where they aren't able to connect with unknown adults by default, where they aren't getting notifications when they're at school or when they're sleeping. Where, you know, I would say, I think, you know, advertising to kids online is problematic, right? And even, even, even Meta themselves would say teenagers aren't likely to buy products from ads. But why are they so valuable to Meta? Because they get them hooked early, train them to be consumers of advertising, and then they know they're going to have longer lifetime value. But kids are not generally the biggest folks converting on advertising. And so, and advertising to kids can be pretty harmful and is in some contexts, not always, and is really regulated in other contexts. So, you know, those are, I think, some examples of things I'd like to see. And then just, you know, people voting with their feet and, you know, opting out, opting themselves and, or their kids out of platforms that aren't ultimately serving them until, you know, these, these tech bros that, that want to be known as, like, innovative wonder boys can actually innovate in a way that solves some of these problems.
- [70:56]
A
Oh, my gosh. I vote, I vote you for president. Can we just, just do that? I mean. Kelly Stone Lake.
- [71:09]
B
That would be fun. I would love that. I really would.
- [71:14]
A
Well, I do have hope. Things are changing. More and more people are speaking out. How do you, if you feel like sharing, you know, I didn't ask you this ahead of time, but with such a spotlight on you and what you know now, how do you make sure to protect your mental and physical health? Because there's a long road ahead. There's a lot to be done completely.
- [71:36]
B
I mean, having boundaries, it sounds so cliche, but matters a lot, right? Like, I've really made commitments to myself on what I will and won't do. And you know, my razor on that is like, when I have the capacity and I can show up somewhere and tell the truth of what I experienced in a way that will help kids, keep kids safer on the Internet, I'm going to do that. But that capacity piece matters. I mean, I still am recovering from what I experienced. And, you know, that involves, like, I, I do occupational therapy every week where I'm still rebuilding. Like, how do I take care of myself as a person and, and figuring Out. Okay. How do I do stuff like this conversation with you, like going to Capitol Hill like that are incredibly demanding for a lot of people. Right. Energetically and cognitively. And then what does like prep and recovery look like in a way that enables me to kind of continue doing that?
- [72:40]
A
Yeah.
- [72:41]
B
And you know, just really having to say no to the opportunities that don't align with, with my current mission.
- [72:48]
A
Yeah.
- [72:48]
B
And Kim's help I have. My hands are all like destroyed right now, but because we got kittens on New Year's Day and I feel like just, you know, surrounding yourself with the things that you love.
- [72:59]
A
Yeah.
- [73:01]
B
And you know, like let yourself sit on a couch and you know, hang out with your pet or you know, for 45 minutes. Like that's something that feels really unnatural to do without taking out your phone and filming them for short form video. But it, you know, there's a lot of joy and just experience experiencing the things that you love.
- [73:19]
A
Yes. Being present is very important for all of us that are so immersed in, in digital and this culture of move, move, move faster, faster, faster. For me it's exercise, prioritizing sleep, healthy ish diet, although a low sugar gardening, same. You know, it's just like you got you like it seems like those things aren't important when you're in this hustle culture, but. But when you lose it, you realize how important it is. And just everybody remember that oxygen mask analogy. You can't do what you're supposed to be doing on this planet if you don't have the oxygen to keep going. So completely you take care of yourself.
- [74:03]
B
Yeah, exactly. Right. That's right. Yeah. Sleep is so important and being present and just being aligned with your own experience.
- [74:12]
A
Yeah, yeah. We're not machines, we're humans. We need rest and recovery. So what's next for you in Overturn? You know, we are going to link to the substack. We are following you on LinkedIn. But anybody who's here is like, yeah, Team Kelly. What should they know? What should they do?
- [74:32]
B
Well, thank you for mentioning that. I mean, I think that in some ways I recognize when I, when I filed my lawsuit that at any point I could be silenced. And you know, fortunately that hasn't happened yet. Meta did try to dismiss my lawsuit. Unsuccessful, moved it to federal court. But I wanted to be able to speak the truth in a way that was available to folks whether or not my lawsuit continues until the end. And that is one kind of motivating factor. But then the other is just recognizing like the experience I shared with you about the way that people are made to fear standing up to entities like Meta because, oh, well, what if the story, what if your therapy note about the time when, you know, you were having an autistic shutdown and could not get up off the floor for hours becomes public? Well, you know, if I can write about that and get that story out and own that narrative, not only does it help take that power back and away from a company like Meta, but I hope that it also sets an example that people can. We all have our differences and it's not going to look the same for everyone. And that does not. There's not one size and shape of standing in your truth. And so, you know, that's another thing I hope to, I've written about a little bit and, and hope to write more about because there's a lot of other people that work at companies like Meta who, like me, are neurodivergent. And I don't think, you know, like me, I could never have imagined that I would be experiencing what I've experienced, like at all. And just to kind of give folks visibility into that, that matters. And broadly, you know, it's a lot about Meta these days because there's a lot to say about Meta these days. But broadly, you know, I want to write broken systems of power, right? And also imagining what new possibilities can look like because there are so many different things that I really feel like I'm alive today because of the privilege that I have. Both that I had money and white skin and healthcare professionals were paying attention to me. And if not for some of those things, like, I really don't think I would be here and I don't think that's okay. And that's not fair. That's not the world I want to live in. And so, you know, over time, the more that medic cleans up their side of the street, the more I'll probably write about some of those other topics. But that's, that's where my head's at.
- [77:18]
A
Awesome. Awesome. Well, it's leaders like you that are paving the way for a safer world for kids. And these kids right now that we're raising are going to see what we have done and change the world even more. So, you know, and I'm really excited for the children that I have witnessed grow up just over the past decade at Bark that at first were like, ah, I don't want monitoring software. And now are like, thank God that my parents got a heads up about XYZ issue because I'm still on this planet. And now I can sound the alarm about what I experienced so that other kids don't have to go through this. So change is happening. Yeah, we are.
- [78:02]
B
I love that and I'm so grateful for the work that you all have been in this game since, you know, before it was cool. And I think that that's something I really admire and admire the way that you're. You're fighting to advocate for kids and families and through the product and through platforms like this podcast and all the work you do. I think I saw that you're at the speaking at the Working Mom Summit tomorrow and, you know, there's just. It's really cool. Like, I really admire and appreciate that Bark seems to, you know, really walk the walk in addition to talking the talk. Like, it's, it's. This is, this is the kind of thing that I would love to see companies like Meta doing, like putting their words and their actions together and at least they have Bark to look to as an example of that.
- [78:53]
A
Thank you. Yeah. I mean, just on that note, there's a reason why we don't say we keep kids safe online. We say we keep kids safer online because no product is 100% foolproof, you know, and we own that. We own the fact that as a company, a for profit company, we might make some mistakes, but we're going to own them and do better because we are human. And any, any company that pretends to be absolutely perfect and have nothing wrong going on ever, like, that's just dumb. That's just stupid. So dopey.
- [79:32]
B
I agree. And just bad business. Yeah. I mean, it's not, it's, it's. Yeah, it's not, it's not accurate. Like everyone's going to make mistakes and not get things perfect and we have to give ourselves the capacity to continue adopting and adapting to what's next.
- [79:52]
A
Yeah. When you know better, do better. When you get new data, make better choices. It's not that hard. Well, Kelly, we will be following along with your journey. We're here to support you. Thank you so much for all that you have done. You are going to change the world and just keep taking care of yourself. Aww.
- [80:14]
B
Thank you, Titania. I'm so grateful.