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Welcome. It's really good to have you here. A recent class action lawsuit filed by more than 1800 plaintiffs, including children and parents, school districts and state attorneys general, is suing the parent companies of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. Newly released court documents describe a disturbing pattern in which social media companies knew that their products are addictive and and harm kids, but went ahead with product development anyway. It may not be surprising to parents and others who care for kids that Common Sense Media came up in the lawsuit's discovery process as Common Sense Media is the most prominent pop culture organization providing information and guidance about the impact of screens and technology on kids health. However, I believe it will be surprising that Common Sense Media and its affiliated entities are not described in the lawsuit primarily as protectors of children and their health. Instead, Common Sense Media and its affiliates are identified in the lawsuit as PR organizations paid by social media corporations to market social media to kids and convince parents and and educators that their products are safe for children, even if those products pose risks. As the Lawsuit documents read, TikTok paid educational and digital safety organizations to promote its image. It paid Common Sense Networks, which is a for profit affiliate of Common Sense Media, to deliver an education and awareness program that presented TikTok as empowering teens to take ownership of their lives. What this means cannot be overstated. An active lawsuit says that a Common Sense Media's affiliate is paid by TikTok, a social media company alleged to hurt children, to market its product. As I describe in this podcast, Common Sense Media claims it is an independent organization judging the health effects of digital technologies on kids. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be further from the truth. Instead, Common Sense Media's business model is to profit by putting kids in front of screens at home and school, no matter the impact on kids health and academic success. So you might be saying I thought Common Sense Media was helpful and yes, years ago. But things have changed such that Common Sense Media can no longer be trusted with our kids health. A lot of us, including me, have at one time trusted our kids health to Common Sense Media. Like many parents, I came to know Common Sense Media many years ago as a ratings organization. When my kids were young, I I would look at their reviews to consider the content of movies that we would see as a family. And at its inception in 2003, Common Sense Media was a science based organization reporting on the health effects of screens. Its guidance was generally fact based, for example declaring excessive screen time that it posed serious risk to kids health and therefore Common Sense Media encouraged strict screen time limits on kids. If Common Sense Media continued down this path, I would be commending the organization as a guardian of childhood. But Common Sense Media's business model has radically transformed over the years from one which prioritized kids health to to now prioritizing Silicon Valley's profits. Why? Why is that? I believe its founder and CEO Jim Steyer realized which side his bread is buttered on. There's almost no money in being a science based organization providing guidance on kids screens. On the other hand, Common Sense Media makes tens of millions of dollars by leveraging its name as a trusted child health body to take Silicon Valley cash and promote kids use of tech and screens at home and school. Even if that puts our kids health and academic success at risk. In just a moment I will show clear evidence that Common Sense Media is a Silicon Valley funded marketer of social media and other screens to kids. We'll actually see where their profits come from. But first I want to show you clear evidence that Common Sense Media is not the independent child health organization that it claims to be. That evidence is in its promotion of two separate and unequal childhoods for audiences that differ in their racial and income profiles. I will show in this podcast how Common Sense Media encourages a relatively advantaged group of children towards a science based healthy life, while a group weighted towards black and Latino kids is pushed towards an anti science unhealthy existence. I focus on Common Sense Media's racist because that's what it is. Harmful policy. As one symptom of an entire organization that has become unhinged from the science of children's health to instead prioritize Silicon Valley's profits. It is one symptom of a health organization whose principles have been corrupted by big tech money. Let's start with how Common Sense Media sends a helpful message about screen time to its book reading audience. Common Sense Media's founder and CEO Jim Steyer has written two books on the health effects of technology on kids. The other parent is one and talking back to Facebook is the other. While I don't have specific information on the demographic composition of the purchasers of these books, those who buy self help parenting books are typically weighted towards the white, affluent and highly educated. As a Pew Research center study tells us about adult book readers, those with the greatest frequency of book reading are women, whites and those with high levels of education. This is consistent with Steyer himself, who is white, wealthy and very well educated. To his book reading audience, Steyer sends blunt warnings about the risks that screen time poses to kids. In talking back to Facebook, in which he speaks for Common Sense Media. Steyer says clearly studies have shown that kids who spend less time with media have far better grades in school. He also warns that kids spending more than two hours a day on a screen is a key reason why children why childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed in this country. Steyer also makes it clear in talking back to Facebook to the parents of both children and teenagers the importance of setting strict screen time limits to promote kids activity. He tells readers, even though your kid's a teen and getting more independent, it's important to unplug and enforce time limits on digital media. When your child spends more than two hours a day in front of a screen, he's spending less time than he should in the real world, being active and developing his inner resources. Likewise, in the other parent, Steyer names specific media limits as important for kids, telling parents set clear limits on the total number of hours that each family member should spend using all forms of media each week. What those limits should be is your decision, but I personally would recommend a maximum of 15 hours a week, about two hours per day for all media. Starr makes it clear that he followed his own advice in the raising of his own kids, telling us, my wife and I have set pretty strict media limits for our own kids. Now it's time to describe Common Sense Media's racist, harmful actions as it provides the opposite message about the health risks of screen time to an audience weighted towards black and Latino kids. Common Sense Media has an extraordinarily powerful influence over how kids use social media and other screens through its Digital Citizenship curriculum. This program is provided to schools for free for grades K to 12, with the stated purpose to teach kids about the health effects of social media and other screens. School teachers use Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship curriculum materials, including written information and and videos to teach students during school hours. Common Sense Media boasts that its curriculum reaches 1.2 million educators and 88,000 schools in the U.S. almost unbelievably, Common Sense Media estimates that it's reaching 3.8 million students directly. Importantly, the Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship curriculum has an especially powerful presence in the lives of black and Latino kids in low income families. That's because Common Sense Media boasts that its curriculum is taught in 80% of Title 1 schools, which is more frequent than its teachings in non Title 1 schools. Title 1 schools receive federal funding because of their high numbers of low income students and have a disproportionately high percentage of black and Latino students. As Common Sense Media tells US of its digital citizenship curriculum. Demand for the curriculum and teacher support is high in districts with high proportions of students of color and new immigrant families. Tragically, to this audience weighted towards black and Latino youth, Common Sense Media provides its own anti science harmful messaging about the health effects of screens. It does this by using its digital citizenship curriculum to repeatedly attack concerns about screen time. As one example, a Common Sense Media digital citizenship curriculum program entitled the Health Effects of Screen Time Can Screen Time be Bad for Us? Is provided to high school students. In the lesson plan, schools are supposed to show their students the Common Sense Media screen time how much is too much? Which uses flashy special effects to target a youth audience. The Common Sense Media videos Young Black Male Male host repeatedly tells kids that the concept of screen time is less important or even a fallacy. Explaining screen time as a term isn't that useful because it doesn't really tell you what you're doing on a screen. The Common Sense Media host even tells kids that screen time may be helpful to them, stating that his own search of the Internet found that screen use might help improve how we feel about ourselves by keeping us connected with people. The video host concludes with a dismissive statement, so maybe screen time in general is less important than we think. What this means is that Common Sense Media is providing the opposite messaging about kids screens screen time to groups with different range, racial compositions, audience weighted towards black and Latino kids hear that screen time is less important and may even help them. In contrast, Steyer's book reading audience is told that screen time poses serious risks to kids physical health and academic success and therefore should be strictly limited. What this means is that Common Sense Media's racist messaging is putting the health of an audience weighted towards kids of color at especially high risk. It gets worse. Let's look at how Common Sense Media sends the opposite messaging about the risk of social media to groups with different racial compositions. Let's first look at how Common Sense Media's helpful communications about social media risks are sent to its book reading audience. In 2021 testimony before the US Congress, Common Sense Media's Jim Steyer described the serious risks that social media pose to kids emotional well being. He says the increased time kids and teens spend online, particularly on social media platforms like Instagram, is taking a toll on their mental health. For every increased hour spent using social Media, teens showed a 2% increase in depressive symptoms. Steyr went further in his testimony to describe why social media poses grave risk to our to our kids well being. He says teens, and particularly teen girls are helpless against a social media machine that is powered by algorithms that deliberately amplify hate and misinformation and feed images to teens of perfectly shaped individuals who they then compare themselves to as the standard of beauty. Steyer's referencing the dangers of social media as documented in the peer reviewed literature, yet not all families have equal access to to peer reviewed science. It's well known that white and affluent parents typically have much higher levels of what's called health literacy as compared with low income and black and Latino parents. This gives privileged white groups greater access to science based information about the dangers of social media as compared with lower income families of color. Essentially, as Steyer speaks before Congress, he is describing science about the harms of social media that would be more likely known to white affluent families as compared with black and Latino families. Steyer describes similar concerns about social media's impact on kids health to his book Reading Audience in Talking Back to Facebook, explaining Social networks are more than a pastime. They're a compulsion, a consuming adrenaline rush that can crowd out other aspects of a healthy life. They don't just waste time, they steal it in large chunks from homework, from being outside and physically active, and from communicating and interacting with friends and family and family in a meaningful way. Steyer's message to his book Reading audience couldn't be more clear. Protect your kids from the harmful risks of social media. But just like it did with screen time, Common Sense Media sends the very opposite health recommendations about kids use of social media to an audience weighted towards black and Latino youth. As one of many examples, the Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Curriculum, which the organization tells us is provided to districts with high proportions of students of color, provides the lesson plan social media and how you feel. In this Common Sense Media lesson, high school students watch its included video. How do different social media platforms affect your mood? The video features the same charismatic young black host from the other Digital Citizenship video. In this video, the host sarcastically mocks concerns about social media's impact on health, the same concerns that Steyer said are real to his book reading audience. The video host also normalizes kids spending their lives on social media, exclaiming to his audience of kids, we use the hell out of social media. This Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship video then tells kids that social media is helpful for them as long as they use it actively rather than passively. To make this case, the video actually presents, unbelievably, a Facebook employee who waves to the kid audience and then promotes kids active use of Facebook. She claims that when users engage in active Facebook use, which she says includes sending comments or sharing messages. The social media corporation finds, quote, unquote well being improves over time. The Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Curriculum host chimes in so the next time you see a scary headline about the evils of social media, remember the research says active use is associated with positive mood. Essentially, the Common Sense Media digital citizenship curriculum provides kids a big fat advertisement to use Facebook and other social media sites as they sit in their classrooms. Common Sense Media's brazen promotion of social media directly to kids shouldn't actually be a surprise because as I describe in a minute, Facebook's founder and owner Mark Zuckerberg has given Common Sense Media millions of dollars. Now why would Zuckerberg want Common Sense Media to promote kids active use of social media? It's because social media companies make much more money when kids use their products actively, for example, by sharing their information. This allows social media companies to better collect data on track, market and profit from kids. What's really important to know is that objective peer reviewed research does not show the benefits from active social media use. Instead, science consistently shows that the more time consum preteen and teen girls spend on social media, whether they use it actively or not, the more likely that they are to become depressed, suicidal and engage in self injury. Other Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship curriculum videos also promote the benefits of kids use of social media in its health effects of screen time video the Common Sense Media host tells kids that social media is a great way to make friends, telling them in many studies, a majority of teens say that social media mainly helps the relationships they already have with their friends and almost 60% have met a new friend like me. This means that Common Sense Media is repeatedly pushing heavily black and Latino audiences of kids to use social media. And hard Common Sense Media sends the opposite message about the risks of social media to audiences. Reading Steyer's book there's absolutely no excuse for groups with different racial compositions to hear the opposite messaging. Unless of course, Common Sense Media is not looking out for kids health, but instead it is paid by industry to increase its profits. I believe Common Sense Media's barefaced racism is unmatched in US modern society. So what is the impact of Common Sense Media fostering two fundamentally different childhoods for kids with different racial profiles? It is because Common Sense Media has such a profound influence on how our kids use technology that I believe it's radically different messaging to groups with a with different racial composition is contributing to the dramatic screen and social media use differences between white affluent kids as compared with Black and Latino kids. A 2025 Pew Research study looking at U.S. teens ages 13 to 7 found that 4 in 10 teens report being online almost constantly. Yet this only tells half the story. According to the Pew study, black at 55% and Hispanic at 52% are about twice as likely as white teens at 27% to say they're online almost constantly. Likewise, black and Hispanic kids are spending much more time on social media than white kids. According to the Pew study, 37% of black teens and 34% of Hispanic teens report being on TikTok almost constantly, as compared with only 10% of white teens and 22% of black teens in and 20% of Hispanic teens are on Instagram almost constantly as compared with only 5% of white teens. These profound racial screen and social media use differences are a strong contributor to why Black and Latino kids suffer from the negative effects of screen time far more than white kids. As made crystal clear in the peer reviewed literature, the negative effects of screen time include child obesity and because today's addictive digital screens render kids sedentary, laying in bed or sitting in gaming chairs for a disturbing amount of their days. And while especially these kids of color are on screens, they are particularly targeted with marketing pushing them to consume an unhealthy diet. A 2020 study by the Rudd center for Food Policy and Obesity shows that non Hispanic, black and less acculturated Hispanic adolescents engage in greater social media engagement with unhealthy food brands than white teens. Such advanced interactive marketing includes kids posting content onto fast food brand social media pages or being encouraged to viral market the food products to their friends. These promotions in which kids actually engage with unhealthy food brands are considered to be a powerful contributor to child obesity. The peer reviewed literature is also clear that screen time hurts kids academic success because it displaces the time that kids would otherwise have spent in academic supporting activities such as homework and reading. So the research shouldn't be surprising. A 2025 annals of internal Medicine study titled Obesity Prevalence among Children and Adolescents in the United States, 2011 to 2023 looked specifically at data from 2021 to 2023 of kids ages 2 to 3 19. It found white youth obesity rates are at 18.2% while black kids are at 35.8% and Mexican American kids at 28.1%. While such obesity rate differences are due to multiple factors, science says that screen time differences between races that they're a significant contributor. Hence, as common sense media tells an audience weighted towards black and Latino kids that screen time is less important. The screen use may even be helpful and to engage in the active use of social media that is filled with ads pushing an unhealthy diet. It is increasing the risk of obesity in this vulnerable group of kids. In my clinical practice as a child and adolescent psychologist in an integrated healthcare system, I see daily the effects of this generation of kids living their lives sedentary on screens. The digital tech these kids use is actually built to be addictive. Through the secret science of persuasive design as I describe in my book Better Than Real Life, children and teens in my practice explain that their apps tell them exactly how many thousands upon thousands of hours they spend on social media and other screens during the year. Many of these kids rarely get out of bed, their gaming chairs or leave their rooms or their homes. The kids in my practice most hurt by the overuse of screens are black and Latino kids with a disproportionate number being diagnosed as severely obese and pre diabetic and in good part because of their screen based sedentary lives. I'm sorry this is likely upsetting, but I need to tell the truth profoundly. High levels of screen time are also especially dragging down black and Latino kids academic success because the screen time displaces essential school based activities such as homework and reading. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, which you likely know as the nation's report card, speaks to levels of student achievement across the country. A 2025 Hunt Institute article describing the latest results tells us Black, Latino and low income students continue to score significantly lower than their white and higher income pe. If you will remember black, Latino and low income students, that's the same group that the Common Sense Media digital citizenship curriculum especially targets. And if you remember, Common Sense Media told these underprivileged kids that screen time is less important. Such screen time caused academic struggles will make it less likely for these kids of color to attend college. In contrast, Common Sense Media to Jim Steyer's book Reading Audience communicates clearly that screen time hurts kids academic success. Steyer also makes it clear that he set extremely strong screen time limits on his own kids. This is likely a key reason that three of his own kids attended prestigious Stanford University. There is no more clear cut example of your kids will get one childhood, my kids will get another than this. Ironically, Common Sense Media actually makes big claims that its goal is to enhance racial and economic justice. In truth, I believe there is no organization in the US more responsible for creating the profound physical health and academic differences between black and Latino kids as compared with white kids. So why would Common Sense Media provide the opposite health recommendations about screens and social media to groups with different racial compositions? For the answer, it's time to follow the money. Common Sense Media is not purposely hurting black and Latino kids and low income families. Instead, these kids are simply collateral damage for an organization that has sold out for big tech money. Now Common Sense Media masquerades as an independent child health body while truly being an organization whose business model is to profit by putting kids before screenshots at home and school. There is no doubt that Common Sense Media makes lofty claims that lead parents, educators and healthcare providers to trust the organization with children's safety. In a 2020 Common Sense Media report, its founder and CEO Jim Steyer writes, we started the Common Sense research program in 2012 to provide parents, educators, health organizations and policymakers with reliable, independent data on children's use of media and technology and the impact it has on their physical, emotional, social and intellectual development. Another Common Sense Media report claims that the organ organization stands for a healthy childhood and provides advice, research and community outreach to support kids mental, physical and emotional health and explore text effects on well being. Common Sense Media's claims that it is an independent or that it is independent in its judgments about the impact of media on kids development, they're both ludicrous and completely fictional. Common Sense Media has taken between 2.5 million and 4.9 million dollars from Mark Zuckerberg's Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Zuckerberg is the controlling owner and founder of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. I believe Instagram has shown through its actions that its only true desire for kids is to increase their time on the platform, develop a persuasion profile on them and and profit from them no matter the cost to kids health. Snap Inc. Owners of Snapchat, is also a corporate partner of Common Sense Media. It's therefore not surprising that we see Common Sense Media push hard for kids social media use in its digital citizenship curriculum. This push is consistent with other Common sense media actions, for example, its blatant marketing article 5 reasons you don't need to worry about kids and social media. The article has a photo featuring pictures of of youth along with icons for Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. This is shameless marketing, not protecting kids. It doesn't stop there. Common Sense Media is a lobbyist for billion dollar edtech companies that want to expand the role of technology and screens in schools and have taxpayers foot the bill. EdTech giant Salesforce's founder and CEO Marc Benioff and his wife have given more than $5 million to common sense Media over the years. Benioff funded Common Sense Media's 2015 California Lobbying Agenda to ensure all future school bond proposals include funding streams for modern technology in our K to 12 classrooms. That's a lot of potential taxpayer money for Benioff and his company. Common Sense Media's for profit affiliate, Common Sense Networks actually makes money directly by increasing kids screen time. It has its own screen platform called Sensical, which is an entertainment digital streaming service for kids starting at two years of age. Clearly, the more time kids spend in front of Sensical screens watching ads, the more money the organization makes. Common Sense Media will likely try to defend itself by naming its seemingly helpful campaigns to protect kids from unhealthy technologies. Yet even these appear to be cover for the organization's ability to profit by increasing kids use of screens and social media. Consider Common Sense Media's recent Protect Kids from Unsafe AI campaign. This may sound like the organization has kids best interests in mind, but how many know that Common Sense Media, in spite of claiming to be independent, has another for profit subsidiary called Common Sense Growth? Common Sense Growth is a venture capital fund that is invested in an edtech AI product called Chiron Learning. In other words, if Common Sense Media can convince educators and parents to steer kids into using its own AI product, then it stands to make gobs and gobs of money. Common Sense Media is also cashing in on AI in spite of the serious health risks the technology poses to our kids. The AI chatbot ChatGPT is alleged to have contributed to multiple deaths in young people. It's therefore absolutely imperative that truly independent child health organizations determine the health effects of AI on kids and give us AI recommendations for kids. Clearly, Common Sense Media is not that organization as it's now financially partnered with OpenAI, owners and developers of ChatGPT. In no other domain of children's health are such clear financial conflicts of interest tolerated. Just as Common Sense Media has protected its social media industry funders ability to profit from kids at their expense, I believe this is now happening for kids use of AI In a recent article, Jim Steyer claims Common Sense Media as financial relationship ships with Silicon Valley corporations don't undermine the purpose of his child health organization. As the article says, Steyer and his team are clear that Common Sense will not be compromised by a business relationship. This same claim was made by Big Tobacco which said its own industry funded health body would protect the public from from the dangers of cigarettes America paid a steep price for for that absurd, absurd claim. Now our kids are paying a steep price by allowing industry funded social media marketer Common Sense Media to render safety judgments about our kids screens and tech. Common Sense Media's messaging promoting screens and social media to an audience of kids weighted towards kids of color is racist and dangerous. So how does Common Sense Media attempt to cover it up With a sleight of hand that would make any PR damage control expert proud. Jim Steyer's message to parents reading his book Talking Back to Facebook is straightforward. He says that today's digital technologies are addictive compulsion and that they steal kids time away from being physically active, putting an effort into homework and engaging with family. He describes how kids numerous developmental vulnerabilities make them profoundly susceptible to these addictive technologies. He tells parents that it's their responsibility to assert control over their kids technology, telling readers that he and his wife kept strict limits on his own kids use of digital media. Steyer is right in in my book Better Than Real Life, I reveal how Silicon Valley uses its secret science of persuasive design to steal kids away from all things real world to live out their lives staring at screens. I show how boys and girls specific gender based developmental vulnerabilities are exploited by world leading brain scientists in order to hook them onto screens. I therefore describe why our kids need to be protected from social media and other persuasively designed addictive technologies. Yet Common Sense Media sends the very opposite message provided by myself and Steyer through its Digital Citizenship curriculum. As we've seen, the curriculum does everything it can to convince kids that screen time and social media are essentially safe and to justify pushing kids onto screens and social media. Common Sense Media promotes the belief through its Digital Citizenship curriculum that kids can be empowered themselves to gain control over their use of consumer technologies. As a 2024 Common Sense Media report tells us, the launch of the organization's Digital Citizenship curriculum years back spearheaded a shift from the fear based and protectionist online safety curricula of the time to a more empowering student centered pedagogy or teaching that encouraged young people to think critically about their digital lives and participate in safe, healthy and responsible ways. Doesn't that sound nice? But can Common Sense Media really empower kids to safely use digital technologies? The same one Steyer says to parents reading his books that they should limit? The reality is that children and even teens are developmentally incapable of defending themselves against social media and other consumer technologies that increasingly employ AI to trap them in virtual domains. The Proof is in the pudding as this generation of kids, especially vulnerable kids of color, is being pulled onto screens for essentially the bulk of their childhood and suffer physically and academically as a result. So why on earth would Common Sense Media try to sell the public the ability of its digital citizenship curriculum to empower kids healthy use of digital technologies? The reality is that this is a slick PR move that shifts the responsibility for protecting kids away from the industry which makes the harmful products onto kids themselves. It's another demonstration that Common Sense Media's true business purpose is not to protect kids, but instead is to protect its social media and industry funders ability to sell more screens to kids even if these digital products harm kids. If Common Sense Media's true intention was to help kids, it would reject the false messaging of empowerment sent especially to vulnerable kids, and instead advocate that all children receive the same science based on low screen childhood that Steyer advocates for his for in his books and the one provided the one that he provided his own kids. This is where I need to talk about something difficult How Common Sense Media misleads and victimizes good people I've met many good, smart parents as well as people in leadership roles at schools and in healthcare who have dedicated their lives to helping kids, yet who have been misled by the polished salesmanship of Common Sense Media. This is understandable as the organization has such a powerful and seemingly trustworthy platform. I also believe good people are misled by Common Sense Media as it's almost unfathomable that an organization would actually work so openly against kids health for the sake of profit. And it's difficult to believe that Common Sense Media would enlist educators, health care providers and other child caregivers to convey its anti science pro screen, pro industry, pro social media messaging. But the evidence is impossible to ignore. I've also worked alongside caring, talented people who work directly for Common Sense Media, including those whose good efforts have benefited kids. Common Sense Media is such a large organization that it's not monolithic. Smaller elements within the organization take action to help kids. However, the overall thrust of Common Sense Media is to take Silicon Valley industry money and abuse the public's trust by promoting even harmful social media and screen time to kids. I believe that Jim Steyer and those at the very highest levels and positions at Common Sense Media are well aware that the organization is not the independent child health body that it claims to be, and that the organization works primarily to benefit industry, even at the expense of kids health. In media interviews, Steyer claims that Common Sense Media can take industry money and still be independent, so he clearly understands how his business works. Yet such a practice is considered extraordinarily unethical for those who make judgments about our kids health. In contrast, I am certain that the overall business purpose of Common Sense Media is unknown to those who carry out the organization's teachings directly to kids and parents. This includes good teachers, the good teachers tasked with providing kids the digital citizenship curriculum. I'm sure that these caring, dedicated people simply believe they are helping kids. So while I feel it's important to reveal the true nature of how Common Sense Media is misleading the nation and hurting kids, I also understand how difficult of a message this is likely for many to hear. I imagine it's much like finding out that a trusted friend has betrayed not only you, but your kids. We have seen how current class action court documents are revealing Common Sense Media and its affiliates true purpose as Silicon Valley PR and marketing. Yet there is also an increasing recognition from leaders on the health and academic effects of of Kids Tech that Common Sense Media's purpose has radically changed and that the organization is now putting kids at risk. Christina denur of Smartphone Free Childhood US writes in her article how to identify propaganda from Big Tech when you see it. She tells us we live in a world where Big Tech exerts influence over many of our country's most prominent children's advocacy and health organizations, including Common Sense Media. Likewise, Emily Churkin, author of the Screen Time Solution, writes the article five organizations who take big money from tech that you should know about. She says Common Sense Media is no longer the advocate for children it once was, and this is disheartening to many of us who previously relied on their recommendations and and research. Sadly, today Common Sense Media is a multinational tech industry lobbying organization taking funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Churkin also makes clear that schools are victims of Common Sense Media's misleading tactics. Denise Champney, a speech language pathologist and substack writer, also exposes Common Sense Media's lobbying for ed tech interests in the Educational Technology Industrial Complex Timeline, which describes how big money from educational technology corporations is reshaping our kids education for their benefit, not that of kids. Champney names Common Sense Media as a key marketer of educational tech products with its list of funders who profit from putting on more screens in our schools being very long, I will put links to these three important articles in the description. If you remain uncertain about the true intentions of Common Sense Media, I encourage you to more carefully compare the health advice provided by its founder and CEO, Jim Steyer and his books with that of the digital citizenship curriculum and the organization's official reports. In his book, Steyer describes how he raised his own kids based on the science of strict screen and social media limits. This is truly the very opposite of what Common Sense Media recommends for other kids. There is no and never will be any justification for this. Okay, let's talk about actions that protect kids from Common Sense Media's misleading or racist and harmful screen and health recommendations. First to schools, I encourage you to protect your students and yourselves by cutting all ties with Common Sense Media. The recent release of court documents from a class action lawsuit describes Common Sense Media and its affiliated entities to be social media marketers. It is therefore unethical and I believe it illegal for schools to provide their students the Common Sense Media digital citizenship curriculum. Sure, the program is labeled as educational, but the truth is that it's outright industry funded marketing of social media and other screens to kids during the school day. A November 2025 Time magazine article describes the lawsuit which is suing the parent companies of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. The article quotes Previn Warren, the co lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, who says like tobacco, this is a situation where there are dangerous products that were marketed to kids. The social media companies did it anyway because more usage meant more profits for the company, schools and districts. This is really important to understand. It is Common Sense Media and its affiliates who are marketing these dangerous products to your students. While Common Sense Media is not named as a defendant, documents from the lawsuit reveal that the organization or its affiliates have been paid by the parties named in the lawsuit, including TikTok and YouTube, to act as marketers for the social media companies. As I've discussed in this podcast, Common Sense Media has been funded by Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, which is named in the suit and is a corporate partner with Snap, which is also named in the suit. As court documents read, TikTok's sponsored partnership with groups such as Common Sense Networks was not a safety initiative, but a coordinated public relations campaign. Like Big Tobacco and Juul, TikTok repackaged corporate promotion as public education, exploiting schools and parents trust to entrench its platform among youth. Common Sense Networks is a for profit affiliate of Common Sense Media. While it makes sense that this current class action lawsuit is naming the harm done by social media companies, I believe that similar lawsuits will soon be naming Common Sense Media as a defendant because of its role in marketing social media to kids while claiming to be an independent health body However, I also believe it's likely that schools and districts will also be named in these lawsuits because they provide that their students Common Sense Media's marketing of social media and screens through the Digital Citizenship curriculum Attendance laws mandating that kids attend schools make it so that schools and districts are accountable for the health effects of programs shown to kids during the school day. Legal discovery in this class action lawsuit appears to reveal that social media companies are aware that their products are harmful and addictive, but promoted them to kids anyway. An internal document revealed in the lawsuit shows that a Meta employee acknowledged Instagram is a drug and were basically pushers. The lawsuit also quotes a TikTok report noting that minors do not have executive mental function to control their screen time and Snapchat executives once acknowledged that users who have the Snapchat addiction have no room for anything else. SNAP dominates their life schools and districts it's important to understand that the Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship curriculum shown to your students during the school day actually encourages their active use of social media that puts schools and districts in a scary legal position. I also believe that Common Sense Media and the schools that provide its teachings are open to future lawsuits that will seek compensation because the digital citizenship curriculum claims that screen time is less important and may even help kids. This opens up Common Sense Media and schools to a wide range of plane of seeking compensation for the emotional and extreme financial costs of treating screen time caused child obesity and its related illnesses such as type 2 diabetes. Class action lawsuits which name Common Sense Media in schools are not difficult to prosecute. A Variety magazine article which discussed Common Sense Media's creation of its for profit subsidiary Common Sense Networks reports that Jim Steyer insisted that the formation of the for profit Kids Media Division doesn't present any conflicts with Common Sense Media's core goals. Such bogus claims will not hold up in a court of law and I believe that Steyer would have difficulty describing why. Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship curriculum provides screen health health recommendations that are the opposite of the science based recommendations he provides in his books and said were important for his own kids. One word best describes Common Sense Media and its affiliates getting paid by social media corporations to market their products to kids while also claiming to be independent in its judgment of the health effects of of screens Dirty Schools for the sake of your students health and academic success, but also to protect yourselves from the financial consequences of lawsuits, I encourage you to immediately cut all ties with Common Sense Media and its digital citizenship curriculum. Parents, I encourage you to stand up to the harmful marketing of dangerous products to your kids during the school day. Common Sense Media's use of its digital citizenship curriculum to promote social media and screens directly to kids during the school day away from the watchful eye of parents is putting kids physical health and academic success at risk. This program also undermines parents good efforts to limit their kids access to social media and screens as I describe in my book Better Than Real Life the Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Curriculum Lesson My social media life promotes the benefits of social media to seventh graders, many of whom are 12 years of age and are therefore not allowed to be on typical social media sites which are age related restricted to 13 and up. Parents. I therefore encourage you to join together with other concerned parents at your child's school to approach administration to demand that your school discontinue its use of the Common Sense Media digital citizenship curriculum. You can also explain that you do not consent to your kids being shown a dangerous industry funded screen and social media marketing program labeled as educational during the school day. Parents, if you don't get the response that you were looking for, you can refer schools and districts to this podcast. I would also have your school district's legal representation hear your concerns. The world is now waking up to the harm done to children by social media companies. In such an environment, school attorneys will likely recognize how schools put themselves in great legal and financial peril by showing their students industry funded Common Sense Media's anti science social media promotions during the school day. So what should schools do if they need a replacement for the Common Sense Media program? At the school and district level, representatives that I speak with are now recognizing that Common Sense Media's digital citizenship curriculum should not be shown to their students because it breaks conflict of interest policies. However, for certain schools to receive federal funding, policy mandates that they provide some form of instruction to kids about safe and responsible use of technology and online behavior. What should schools provide to their students that will in fact help them use screens and technology safely? Schools will help kids by showing them programs outlining how social media and other consumer technologies are built to be addictive and therefore threaten the chances that students will achieve their own goals such as attending college. Science based school programs about screens and technology should also help kids reduce their profound overuse of screens to instead have them encourage engage in physical activity, reading, homework and extracurricular activities shown to promote physical health and academic success. So what can real, truly independent science based healthcare researchers and organizations do to protect kids from misleading, racist and dangerous common sense media? You need to tell the truth. The fact that Common Sense Media, a Zuckerberg funded organization that profits by putting kids before screens, has been able to hijack pop culture. Messaging about the health effects of screens is both embarrassing and and an epic public health failure. Common Sense Media's false claims, such as screen time being less important to children's health, have gone almost completely unchallenged by the established health community. The health community's silence about Common Sense Media's dangerous misinformation is putting a generation of kids at increased risk for obesity and its related diseases. So why haven't good independent child health organizations spoken out against this misleading information and harm done to kids? I believe that Common Sense Media's powerful and far reaching industry funded storefront claiming to protect kids is so persuasive that it has lulled the child health community into complacency. Common Sense Media's ability to fool and silence even health experts will go down as one of the greatest PR coups of of all time to fix this health tragedy. Objective child health organizations should take these four actions. Number one Speak out against the industry funded quackery of Common Sense Media and its digital citizenship curriculum which works against science by minimizing concerns about kids screen time and use of social media. Explain that the digital citizenship curriculum is dangerous and should not be shown in schools. Number two do everything you can to bring forward the real science which exists in peer reviewed literature showing that screens and social media pose serious health risks to kids. Number three ensure that all families, no matter their race or income level, get the same sex science based recommendations to limit screen time to promote kids physical activity and other real world engagement necessary for healthy child development and number four, advocate for national, state and local policies that limit all kids screen time and instead provide them access to quality screen free alternatives including after school programs, extracurricular activities and safe outdoor spaces. As I conclude this podcast, it's important to recognize that Common Sense Media's racist and harmful digital citizenship curriculum is only one of many symptoms that it is a corrupt organization doing tremendous harm to a generation of children. I have focused here on Common Sense Media providing anti science harmful screen health recommendations to an audience weighted towards Black Latino youth while providing science based healthful screen recommendations to a relatively affluent audience. While this is inexcusable and is putting a nation of vulnerable kids of color at risk, such an action is a symptom of a more wide scale problem. As I describe in my book Better Than Real Life, Common Sense Media is not what it claims to be. Common Sense Media is not an independent organization judging the health effects of screens, but is in fact a Silicon Valley funded PR and marketing body pushing harmful screens and social media on a nation of kids already drowning in screens at home and school. I believe it is the organization more than any other responsible for stealing childhood away from essential real world activities to be lived on destructive social media, smartphones, video games and other addictive screens. And as an ed tech lobbyist, Common Sense Media is leading the charge to diminish kids human based education to replace it with more and more screens in school. It does all this while promising it is your trusted friend. I therefore call for not only the termination of the Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship curriculum, but also Common Sense Media itself as those who care about children look for true health guidance about screens and social media. Understand that Common Sense Media rose to prominence as the most powerful pop culture screen health organization in our nation because its shiny and far reaching platform is funded by Silicon Valley's millions of as you seek the truth about the health effects of screens, look instead for more modest platforms and to those who refuse industry money and simply devote themselves to our children's health and well being. Take care and I will see you soon.