It was an emotional phone call. It was the morning of a significant announcement when I called Lori Schott, a parent who lost her daughter, Annalee, to suicide fueled by social media. I called her to tell her about the historic settlement we achieved with Meta (parent company of both Instagram and Facebook) and we were both near tears. What I said to Lori in that call was that this accountability was her achievement alongside every parent who lost a child under similar circumstances. After the settlement was announced, Lori said publicly that these changes “won’t bring our kids back, but if we can protect other kids and change the trajectory of the power that these companies had and bring our children back into a more human world, we are going to keep telling that message.” 

The message carried by Lori and other parents who lost kids has made a difference. As Attorney General and our next Governor, my commitment is to listen to those who have suffered and work to find purpose and a path to repair. It is important to me that the memories of those we have lost–like Lori’s daughter Annalee–live on as a blessing. I think that’s what she was getting at when she said that “even though [the children we lost to suicide are] not here on this earth right now, their impact is going to have an effect that lasts for generations.”

In both my work on the opioid crisis and on the youth mental health crisis, I have gotten to know parents like Lori who lost their kids. I am both heartbroken and in awe of parents who have lost their children and from that loss found purpose to fight for our kids, which is why we are now running an advertisement acknowledging their pain and calling on all of us to do better for our kids. You can watch our ad, “Future,” here.

My focus on the youth mental crisis started during the pandemic, when I recognized how young people were hurting. That led to a public-private partnership, Healthy Youth/Strong Colorado, which provided $5 million in grants for worthy organizations addressing the issue (as discussed in this article). I built on that commitment with an additional grant program that invested in upstream mental health for young people, using the $31 million we received from suing JUUL (as discussed here). And I have made youth mental health a focus of my campaign to serve as Colorado’s next Governor, promising to build a youth mentoring program (called HOPE) and to call young people to service in ColoradoCorps, as I explain here. We have important work ahead. Surveys of students in high school, for example, have found that those feeling sadness and hopelessness rose from 30% in 2013 to 40% in 2023.  

As I said in our ad, Future, we must regulate Big Tech to protect our kids. The action my office led against Meta promises to be a turning point in this effort. The litigation we led was inspired by those we lost, like Annalee, and demonstrated that Meta’s story they told the public–that there was no cause for concern–was a lie. At trial, we introduced powerful evidence, including Meta employees who remarked that “Instagram is a drug” and “we’re basically pushers,” and that getting young kids online–and keeping them online–was an “overall company goal” and “critical to the success of Instagram.” Because of the power of our case, Meta was pushed to the bargaining table and offered a meaningful set of changes.

When the case was settled, a lot of the headlines were about the eye-popping number: $18 billion nationwide. But our focus was not just on ensuring these companies paid for the harm they caused, but also to force them to make meaningful changes in their behavior and how their companies operate–changes that we would not have received had we litigated the case to a final judgment. Notably, the settlement includes requirements like:

• A two-hour daily limit. (around 40% of teens use social media more than 5 hours per day.)
• An end to notifications, alerts, and prompts to go online between midnight to 6 a.m., allowing kids to sleep.
• Ending notifications during school hours. (The average child is online for one hour during each school day.)
• An end to beauty filters that mimic cosmetic surgery.
• No more public “like” counts.
• Prompts to take a break and put down their phones.

These are not suggestions. They are requirements, enforced by an oversight committee of state AGs and an independent auditor. They are also going to get stricter once we bring on board other social media platforms (think: TikTok, Snap, and YouTube), as this is an industry-wide problem.

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The work on the Meta litigation and settlement has landed with a bigger impact than I expected. It is as if the public was waiting–perhaps since a Meta whistleblower, Frances Haugen’s testimony to Congress in the fall of 2021–for someone to finally take a stand for our kids. It was not Congress that took action. It was a bipartisan state AG coalition–led by Colorado–that did so and, in so doing, honored the memory of Annalee and so many other kids who died by suicides fueled by social media. We have much more to do, including ensuring that these requirements apply to all social media platforms, but this action was a powerful step forward. And I will treasure my call to Lori letting her know that Annalee’s death by suicide was part of a nationwide call to action.