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Opinion | I lost my child to social media. Kids over Clicks can protect Michigan families
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I lost my child to social media.
Kids Over Clicks can help protect other Michigan families.
Time stopped the day I lost my daughter, London Izabella-Ryén Gadd.
London was a kind, sensitive 12-year-old with a heart bigger than most adults. She loved soccer and played year-round. She loved to read — even her Bible, which still sits beside her bed exactly where she left it. She had a servant’s heart and dreamed of enlisting in the Air Force, with plans of becoming a commercial pilot one day.
She had a future.
She had purpose.
She had everything to live for.
On August 1, 2024, those dreams — and the greatest love of my life — were taken.
Not by chance.
Not by accident.
But by social media platforms that manipulated my daughter through an addictive algorithm designed to exploit her attention for profit.
Social media opened a trapdoor beneath her — pulling her into a spiral of despair I could not see in time to stop.
I am not the first parent this has happened to.
And without action, I will not be the last.
Unless we act now, more families will experience the kind of grief that does not have a bottom – the kind of silence that fills a child’s bedroom after they are gone.
The time is long overdue to hold Big Tech accountable for designing products that put profit over the safety and lives of our children.
The Kids Over Clicks legislative package is a critical step forward.
This legislation requires social media companies and their billionaire owners to design safer products — to prioritize the wellbeing of children over engagement metrics and ad revenue.
Because right now, the system is working exactly as designed — and it is harming our kids.
Like many children, London used social media for innocent things — fashion, makeup, trends. What started as harmless curiosity quickly turned into something far more dangerous.
She would search benign topics — even something as simple as alligator skin boots — and the algorithm would respond by feeding her self-harm and suicide-related content.
That is not coincidence.
That is design.
An algorithm, built to learn her vulnerabilities, pulled her deeper into a dark and dangerous digital environment that no child should ever be exposed to.
Like many families, we had rules.
We had boundaries.
We limited screen time.
I took her phone at night.
We put our phones away at the dinner table.
But here is the truth no parent is prepared for: The algorithm does not stop just because we do.
It is relentless.
It is adaptive.
And it is far more powerful than any parental control.
Every parent in Michigan should be deeply concerned about what is being delivered to their child’s screen — because we do not choose it.
The algorithm does.
And no parent, no matter how involved or vigilant, can compete with multibillion-dollar companies like Meta and Google, who own platforms like Facebook and YouTube, and whose entire business model depends on keeping children engaged for as long as possible.
Social media companies like TikTok, Snapchat, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Facebook know exactly what they are doing.
Their profits depend on it.
The longer a child stays on their platform, the more data is collected, the more ads are served, and the more money is made.
Children are not the users.
They are the product.
And the numbers prove it.
Children under 18 generate at least $11 billion in revenue for social media companies.
YouTube had nearly 50 million US users under 18.
TikTok had 19 million.
Snapchat had 18 million.
Instagram had 17 million.
And over $2 billion of that revenue came from children under the age of 12.
At the same time, these companies take very different approaches in other countries. For example, TikTok’s version in China promotes educational and inspirational content to children — a clear indication that they understand the risks.
They know the harm.
They just don’t apply those protections here.
Billionaire executives like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk operate in a system where accountability is minimal, and the burden is placed on parents — who are simply no match for the scale, power, and design of these platforms.
Kids Over Clicks changes that.
It gives parents a fighting chance.
It requires meaningful safety measures, limits harmful notification patterns that drive addiction, and forces companies to take responsibility for the environments they are creating for children.
This is not about limiting innovation.
This is about protecting lives.
I lost my child because an algorithm flooded her screen with content designed to keep her engaged — and in doing so, turned her into a revenue stream.
We now know — from multiple court cases — that social media platforms are intentionally designed to be addictive and can be dangerous to children.
The question is no longer whether harm exists.
The question is whether we are willing to act.
I am asking the Michigan Legislature to pass Kids Over Clicks.
Because no parent should ever have to sit in a silent bedroom, like I did on August 2, 2024…
…wondering what more they could have done…
…after an algorithm took their child down a path they could not escape.
This is preventable.
But only if we act.
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