On a video call with grieving parents two years ago, Megan Garcia shared how she had lost her son, Sewell.
For months, the 14-year-old had compulsively turned to an artificial intelligence chatbot character created by Character.AI, she said. He later confessed suicidal thoughts to it, after which the bot encouraged him to take his life, she added.
Everyone wept. Most of the parents had also lost their children. Except they faulted social media, not specifically AI, for creating dangers.
“There were so many echoes to what we experienced, and we thought, ‘When is this ever going to end?’” said Julianna Arnold, who said her 17-year-old daughter, Coco, died in 2022 after meeting a man on Instagram who gave her fentanyl. “We knew then that AI was our issue, too.”
For years, parents who say they have lost their children to social-media-related harms have fought to draw attention to safety risks for youths online. They have lobbied lawmakers to force apps like Instagram and TikTok to limit features that could heighten depression or bullying or lead to sexual exploitation or drug overdose.
But as technology has raced ahead, a new generation of parents is reeling. They say they lost their children to suicide after AI chatbots egged them on. In a bittersweet collaboration, the two sets of parents are now combining forces in an attempt to force change.
They are crashing congressional hearings and swarming state legislatures, demanding laws that put better guardrails around both technologies. Dozens of parents have shown up in Los Angeles to draw attention to a landmark social media addiction trial, which seeks to hold tech companies accountable over claims of personal injury. The trial is heading into closing arguments, and a verdict is expected this month.
Their aim: to finally push a child safety reckoning for tech giants, much like the one that came for Big Tobacco last century.
“Same problems, just called a different technology,” said Arnold, who leads the advocacy group Parents Rise. “But it’s happening much faster with AI, and we see that the companies are acting faster to try to get ahead of legislation.”
Concerns about the effects of tech on youths are mounting globally. In December, Australia barred children under 16 from using social media. Malaysia, Spain and Denmark are considering similar rules.
But parents face an uphill battle in the United States. Dozens of federal bills to regulate social media have failed in the wake of tech lobbying and concerns about limiting the free speech rights of teenagers.
Congressional support to regulate AI has been even weaker. President Donald Trump has pushed for giving the companies free rein to win a technology race with China and has threatened states that pass AI laws. AI companies and their executives have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into super political action committees aimed at electing AI-friendly candidates in November.
Social media and AI companies both say they have added safety features and more parental controls to their products. Character.AI, which is licensed by Google, introduced age restrictions. Google and Character.AI settled a lawsuit with Garcia and other parents over their children’s deaths for undisclosed terms.
“Providing young people with a safe, healthy experience has always been core to our work,” José Castañeda, a spokesperson for Google, said in a statement. “We’re applying that same responsible approach as we develop AI products.”
“No one should have to experience the pain these families have felt,” said Edward Patterson, a spokesperson for Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, in a statement. “We will continue listening to parents, working with experts and law enforcement and conducting in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most.”
Three years ago, when Arnold started her child safety fight, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok were the hottest platforms for teenagers. ChatGPT had been on the market less than a year. (TikTok; Snap, the owner of Snapchat; and OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)
Arnold joined a group of parents who made frequent appearances in Washington, pushing for legislation like the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, which would have forced social media companies to design their platforms to be less addictive and harmful. They attended child safety hearings and appeared at news conferences alongside senators to tell their stories.
At one Senate hearing in 2024, Arnold was among more than a dozen parents in the room holding photos of their deceased children. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, was pressured into standing and facing the parents to apologise.
“I was so angry seeing him face us, but also it felt like things might actually change at that time,” Arnold said.
They didn’t. The Kids Online Safety Act was passed overwhelmingly in the Senate but failed in the House. In early 2025, Arnold founded Parents Rise with nine other families to also focus on state-level lobbying for child safety.
That fall, 64% of teenagers in a survey for the Pew Research Center said they were using chatbots. Parents like Garcia began speaking out about how AI harmed their children. They sought out groups like Arnold’s.
And stories like Sewell’s helped shift the national child online safety conversation to AI.
In December, the parents became aware of an effort by lawmakers to quash all state efforts to regulate AI. Last year, 38 states enacted 100 AI-related laws, many focused on safety, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
They trekked again to Washington to protest outside the National Gallery of Art. They lit up a side of the gallery with a projected message: “Don’t Let AI Buy the Government.”
Lori Schott, who was at the evening protest, said she had lost her 18-year-old daughter, Annalee, to suicide in 2020 after Annalee slipped down a rabbit hole of toxic content on Instagram, Snap and TikTok.
“Annalee grew up in a digital world that had no safety standards, no guardrails, no meaningful oversight, and with AI, that’s just accelerating,” Schott said.
Arnold and other parents visited the offices of senior lawmakers, including a meeting with staff for the Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota. They said Thune’s office would not say if he supported their cause. Other requests for meetings with lawmakers were denied.
This month, the parents mobilised again, protesting on Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers to adopt stronger measures in a new House draft version of the Kids Online Safety Act. They called for protections including forcing the companies to proactively mitigate the most serious harms they pose to children and to find ways to identify minors who are lying about their age.
They have also staked out the Los Angeles courthouse where the landmark trial is underway, the first in a series of cases accusing Meta, YouTube, Snap and TikTok of creating addictive technologies that harm young people.
The companies deny the allegations. But a victory for the plaintiff could result in huge monetary penalties and potential changes to the platforms.
Schott slept in front of the courthouse overnight with other parents to be at the front of the line to get in to hear the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, testify February 11.
“It’s been a very long three weeks,” Schott said of the trial. “And it’s been a very long road – years – before the trial.” – ©2026 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Those suffering from problems can reach out to the Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service at 03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392; Talian Kasih at 15999 or 019-261 5999 on WhatsApp; Jakim’s (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) family, social and community care centre at 0111-959 8214 on WhatsApp; and Befrienders Kuala Lumpur at 03-7627 2929 or go to befrienders.org.my/centre-in-malaysia for a full list of numbers nationwide and operating hours, or email sam@befrienders.org.my.
