While social media has its perks, it also comes with a host of dangers. Marc Berkman, CEO of the Organization for Social Media Safety, joined TheStreet to discuss these often-ignored threats and how Congress should address them.
Full Video Transcript Below:
J.D. DURKIN: When it comes to social media safety in general, Marc, what do you think is not being talked enough about?
MARC BERKMAN: Well, I really appreciate that question. So getting a lot of news coverage here. And you mentioned bipartisanship. Social media safety is an issue where we're seeing policymakers of all ideological stripes join together to confront this issue. What I want to stress is, despite the recent press on this, congressional hearings, people are still not really understanding at home how severe and pervasive these harms actually are. We are seeing massive cyberbullying across the country that is resulting in suicides and other really serious outcomes. We are seeing human trafficking, sextortion, drug trafficking, long list of mental health impacts. So a really long list of harms that are hurting millions of children. We have legislation pending both in Congress, in some states across the country that would require social media platforms that give services to children, allow children on to finally give parents the choice to use what we call third party safety software. That is software that can send parents lifesaving alerts when dangerous content like those dangerous I just mentioned comes across a child's social media account. It's a proven life saving intervention. Some social media platforms allow that choice. Others do not. We're trying to make sure that all parents on all platforms have it.
