The Alexander Neville Foundation and VOID held a successful rally in Santa Monica outside of Snapchat’s headquarters to save our youth. The group received widespread news coverage. The event, which aimed to pressure Snapchat to adopt a Duty of Care and 3rd party auditing, attracted a large number of attendees and featured several guest speakers who shared their experiences and insights.

Among the speakers were Marc Berkman from the Organization for Social Media Safety, Dr. Laura Berman and Sam Chapman from Parents for Safer Children, and Rose Bronstein from Buckets Over Bullying. They spoke passionately about the need for social media platforms to do more to protect young people from exploitation, drug deaths, and other harms that occur via their platforms.

The rally also highlighted the ease with which drug dealers, sex traffickers, bullies, and other types of exploitation can use Snapchat and other social media platforms to target vulnerable young people. This message resonated with attendees, many of whom shared their own stories of online exploitation or the exploitation of loved ones.

The event was covered by several news outlets, and the message of the rally reached a wide audience. Many media outlets reported on the urgent need for social media platforms to take more responsibility for the safety of their users, especially young people.

The success of the rally was a testament to the dedication of the Alexander Neville Foundation and VOID, who are committed to raising awareness about the dangers of social media exploitation. Their efforts to pressure Snapchat to do more to protect young people are an important step in creating a safer and more supportive online community for all.