Sex, Drugs, and Social Media - Part 2

In Part Two, a retired agent-in-charge from the DEA, an agent-in-charge from Homeland Security Investigations and a cyber crimes investigator discuss how easy it is for a child to order an illicit drug through apps like SnapChat and Tik Tok, and what they’re doing to stop it. Also, two fathers who lost kids to fentanyl poisoning talk about the tragedy of not only losing a loved one, but the inaction of lawmakers to stop it from happening to others. We also welcome a representative from a software company that is working to give parents the ability to monitor their children’s digital activity 24/7. Sex, Drugs, and Social Media is hosted by Steve Gregory and Araksya Karapetyan and is produced by Steve Gregory, Jacob Gonzalez, and Richie Quintero. 

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
KFI AM six forty heard everywhere onthe iHeartRadio app. In twenty twenty one,
the DEA investigated more than eighty casesof drug trafficking on internet apps,
with the majority of victims being twelveto seventeen years old. Just five years

(00:24):
ago, fentanyl related deaths were veryrare in California. Now, a young
person under twenty four years old isdying every twelve hours, according to the
California Department of Public Health. That'sa one thousand percent increase from twenty eighteen.
Since twenty eighteen, emergency rooms inCalifornia have reported three times the number
of drug related cases of people tento nineteen years old. In the Los

(00:46):
Angeles Unified School District, seven studentsodeed on drugs laced with fentanyl, including
a fifteen year old high school girlwho passed away. Of the kids twelve
to seventeen years old in La Countywho died from a drug overdose in twenty
twenty, one percent tested positive forfentanyl. One parent who lost his fifteen
year old son to fentanyl poisoning saidhis child was able to order the drugs

(01:07):
on Snapchat and have them delivered totheir home as easy as ordering a pizza.
For the next two hours, weexplore the dangers of kids, social
media and online behavior. We inviteda studio audience and guests from law enforcement,
parents of kids who died because ofsocial media, and experts who can
help parents identify the problems associated withsex, drugs, and social media.

(01:30):
I'd Seve Gregory with KFI News alongwith Aroxy Carpathian from Fox eleven here in
Los Angeles. In this next couplehours, we're going to talk about the
drug trade and how social media hashelped to exacerbate it. One of the
individuals that can really dig deep inthis topic is Bill Bodner. He is
most recently known as a special Agentin charge for the DEA here in Los

(01:51):
Angeles, very recently retired. Andnow, Bill, you have a private
company, you're a consultant. Tellus all about that. Sure, right
now? I started a business calledRevealo Investigations and Consulting and we do work,
private investigative work, consulting work.A lot of it still focuses on
the drug space. But it's beeninteresting. It's been definitely a change.
So it's been healthy, healthy retirementfrom DEA. Well, then one of

(02:14):
the reasons I wanted to have youhere in ROXY and I wanted to talk
to you is that you spent somany years not only in the service of
the federal government, but in theDEA and in our many interviews together.
You know, you've given me somevery shocking information about just how the drugs
flow across the border. I wantto go back and talk about sort of
the history of fentanyl, because that'sthe biggie right now. Talk about where

(02:37):
fentyl's coming from, historically, whereit started, and when you first were
made aware of it. Yeah,so I would say at first started becoming
a problem around twenty thirteen twenty fourteen. Don't forget, Steve, that the
height of the prescription opiate epidemic inthis country was twenty twelve, two hundred
and fifty five million opiate prescriptions.The adult population of the United States was

(03:00):
two hundred and thirty four million.So does that mean everybody was on an
opiate. No, that means alot of people were on a lot of
opiates. So as those prescriptions weredialed back and we had more effective prescribing,
et cetera, prescriptions went down,but we saw people step in and
start making fake prescription drugs. Andthat's where we first saw ventanyl. Now

(03:22):
at that time, it was comingdirect from China, so people would order
it on the dark web. Theywould get small packages by let's say DHL
or some other international courier. Theywould press pills themselves and put them out
on the market as if they werelegitimate prescription drugs. And this is as
I said, twenty twelve through maybetwenty fifteen sixteen. At that time,

(03:43):
that's when I saw the Mexican drugcartels really taken interest in creating fake prescription
drugs. And what they did isthey said, Wow, Big Pharma has
done all the marketing for us.We know now what the Americans want,
what they're looking for. We cancreate these pills. We don't have to
do medical testing, we don't haveto have pristine, clean labs. We

(04:03):
can make them in our current drugcreation facilities, so to speak. And
they started kind of flooding the USwith fentanyl, especially press pills that look
like prescription drugs. And that's wherethe danger is, especially to our kids.
Right. But you're talking, you'retalking percocet, vicoin oh yeah,
at aerall, x xanax. Theseare things that are common for young people

(04:25):
to experiment with or to take withoutmuch thought. Just it's so highly potent
that I don't know if people realizewhen we talk about it, fifty percent
more potent than heroin, fifty timesfifty times more potent than heroin. So
people are exposed to this stuff withouteven knowing at times they're exposed to this
stuff. Such a great point becausea lot of times people ask me,

(04:46):
like, hey, what has causedthis huge incremental increase in harm in our
community. One of the keywords isa deception. We haven't really had that.
If you look back thirty years ago, we didn't really have a drug
dealer saying he's selling you one thing. He's selling you something very different.
Deception is a huge part of themarketing today, where people in this country
have the feeling that prescription drugs aresafe or you know, hey, this

(05:10):
percoset, it can't be that dangerous. I mean I got it when I
had a tooth pulled or something tothat effect. The reality is is the
deception piece. There is no pharmaceuticalingredients in these drugs, none at all.
The active ingredient is fent no lon. Theer's of course, other binders
and fillers, they put stamps onthem, coloring size. Wait, everything
else is identical to the prescription drug. And that is that word deception,

(05:33):
and that's where the harm's coming from. People don't know that they're getting that,
they're ingesting fentanyl. And why,I mean, you know why infuse
fentanyl? I mean, what's thetakeaway? I mean knowing that it's a
deadly drug. Yeah, and thecartels aren't they taking big risks in killing
people? It's about profitability, Steve, That's what it is. I mean,

(05:56):
it's a drug they can create incrediblycheaply. Don't forget opia. Drugs
are highly addictive. They know this. So what is the alternative for them?
Produce heroin? Right, that's aplant based drug. So in to
in order to scale production and putmore heroin on our streets, what do
they have to do? They haveto control more land. It has to
be land in Mexico where the poppyplants can grow certain climate, very specific

(06:20):
climate. They need. They needarmed gunmen to protect those lands. They
need people working in the fields,scoring the poppies, scraping the gum.
All these things are labor intensive.Or you can have a fenny lab in
a garage, move it like thatto a different state in the country,
pack it in a truck and driveit somewhere else and open it up again.

(06:42):
And you're limited not by mother nature, but you're limited only by the
amount of chemicals you can get fromChina. So it's a for them,
it's a no brainer. It's syntheticdrugs are the future, and it's a
supply determined market. That's what Itell people. The harm that we're going
to experience in this country is aresult of the drugs that the drug cartels
choose to sell over here, andthey're going to sell they get to set

(07:04):
the tone in pace. The infentanyl itself, I know it's used in
medicinal purposes and it's a it's aheavily used in surgeries, becames of that
nature. But when people get accessto fentanyl, they don't know they're taking
it. How can one even beginto distinguish the difference, or can they

(07:29):
know? They mean, no,they can't. I mean that that's the
danger of it. That's the dangerof it. They think like xanax is
a benzodiazepine, So you know,does it have the same general effect as
fentanyl? You know arguably it does. It's a sedative, it suppresses a
central nervous system, but it's avery different drug, and the drug cartel
doesn't care. They're not looking toprovide medical relief. They're not looking to

(07:54):
relieve the symptoms that you're having.They're looking to trick you and to get
you to buy a pill that you'rethen going to be addicted to and want
to buy again. Well, thatis assuming you've survived, because now there's
so many tragic stories about so manyyoung people taking it and immediately that's it.
One pill can kill. That isthe line we use because truly,
that's all it takes, is justone pill. There's also a lot of

(08:16):
misinformation, I think, or maybeeven disinformation about how fentanel works. So
if someone, let's say, ispoisoned by fentanel, right we say poisoning
rather than overdosing, and someone elsecomes near them, what is the likeliness
of them also being poisoned by fentaneljust by being in near proximity. It's

(08:37):
unlikely. It's unlikely in that scenariothat you describe, but I have seen
situations where I have seen situations.There was an incident in Saint Louis a
couple of years ago where multiple peoplein one apartment building died. A dealer
was selling crack cocaine that had fentnolmix with it, so people were smoking
it, and when first responders came, I don't know if they did mount

(09:00):
the mouth resuscitation or there was stillthat residue in the air or whatever,
but a couple of them were actuallyovercome. So it's you know, hey,
we try to dispel myths, ofcourse, but we never want to
give people an incorrect feeling of,you know, complete safety in those situations.
Now, if someone took a pillor snorted ventanyl, are you safe

(09:22):
being around them and rendering aid tothem? Absolutely, one hundred percent,
and you have to do it.But there have been strange situations where first
responders have been harmed. I waswatching this interview with this mother who lost
her son and he had taken afentanel pill, and she described the scenario
when they found him and first respondersarrived, she wasn't even loved to like
hug him or touch him. Andso that's why I was asking that question.

(09:46):
That's probably more of a law enforcementprotocol thing. They don't know they
have a death, and they don'tknow the exact circumstances yet. Their main
goal is preserve evidence and preserve apotential crime scene. But you're not going
to get poisoned by just else whopassed away from Fentando. Okay, Bill,
what is the primary concern now forlaw enforcement? I mean when you

(10:07):
used to run the DEA here inLA, you know, you're telling us
about all these things that you knowexist. But what kind of a dent
is the DEA and other law enforcementagencies making? Yeah? I think listen,
the goal of law enforcement is supplyreduction. Supply reduction is harm reduction.
That's really irrefutable. The data showsthat the CDC maintains data on prescriptions,

(10:31):
prescriptions issued by doctors and then harmcaused by those drugs, and we
can see that as a drug isavailable, more, the harm goes up
more. So we know that byreducing the supply, as law enforcement does,
we're reducing the harm. And that'sa positive. The negative is it's
just we've never before had powerful drugslike fentanyl this available, this accessible,

(10:52):
And I draw a little bit ofa distinction between those two words. And
we've also never had the deception piecethat we already spoke about. The access
ability right now is the thing thatscares me and that's where today's conversation obviously
is really important. With the socialmedia piece. We are joined by Bill
Bodner, who's retired a Special Agentcharge of the DEA, and now Drawings
is a Special Agent charge of HomelandSecurity Investigations, Agent Eddie Wong. Agent

(11:16):
Wong, we were talking with misterBodner before the break about the impact that
law enforcement is having on the influxof drugs from Mexico and cartels. As
an agent in charge of the HomelandSecurities Investigative branch, what are you seeing
on the border and how is itcoming in? Is it coming in in

(11:37):
the land borders? Is it comingfrom sea? From air? How's it
coming in? So? Los Angelesis unique. I call it the epicenter
of transnational crime because when you lookat it, there is no other jurisdiction
that sees the volume and intensity oftransnational criminal activity, in this case narcotics
trafficking than Los Angeles. Because youhave the largest combined seaport down in Long

(12:03):
Beach, Los Angeles. You haveone of the busiest international airports in the
United States, which includes air cargocoming in and out, and we're three
hours north of the Western hemisphere's busiestland border crossing. So what we see
is drug trafficking, whether it's thefinished product or the precursors to the ingredients

(12:26):
needed to produce the finished product comingin in droves from all those environments,
from the seaborne environment, air environment, and the land environment. Not only
are we seeing the narcotics the precursors, we're also seeing the narcotic manufacturing equipment,
pill presses, pill dies, allthat stuff that's needed to produce the

(12:50):
counterfeit oxy codone blue M thirty pillsthat are being sold on the streets right
now. That's all coming into theUnited States. I would say the leading
culprit in that is China. Areyou making a dent? I mean,
this is a lot of stuff you'vejust unloaded on this, But I mean

(13:13):
are your agencies are locals? Islaw enforcement making a dent? Yeah,
without a doubt, law enforcement ismaking a dent. I think I would
you know how you qualify and howyou know quantify? That is different,
right because I would look at whatis the cost of not doing this?

(13:35):
Think about it? In that way. We don't have the ability to talk
in the negative. Right if wedid not do this, what happens.
So we can certainly talk about thenumber of drugs that the amount of drugs
that we sees. We can certainlytalk about the offenders that we have locked
up, but some would say thenarcotics are still pouring in. Flip side

(13:56):
of that is what's the cost ofnot doing it. You talk to parents
who have lost children from especially recentlyduring these fentanyl poisonings. You talk to
those parents. How many more parentswould there be out there without their children
if law enforcement didn't do what theydid day and night. Social media obviously
plays a big role with all ofthis, because we talked about accessibility and

(14:18):
how this is a big issue.Someone like a plug who's a dealer online
easily is able to sell this stuff. You know, young people just like
this and emojis, they're easily ableto purchase some of this. The rainbow
fentanel pills are actually a big concernwhen I think about this, because when
you have younger kids, it lookslike candy. It really does, and

(14:39):
I cannot believe it, but I'veactually already had a conversation with my second
grader about rainbow colored fentanel pills andtried to explain to her in terms she
would understand, like this is sodangerous and this could kill you, And
the thought of having this conversation mademe very sad. But I think these
are conversations we have to have andwe can't be uncomfortable having because this is

(15:03):
happening out there. No absolutely,what you've seen, what social media has
done is it's gentrified the drug trade, the drug trafficking trade. Like you
no longer have to go into thisdangerous neighborhood wherever that may be, to
have, you know, to goout and purchase narcotics for consumption. Now

(15:26):
it's as simple as getting online lookingup something and then they'll deliver it to
your home or to a location nearby. Like you don't have to put yourself
at risk to obtain these narcotics anymore. Bill, in your time with the
DEA, were there any hot spotsin La County or in southern California that

(15:48):
was known for making these pills?I mean, were there pockets And you
know, I know the cartel wascontrolling a lot of this, but I
mean, we're members of the cartelin southern California taking those in building upon
that, or were they selling toother gangs. I mean, what's sort
of the process. I would say, not really any hotspots. I mean,
so the pills would come across theborder, or the fentanyl would come

(16:11):
across the border. And contrary towhat many people might believe or think makes
common sense, it doesn't stop inSan Diego right it crosses the border.
It comes straight to LA and thisis where it's warehouse as a special agent
charge walk set. It's because ofall the airports we have, the trucking,
the train stations. This is atransportation center for the rest of the

(16:32):
United States. So drugs come intohere first and then distributed all around the
country. So we're always going tohave, unfortunately a lot more fentanyl here
in the LA area than many othercities. LA and Phoenix right now are
the two top cities in the UnitedStates for fentanyl. And guess what the
two top counties in the United Statesfor incidents of teenage fentanyl death are what

(16:53):
Maricopa County number one, Los AngelesCounty number two. And that's just because
of the sheer quantity of drugs thereso you know, there aren't really any
hotspots other than to say like LAnationally is a hotspot. I was just
thinking, what, so, whatcan we do about this? Right?
It's what you know. You're tryingto prevent this from spreading. You do

(17:15):
your best. The drugs are pouringin. You educate younger people and the
parents. You also have to haveresources out there like Narcan, which is
a life saving agent. And thisis something the LAUSD has taken very seriously,
and now they've trained their staff andthey have Narcan at every location.
Is it something that you at homeshould also have just in case something like

(17:38):
this happens? I think so.I mean I carry Narcan. I check
my pocket to make sure I hadit with me before I said that,
but I have it with me rightnow. I'm not a drug user.
I don't know any drug users personally, but imagine finding yourself in that situation
where you So the protocol now iswhen first responders find somebody down, it's

(17:59):
the assumption that it's almost a fentanyloverdose. Now, like the first thing
that's done is administer narcan. There'sno ill effects. If that's not what
they're suffering from, that's done firstjust to say, Okay, we're here,
this person should be breathing, they'renot. Let's administer narkan. You
don't want to be the person who'snot prepared for that, especially if it's
a situation with a loved one,someone you know, etc. So I
think Narcan should be everywhere. Thereare some concerns I have just about people's

(18:26):
kind of thoughts as to it beinga miracle drug or something like that,
Like in California right now, whenNarcan is administered, the number of doses
that are administered on average is greaterthan one, meaning more often two,
three four doses are used. Notmany people carry that. I carry one
single dose, So be aware that, especially with the super powerful synthetic opiate's

(18:51):
like ventanyl and the pills getting strongerand stronger as they are right now,
it sometimes takes more than one Narcandose to revive someone. And also know
that on where this person is inthe drunk the drug use spectrum. Yeah,
you know, if they're an experimentaldrug users, you save their life,
they will be happy with you.If there's someone suffering from opiate use

(19:11):
disorder, they're going to be revivedand they're going to be extremely angry with
you because they're high. Just oneaway like that, they're now sober and
they're going to be very mad atyou. They could be combative, and
they generally will refuse any further treatment. And what happens to those people then
is they use again immediately they stillhave no lockzoone in their system, it
has no effect. They use againand they start to feel a high.

(19:34):
But then as then loxomee wears offthe multiple ingestions of fentanyl that they've now
taken, they relapse into another poisoningscenario. So there's something when we administer
narkan we have to get that personto a hospital. Just keep that in
mind. It's not like, hey, we revive you, you're good to
go walk away. No, wereally need to get that person treated by

(19:56):
a medical professional. But to answeryour questions succinctly, it should be every
and you have it on you canyou show it. So it's just for
those who don't know, it's aspray it up your nose. It's a
nat spray. I'll take it outof the package. This is one dose
and you just put it in thenoses like a little nasal spray and and
hopefully that's that's all you need todo. Yeah, we carry it in

(20:18):
the news truck. Yeah, andit should be available now over the counter
at any pharmacy. You don't needa prescription, you don't need a doctor's
order or anything like that. It'sand it's you don't need a lot of
There's not a lot of instruction toit either. It's pretty simple. The
way I put it is, ifyou have a first aid kit in your
car on the exactly, just makeit part of your first aid kit wherever
you have a first aid kid puttingthe locks on. Yeah, so minimum

(20:41):
two doses, I think the minimumtwo doses. Yeah, well I learned
that from you. Bill. Thankyou so much for being here. Always
pleasure great information we have with aspecial Agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations,
Eddie Wong, and joining is alsosergeant from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Departments Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau,Pete Hish. Gentlemen, thanks again for
being here. We're talking about we'rereally focused on drugs, an Agent Wong

(21:04):
before the break, We're really kindof talking about the process in which these
people go through in manufacturing these drugs, And you say that the chemicals are
coming over from China, and wheredo they usually go? Are they coming
right into the ports of La andLong Beach or are they going into Mexico
and then coming up. How doesit work? There's a variety of routes.

(21:26):
I would say that the transnational criminalorganizations have co opted some of the
United States legitimate trade systems, butthere's also direct routes from China and other
places in the Far East directly tothe car taks. And as homeland security
investigations, are you monitoring any ofthese cargo ships that have these particular chemicals?

(21:48):
Are you keeping an eye on Absolutely, that's one of our top priorities
here, especially given the size ofthe ports and how busy they are,
not just at the seaport but atthe airport. As you can imagine,
with the volume of stuff coming in, it makes it difficult to facilitate legitimate
trade while still trying to do ourlaw enforcement work at those ports. When

(22:15):
you look at if you've ever beento the Port of Long Beach or Port
of Los Angeles and you go andlook at one of those ships, it
is absolutely amazing at how large thoseships are and each one of those things,
each one of those containers can containlethal amounts of not only narcotics,

(22:37):
but the precursor chemicals to produce thoselethal narcotics. When you're uncovering this,
how often is it concealed or isit just out in the open? I
would say so when you talk aboutthe precursor chemical stuff, it comes across
as it depends, because those arethose can be dual use chemicals, so

(22:59):
there could be a legitimate used toit and then be there could be a
nefarious use to it. I thinksome of the ones that we concentrate on
are the ones that are obviously illicitin the importation when you look at they
were secreted, mismanifested. So ifthey said they were let's say toys,

(23:21):
and you come across you know,forty gallons of precursor chemicals, then those
are that's obviously ilicit. And thenthose are the ones that we want to
concentrate on. What's the point oforigin, origination and then what's the ultimate
destination and who's facilitating those movements.Sergeant he in Los Angeles County your jurisdiction.

(23:44):
I know you work a lot withHSI and other federal agencies. How
many times do you think your cyberand fraud unit or bureau is involved in
these operations? I know you deala lot with other types of cyber crimes.
How about drugs? How many casesdo you think you're doing where drugs
are related my particular team, it'srare. We have had drug trafficking cases

(24:10):
in the past. Matter of fact, one of them that comes to mind
was a fetanyl case where we weretipped off by actually we were given the
case from HSI to pick up aninvestigate, and we did that and it
turned out to be a person upin the Annalot Valley that was buying feanyl

(24:32):
raw fetanyl in its raw form,having a ship to a peel box up
in the Annial Valley, and thenhe was taking that and diluting it into
nasal spray and then reselling them outof the dark web. So and we
were able to identify that person,and between us and and HSI, we
we arrested him and got him convictedfederally and he did a significant amount of

(24:56):
time in prison. On the federalside. Are you finding that a lot
of these drugs move cyber through cyberAnd then we were talking about apps and
young people and the access they have. Are you seeing a lot of that
action. Yeah. The communications betweenthe drug dealers and the recipients the buyers
is i would say predominantly through socialmedia and online. It's no longer the

(25:22):
the where you're finding a drug dealeron the street corner and you're going up
to him and passing the money gettingthe drugs. It's it's it's uh you
find that, you find the dealersonline and then you might meet them somewhere
to do the exchange. But themoney is often exchanged electronically as well,
in cryptocurrency or other apps like cashapp and things like that. It's done.

(25:44):
But social media is man Snapchat inparticular is like the hotspot for illicit
narcotics activities. We talked about narKen and how important it is that basically
everyone carries one with them because youjust never know who's going to need your
help or you know what's going tohappen. If you could touch on test
strips, because that's been a bitof a controversial thing too, because many

(26:07):
people say, you know, usethese test strips to see if a pill
has levels of ENTANMLEL in it.Some people say that encourages young people perhaps
to then be testing pills, whichencourages drug use, or you can look
at it as in they're going toexperiment. They'd rather see that this drug
I was about to take could killme and stay away from it. Your

(26:30):
thoughts on that, I would say, I would leave it at this,
And it's pretty simple. That pillsit in front of me may or may
not kill me if I take it. Do I trust that test strip to
tell me if there is a lethalamount of fitnel in that pill? I
believe at that because myself, ifI had a choice, Okay, there's
a fifty percent chance this is goingto kill me, fifty percent chance it's

(26:52):
not going to kill me. Butthis strip made by somebody who I don't
even know, is going to testit and tell me, oh no,
it's safe. Okay, Am Igoing to take that pill or not?
Still, I would say test tripsare a false sense of security when it
comes to ensuring that something is oris not going to kill you. Before
we let these guys go, Iwant to open up to some questions in

(27:15):
the audience, and if you've gotsome specific questions for Agent Wong and or
Sergeantish Jacob's coming around with a microphonenow. Yes, thank you gentlemen for
your service again. I'm David fromEast Los Angeles. My question is do
we know how many people are dyingeach day or each year from fetnyl poisonings.

(27:37):
Yes, so I think what you'veseen is is that the increase.
Don't quote me on the years,but it has been steadily increasing year over
year, and I think the lastyear that statistics were available, it's either
twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three, where there's well over one hundred thousand

(27:57):
individuals in the United States have diedof fetanyl or synthetic opioid poisonings. Hi,
gentlemen, my name is Emily Mfrom Lahabra. I have a question
regarding social media in the usage offentanyl or synthetic drugs through teens. With
these quizzes, these online quizzes toself diagnose yourself if you're depressed or ADHD

(28:19):
or whatever. Have we noticed arise in the usage there. I really
can't correlate the rise in narcotics usein general to these quizzes, but what
I can say about these quizzes andthese things that pop up on your social
media feeds that want you to interact. Is that they're they're they're not good.
They're generally made to remember, socialmedia uses very powerful, sophisticated algorithms

(28:44):
to position that user in a positionto where it takes in a certain direction.
Right, So these quizzes are notedby that algorithm and will change the
content and feed them different things basedon their input into these things. And
we don't know. You know,you get you get a self diagnosis quiz?

(29:07):
Is there a scientist or a doctorbehind that doing it? Who?
Or is it just somebody who madeit up? Or what? On these
apps, you don't know who you'regetting them from. Who are these people?
Okay, you're depressed, it says, and you could use Xenix.
Click this link and we'll sell youXAX. To me, that sounds nefarious,
and that's something that I would neverdo or allow my children to do.
If I think my child's depressed,if they're indicating to me they're depressed,

(29:30):
I would take them to a professional, to a doctor to be examined
and given the proper prescription through apharmacy. That's how I would do it.
Nothing, nothing on social media isreal. I guess I could say
that nothing. Trust me when Itell you it's all craziness. Thank you
for your question. Gentlemen. That'sall the time we have for this segment.

(29:51):
I really appreciate it. It's agreat intel, great information, and
thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you joining us.
Now are two gentlemen that have greatstory used to tell us, but they
are very tragic stories. I wantto welcome Matt Cappoluto and Sam Chap Please
welcome you to Johnny. Now.I want to start with you. I've

(30:11):
attended press conferences with you in thepast and I've heard your story, but
I want you to tell everyone whyyou're sitting here today. Well, as
you mentioned, we have a tragicstory in our family. I have four
daughters. Alex one of my middledaughters, she was attending college. She

(30:37):
was on home for Christmas break,and two days before Christmas in twenty nineteen,
she, unbeknownst to us obviously,she reached out to a drug dealer
on the social media platform Snapchat.She was seeking percocet, and what the
investigation eventually uncovered was that this drugdealer, again unbeknownst to us at the

(31:03):
time, but delivered to our housecounterfeit percocet pills, pills that he marketed
as oxycodone, of which she tookhalf of one of these pills before going
to bed, and my wife foundher deceased the next morning. No parent
condones their child purchasing drugs illegally,But I want to give some backstory.

(31:29):
My daughter, from a young agewas diagnosed with what's called massive depressive disorder.
She suffered heavily from depression and anxiety. With that eventually came self medicating.
She had taken some prescription drugs inher teenage years which didn't make her

(31:51):
feel well. You know, herparents, myself and my wife, we
weren't big fans of her taking medicationsat alter you know, brain chemistry,
so we thought it was a goodthing that she stopped taking those, and
then she made her way into college. My daughter was a very bright young
lady. Her IQ was off thecharts. She was an honor student,

(32:12):
had gotten into college on a fullacademic scholarship, and for the most part
in her late teens, and shepassed when she was twenty. We kind
of thought she had a grip onthis depression. So this really blindsided us
when we found out that she wasself medicating and reaching out to drug dealers
in search of the percocet. Butwhere my advocacy comes in really is that

(32:40):
her case was originally marked non criminaland just an accidental overdose. And I
was really I couldn't believe at thetime that we were not going to go
after the person who provided these drugsand they were gonna be left to continue

(33:00):
this illegal activity. And I quicklylearned that California does not have good laws
for holding I don't even call themdrug dealers. I refer to them simply
as death dealers. We don't havea single law in California that specifically holds
these dealers accountable for causing death.And it was soon after this that we

(33:24):
came up with a very rational pieceof legislation to help address this issue,
of which we've been now fighting fornearly five years to get passed in California.
I cannot believe it's taken this longfor our legislature to address this issue.

(33:45):
To this day, we have donenothing to hold these death dealers accountable.
And equally, as much as Iblame the dealers, I have to
put this on the back of ourstate legislature who refuses to pass any laws
that will hold these dealers accountable.We came up with something very sensible known

(34:07):
as Alexander's Law. It's going beforeour state legislature for the fourth or fifth
time here in a couple months.Let me mention explain why it's very difficult
to hold a drug dealer accountable fora death in California. We are left,
our prosecutors are left with this burdenof having to prove what is known

(34:29):
as implied malice. They have toprove that the drug dealer knew the dangers
of what they were selling and thatthey could result in the death of someone.
That is very hard to prove.It's like a mindset. You have
to prove what they know in theirhead, but how do you actually prove
that. So what we did wedecided to mimic how we handle driving under

(34:52):
the influence. It's very similar lawto what holds people accountable for vehicular homicide
when they're arrested for killing somebody afterdriving intoxicated. If a drug dealer is
prosecuted, upon being found guilty,they are going to be given it admonishment

(35:13):
that makes them aware of the dangersof the drugs they're furnishing, and it
lets them know that if they continueto furnish drugs and somebody dies as a
result, they can be held accountablefor murder. This admonishment would be documented
in court records, and now thesedealers would not have a defense to say

(35:34):
which because right now they have adefense to say that I didn't know these
drugs could kill somebody, So iteliminates that defense. But more importantly,
what I believe it will do isit will deter drug dealers from becoming death
dealers. Ultimately, that's what Iwant. By the time this admonishment is

(35:55):
being used to hold somebody accountable,unfortunately death has occurred, I want to
prevent that death in the first place. I believe Alexander's Law will do that.
And if this admonishment does have tobe used to get somebody, well,
we do have to have a mechanismto get them off the streets before
they kill somebody else, because rightnow we don't. Matt Capaluta was telling

(36:19):
us a very powerful story about howhe became an advocate joining us now.
Sam Chapman a very similar story andalso individually doing advocacy and then we'll talk
a little bit about how the twoof you are working together with sam.
Why are you here today? Sowe lost our son Sammy to fentanyl poisoning
via snapchat three years ago Super BowlSunday during lockdown. We thought our kids

(36:44):
were safe at home in their roomsand we had nothing to worry about except
being isolated. But it turns outthat isolation for teens is in some cases
a death sentence because they were allonline and they went to school together,
but during breaks they got in troubletogether and dealer reached out to our son

(37:07):
on Snapchat and offered him something offa colorful drug menu at the bottom and
said we deliver and lethal dosa.Fentanyl was delivered to our home like a
pizza. After hours. Our sondidn't even have to leave our front yard
to get what killed him. Heldwas your son sixteen forever sixteen and found

(37:30):
him dead on the floor. Myyoungest son found him and screamed out.
My wife and I ran and triedto resuscitate him and failed. The PTSD
from something like that is It tooktwo years to chase that out of my
head. I couldn't even get inthe shower without you know, in the

(37:52):
shower where you don't think about things, where the gray comes to you.
It used to be my most productivetime to think, and it just got
filled with him images of death.But time does heal the hall wounds.
And you know, we call ourselvesaccidental advocates because we want to do something
to make these young lives have meaning. They were lost so young. The

(38:15):
idea that he didn't get to accomplishwhat he could have accomplished is heartbreaking for
me, So try and do itin his name. To talk about from
that, Sam, how did youand Matt get together? What brought you

(38:36):
to together? I mean, clearlythe tragedy brought you to together, but
talk about that first time you twomet. Well, So Matt and I
met in cyberspace. I had thousandsof parents reach out to me. My
wife is an OPRAH person, andthe world knew what had happened to us,
and so we've created a Facebook pageto get some of the energies give

(39:00):
it a place. There's thirteen fivehundred members of Parents for Safe for Children
on Facebook who had this happened tothem. And so Matt and his other
activists reached out to me because theywanted to post on our site, and
so that's how we first met,and then in person we met marching outside

(39:22):
of Snapchat with pictures of our angels, trying to bring attention to the fact
that children were dying on the platform. So we all formed up around snap
Inc. Headquarters and marched around ina circle, and then a bloviated in
front of their headquarters until security cameout and tried to chase us away.

(39:44):
And it turns out Bill Bodner,who was here before, says that march
is what brought this to their attention, that they didn't take this problem seriously
at snap Inc. Until we startedmarching and until Sammy died. Matt and
sam first of all, my deviscondolences to your family. I know that

(40:07):
years have gone by, but losinga child that is something that never will
go away, and you live withthat every single moment, I'm sure,
and my heart breaks for your family. But at the same time, thank
you for the work you're doing.I know that you're doing this because you
want their life to have purpose andmeaning and for their name to be said

(40:30):
right, because it makes you feellike they're still with you and you're doing
work in their honor. And payingtribute to them and leaving a legacy behind.
For parents out there who are hearingthe story and it's breaking their hearts,
what would your message be? Youeach describe your children dying in your

(40:51):
homes, in your home where they'resupposed to be safe. Right, it's
the last thing on your mind thatthis would happen inside of your own home,
where they're supposed to be away fromall the evils of the world.
What can you do as a parent? You had no idea this was going
to happen. Well, there's onlyone thing to do, and that's get

(41:12):
Narcan in your house. Because rightnow, the laws have not changed.
The social media companies are not willingto move off their profit motive, the
prosecutors are not prosecuting the crimes,and so all we have are the remedies.
So if everyone who has a teenputs some the lozone in their home,

(41:34):
then we'll be able to revive thesekids when it happens. At the
time Sammy died, though, didyou have any idea that he had died
from fental poisoning? No, butit's non toxic. There's no harm.
If you see someone passed out andyou have narcan you give it to them?
There's no harm, so you can'thurt someone with it, and so
you might as well try. Andthis is the leading cause of death for

(41:55):
adults eighteen to forty five. It'smore important than it defibrillator these days,
you know. So that's really theonly the only safe thing. What I
tell parents is get the user nameand passwords for your kids devices as a
quid pro quo for giving them thedevices. And then at least on all
the other platforms you can go checkon Snapchat, you can't because the snaps

(42:19):
disappear. And Matt, I wantto ask, aren't counties. I know,
on a on a federal level anda state level, people are dragging
their feet in terms of legislation andcracking down on this, But aren't counties.
I know Riverside County is cracking downSan Bernardino County. Aren't they going
after the dealers or the as youcall them, the death dealers? Yeah?

(42:45):
But in counties such as Riverside,Orange County too, I know,
I know Todd Spitzer is big onthis too. Yes, I will say,
and to took the horn of RiversideCounty, we are leading the way
in our state, perhaps in thenation, but I want to out until
we fix our laws, these casesare going to be the exception and not

(43:05):
the rule. These are very challengingcases to work within our laws. I
explain the implied malice, and Iwant to mention that it offers starts with
law enforcement being willing to do aninvestigation. Again, I'm fortunate that Riverside
County has really taken the lead onthis, and both our sheriff and our

(43:27):
district attorney have been very upfront thatevery feanyl death will be investigated as a
potential homicide. Sam and I We'refriends with many parents all across our state
where law enforcement shows up and there'sno investigation whatsoever. So it starts with
law enforcement recognizing that there's a victimand there's a crime here, and they

(43:51):
have to be willing to do thatinvestigation. But I also want to point
out this, and I'm going totouch on the Narkan. I support narkand
and ten percent. It has beenshown to save lives. But a very
large amount of the parents that Ihave met, we all found there.
We all found our kids. Theydied alone. Even if we had a

(44:14):
Narkan in the house. We wentin her bedroom. We didn't hear her.
We want to, nobody was there. So so we're not going to
narcan our way out of this.And not that this statistic is not shared
enough. Less than two percent ofall drug deaths result in the conviction of

(44:37):
a drug dealer. Okay, thedrug dealer, by the way, in
my daughter's case, he was eventuallyarrested on federal charges, not state charges,
and today he's in federal prison.But most it's not. It's not

(44:58):
the Feds are going to show upon these it's your local police and sheriff's
departments. And number one, theyneed to investigate right They need to treat
this as a homicide right from theget go, ceiling off the sea,
going after forensics, digital forensics camerasbecause a lot of evidence can be lost
right away if that's not done.So we need to change law enforcements approach

(45:22):
when they show up at these cases. But I want to touch go back
to our laws real quick. Weare joined by Matt Cappaluto and Sam Chapman.
Before the break, Matt, youwere talking a lot about sort of
the process in getting these cases prosecuted, sort of the good and the bad
with it. I want to letyou finish your thought about talking with DA's
and how the prosecutions have been going. Yeah, so some counties where they

(45:46):
are willing to investigate it. It'sbeen shown that we can hold these dealers
accountable. We still need better lawsto work within because these are very challenging
cases right now. And the realityis many of these prosecutions, well,
these prosecutions are really going to bethe exception and not the rule. You
know, just because you hear aboutone or two here and there. You

(46:07):
know, there's thousands of deaths thatare taking place every year and we only
get a handful of prosecutions. Butsomething that I think is important to point
out, especially with this being anelection year, you know, hearing the
great work that Homeland Security is doingwith China and the cartels south of our
border. I've been in this fightfor nearly five years, and at first,

(46:30):
you know, I wanted to blameeverybody under the sun, which included
China for manufacturing the precursors, Mexicofor the cartels, for flooding and this
across our border. But my thinkingas of today and the president of China,
the president of Mexico have both comeout and said this is an American

(46:50):
problem, and I have to tellyou I somewhat agree with them, and
I want to back this up bysaying this. I already mentioned less than
two percent of all drug deaths resultin the conviction of a drug dealer.
That is a direct result of ourbad laws here. I also want to
point out that there is no evidencethus far of any high ranking state official

(47:19):
within the Chinese Communist Party, noevidence of any direct effort on behalf of
their government to poison America. Whatyou have is bad actors in their country,
criminals committing crimes in the name ofgreed, because that's what fanols is

(47:45):
about, making money. Same withthe cartels south of our border. It's
my belief at this point in time, we are not going to be able
to stop China. We're not goingto be stop the cartels. We've never
been able to stop drugs from comingacross our border. Now we expect to
stop a drug that kills in thesize of milligrams, you know, that

(48:07):
can fit on the tip of apen, and we're going to stop this
from coming into our country. No, it starts at home. And if
we can't hold the drug dealers accountablehere in our own country. We've got
a problem, sam I want youto talk about. We were hearing about
Alexander's law. Talk about Sammy's law. So Sammy's Law in California is Senate

(48:29):
Bill one four four four, andit would require third party safety software for
any platform that has children on,and that includes gaming platforms like Discord.
I don't know if you remember,but our greatest intelligence leak lately came on
Discord. And all of these platformsthat have ways that players and individuals can

(48:51):
communicate with each other are dangerous.The platforms with our children do not allow
for our third party safety software,so TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, and
the instant messaging platforms of Meta.So the reason is because Wall Street rewards
them every quarter with the number ofusers that they announce. Right, we

(49:15):
need a law that gives parents visibilityback into what's happening online, especially on
Snapchat where the snaps disappear, andthis third party safety software alerts parents when
something dangerous is happening on their children'sdevices. It also alerts law enforcement when
something dangerous for society happens. Theseprograms have stopped fourteen school shootings, have

(49:40):
called the police over a thousand timesto prevent imminent harm, and given out
millions of warnings on parents' cell phoneswhen something dangerous has happened. On the
platforms that do allow for this integration. All that's required is that a social
media platform open up what's called anAP or a link to allow third party

(50:01):
safety software integration. Before we runout of time, I do want to
let the audience ask some questions.I know there's spent some interest here.
So Jacob is coming up here now, h David prem Irvine here. My
daughter Marley here is a gen zmaybe the only one in the room.
But I often have to ask herquestions because I don't understand so much about
their vernacular and their generation. What'sbeing done to like actually reach out to

(50:25):
the kids and like try to findout what's the need for all these pills?
How do we deal with the depression? You know, like we're trying
to bust the bad guys, whichI'm all for, but why don't we
start trying to heal the need forthese things? But you know, absolutely
we need education in the schools,starting at a very young age. Obviously

(50:47):
age appropriate, but we need starteducating our kids as early as elementary school,
middle school, high school. ButI think it's important to understand there's
not too many of us in thisroom that can say either we, ourselves,
or a sibling or friends didn't dabbleand drugs at some point, most
likely in their youth. Kids todayare making the same exact choices. Nothing's

(51:13):
different. The only thing that isdifferent is now they're dying. And you
know, if Sam's son and mydaughter had made the same exact choice ten
years ago, they would be alivetoday. They would have taken something,
There's no doubt they would have takenwhatever drugs were out there, but it

(51:35):
wouldn't have been fanol. Kids todayare making the same exact choices that many
of our friends did, or siblings, or it is certainly somebody we knew.
We also have a generation in crisis. These kids have been shut in
for COVID and it has messed themup. There's no better way of saying
it. And it's anxiety, itsdepression, it's a lack of proper education,

(52:01):
not being able to keep up withother kids their age because their teachers
didn't do a good job, orthey didn't go to a school where they
did a good job. You know, the average kid is now over a
year behind, but it's exacerbated andit's sped up because of digital technology,
so they get access to gratification faster. You know, if you think about

(52:23):
all the things we tried when wewere kids, you know, it was
a little more difficult to do thethings that kids are doing today, but
technology makes it faster. The easyaccess to this to this drug is it's
crazy, I mean, and todeliver it to your home like a pizza.
Yeah, like you said, say, and it's not just the drugs.

(52:43):
I have a friend whose kid wasbullied over two hundred times to kill
himself on Snapchat and he did.Well. You know, you were talking
about money being that sort of themotivator is to why lawmakers and that seems
to always be the case things They'realways being funded by somebody. But what
I'm really curious about is why thesocial media companies there just now, I

(53:06):
mean, you saw that display ofMark Zuckerberg, and what were your thoughts
on that. Did he seem genuine? Well? I was there, so
he was literally looking at me andapologizing, and I hope he doesn't apologize
to his wife like that, becausehe sure didn't take ownership of it.
He said that he was sorry forwhat we had gone through, and then

(53:27):
went on to brag about he wasan industry leader in trying to stop these
things. So it was really braggadociousand just an ineffective apology. What I
really loved about that was as wewere sitting there and these people were filing,
and we all held the pictures upof our children, saw that the

(53:49):
CEOs had to walk in with seventyfive pictures of kids who had died on
their platforms, staring them in theface, and no one said a word.
It was like a funeral in there. And then at the end one
of the reporters chased him out likea criminal, and he dove into his
suv and she's screaming, what aboutthe children? I mean, Mark,
what about the children. Don't youhave some responsibility for all the deaths?

(54:13):
So he came in like a funeraland he went out like a criminal.
I just love that he had abad days. That's all we could do.
Hi Emily from Lahabra, First ofall, I'm so very sorry for
your loss. For both of you, we have a sixteen year old son,
so that really hit home. Whatare besides the obvious the keywords fentanyl

(54:37):
and drugs and get high and allthis, what are some of the words
or the verbiage that the kids arelooking up that we can be aware of
or we can monitor they're talking andusing searching. Right, So plug means
plug me in and a plug emoji. If you type a plug emoji into
Snapchat, you get drug dealers reachingout within seconds. A snowflake is cocaine,

(54:59):
a te is marijuana. And thebeauty of Sammy's Law is that this
third party safety software companies use artificialintelligence to keep up on drug emojis and
slang so that they let the parentknow what the danger is. Right.
For instance, bark dot Us isone of the software companies. He's our

(55:20):
guests next, you can look themup. Titania's on next. She's a
gem good, so you save thatquestion too for her as well. And
with that, gentlemen, we're goingto say thank you so much for your
time, thank you for telling usyour stories. I know every time you
have to tell this it's it's gotto take a piece of your heart out.
But at the same time, you'reletting a lot of people know about

(55:40):
how to prevent it from happening tothem. So it's a good way for
us to channel our energy because wecould very easily go down a deep rabbit
hole. So I appreciate you guyslistening, and I think you know,
I can't say I speak for Sam, but I think I speak for Sam.
And so when we say, hey, our kids are in a great
place right now, and it doesus, it really helps us out therapy

(56:06):
wise, when we can tell ourstories and not just how people listen but
take action. Gentlemen, thank youfor taking it. While we've been talking
about the evils of digital technology,there are some out there using good tech
to stop bad people. Joining usnow is to Tanya Jordan with bark dot
Us. Bark dot us was foundedby Brian Bason. He's a dad of

(56:29):
two, was actually working at Twitterat the time, and his oldest son
was given a device that he realized, oh my gosh, my son can
now access the entire world. Theentire world can access him, and the
existing potential controls on the market aren'tgood enough. So Brian took a big
risk left Twitter started Bark added meto the team. We're now a team

(56:52):
of one hundred and forty and wehelped to protect close to seven million children
across the nation. Wow, that'sincreasing the walls and how do you exactly
do that? Yes, thank youfor asking. So we launched with an
app that used AI to analyze children'stext, email, browsing, history,

(57:15):
social media, et cetera. Sowe're analyzing the context and the content and
when we detected you, whether it'sdrug dealers, suicidal ideation, creditors,
bullying, you name it, wethen send parents an alert via text an
email letting them know here's what happened, is where it happened, and then

(57:35):
here's what you need to know andhow you can address it with your child.
So we started with an app,and then we launched in home hardware
that can help with the smart TVsand gaming consoles in the home that couldn't
connect at the account or cloud level. And then we most recently launched a
safer smartphone for children because so manykids were being given iPhones and other phones

(57:55):
that were just wide open and childrenneed to be able to navigate tech safely
and under appropriate parental guidance. Sothat's that's our suite of products and services
that help to keep kids safer online. So, Tanya, one of the
things that the comment ed thread thatwe've heard now in the last hour or

(58:16):
so is that kids are pretty smartand they can figure things out and they
know the workarounds. Is your softwareor your platform is that one of those
that is sort of surreptitiously installed onthe devices? Are the kids where that
it's on there? Or how doesthat work? Great question, nuanced answer.

(58:37):
Because we have a variety of productsand offerings, there are some elements
that can be added to children's devicesor accounts without the child's knowledge. That
said, we don't recommend that.Open, honest conversation about why you're using
the software is highly recommended. Muchlike you don't keep it a secret when

(58:58):
you put your kid in a carand with them wear a seat belt,
Right, is that a secret whenyou onscreen on them. It shouldn't be
a secret why you're looking to keeptheir tech as safe as possible. So
we don't recommend you doing it behindyour back. Also because eventually you're going
to get a bark alert and you'regoing to want to talk to them about
it, and they're going to wantto know how did you get that BARK
alert? What is Bark? Sotry to be upfront with it. Also

(59:22):
with the workarounds. That was oneof the most important things about us launching
our own smartphone is because the Barkoperating system can't be removed from it can't
be circumvented other parental controls like Applescreen Time or Google Family Link. There
are workarounds that children can circumvent theprotections meant to keep them safe. So

(59:45):
just to be clear, if yourchild is going elsewhere to use social media,
this would still detect their activity.Or if they're using someone else's computer,
someone else's obviously someone else who doesn'thave this set up there able to
kind of go around this, right, So that's a great question. If
you have your child's let's say Instagramaccount connected to Bark, and they go

(01:00:10):
to a friend's house and they loginto that Instagram account, Bark is analyzing
that a account at the account level. Now, if they go and create
a new Instagram account, Bark willnot already be connected to that, but
Bark will note that they have donethat and send you an alert saying,
hey, it looks like your childhas created a second Instagram. You should

(01:00:31):
talk to them about getting it connectedto Bark. Wow, that's pretty interesting.
So if you're suggesting that parents betransparent about it and say, listen,
I have this on your phone.Is it something that the kids can
remove from the phone? Can theycan they go through? I mean some

(01:00:53):
kids have coding technolog or chading abilities, and I mean is it fail safe
for or a foolproof? Nothing isone hundred percent full proof. When it
comes to apps that you add toan iPhone, Apple makes it very difficult

(01:01:13):
to keep kids safe on their platforms. Apple prioritizes privacy, which is great
for adults, not great for raisinga child. So can some savvy children
work around bark app on an iPhone? Yes, it is very difficult,
and we do alert you when ithas been disconnected, so you'll know so

(01:01:34):
that you can go back to themand say, hey, we've got to
keep this connected with an Android orthe bark phone. It can't be disconnected.
And that's one of the reasons whywe say, if you're going to
get a child a smartphone or atablet, go with an aroid based model
or the bark phone. How manypeople are using this feature right now?
Do you have data on that.I do have data, you know,

(01:01:57):
Like I mentioned the beginning, ourfootprint is about seven million children across the
United States. We do have usersin Australia, South Africa and Guam as
well. And it's not only childrenusing it. It's not only families using
it for their children, you knowwith home and personal issue devices and accounts.
But we also have a footprint acrossover thirty five hundred school districts in

(01:02:22):
the nation. Because schools give kidstech right access to Google Docs and the
Microsoft Suite of applications, and it'spretty terrifying to note that about forty percent
of schools nationwide aren't using adequate filtersor monitoring tech. Only about sixty percent
of schools across the nation are actuallydoing something when it comes to keeping their

(01:02:44):
kids safer on school issue tech.So Bark has put across personal tech and
school issue tech. Thank you forjoining us. We've been speaking with Titania
Jordan. She is the chief ParentOfficer of bark dot Us, a fascinating
software that also our previous guests MChapman was telling us about to Tanya,
can you tell us a little bitof how you got involved with Sammy's law.

(01:03:05):
Absolutely. You know, we heardthe heartbreaking story about Sammy, and
if Sammy's parents could have been usingBark, if Snapchat would have allowed Bark
to have been connected to Sami's accounts, we could have alerted them to this
drug deal, the menu of options, so many things, and we would

(01:03:27):
still be here. And that storyis replicated across so many children, across
so many platforms, across so manyinstances. And we have given social media
platforms enough time to make their platformssafer for children, and despite what they
have rolled out, it's not thecase. And what we haven't done is
wholly empowered parents to keep their kidssafe online. If a parent wants to

(01:03:52):
be able to protect their kid online, they should have the right to do
so. We should be able tolet parents protect There is software out there,
and the only blocker is some ofthese platforms saying no, we don't
want to integrate with this platform despitea parent wanting to do that. So
it's time. It's time to changethat. It's time to change the laws.
It's time to give parents the abilityto keep their kids safe online,

(01:04:14):
just like we do in real life. Yeah, you have to work together
for the common goal, which socialmedia platforms have you had the most trouble
with and which have been easier towork with? Yeah, so Meta has
been better to work with. Theyfrom the beginning have been pretty accommodating,
whereas Snapchat absolutely not. They Iwould say they get an F as a

(01:04:42):
grade when it comes to working tokeep kids safer online on their platform or
working the third forty platforms. Whywhy is that? I mean, what
is the upside for them to notparticipate? I mean why would you think
they would put themselves in that position? They'd lose their audience base. I
mean their audience base is children.The whole premise of their app was for

(01:05:06):
sending disappearing nuds. Now why anybodylets their child get onto an app that
was launched under the premise of sendingdisappearing nudes is another story and full disclosure.
I fell into that same bucket ofparents let their kids have Snapchat because
every kid had it and that's howthey wanted to communicate with their friends.

(01:05:26):
But it's not okay. Snapchat iscurrently being this one of the coolest platforms
for kids. You know, eventheir parental controls that they've rolled out don't
do anything. You know what weare not talking about, and I'm glad
we're talking about tonight. There's somany dangers of Snapchat, including snap maps
that lets anyone that your child's connectedto see their real time live location,

(01:05:49):
and you, as the parent,can put it off. Now. I
don't know about you, but I'mnot okay with the fact that my fifteen
year old son can share his locationwith anybody on that app. Take some
questions here before we run out oftime. I know there were a couple
from the audience. Jacob Scott likedHello, Hi, Yvonne from Semi Valley.
I work in middle school. I'mcurious when you had mentioned that a

(01:06:11):
lot of school districts, I meanall the children in the school district that
I work, and they all havetheir Chrome, the Google Chrome, the
book, the chromebooks. I guesshow is do you have any information on
how do I phrase it? Whatkind of information these are? Is it
nefarious information? These kids are lookingon their chromebooks because they each have one,

(01:06:34):
What do you have information on whatkind of stuff they're actually looking up?
Because I'm just curious for school districtsthat are not quite on it as
they should be, if that makessense. Oh, yes, I mean
it's it's tech that's connected to theWorld Wide Web, which is the wild
wilde West, which means they canaccess anything if filters and settings aren't appropriately

(01:06:56):
in place. Children are able toaccess pornography, They're able to write suicide
notes in Google Docs. They're ableto create digital burn books to bully other
kids. They're able to access socialmedia, YouTube, Reddit, the dark
Web. I mean, it's atool that can access the Internet. It's

(01:07:17):
a very powerful tool that can bedeadly in some cases. As we've heard.
Another question, I just have aquestion regarding the verbiage or the emojis
that our children are using that arefor drugs or sexual content whatever. Where
can we find that aside from theaudio. Yeah, so if you go

(01:07:39):
to bark dot us, slash blog, or just go to dark dot us
and look at our resources, wehave so many guides, drug guides,
sex slang guides, emoji guides,gaming guides. I mean, the ways
that children speak about things not evenusing words is simultaneously very clever and also
very eye opening. Wrote we haveall of that at barked out us Hi

(01:08:02):
James Lapointe. So for obviously itis disappointing for you know, social media
platforms like Snapchat not allowing that integrationwith your software. My question is,
is there still a way that yourthat your software can still use any data
that maybe Snapchat isn't providing upfront,but can use data that can help prevent

(01:08:23):
you know, cyber bowling online andyou know, any drug transactions or anything
of that nature. Yes, andI'm so glad you asked that. Two
main ways. So one, eventhough both Apple and Snapchat continue to be
blockers for online safety solutions, withthe Bark app and iPhones, because we

(01:08:45):
are able to capture data save tothe camera role, a lot of children
will take screenshots of some of themost provocative and problematic conversations happening on Snapchat,
and that's how we've been able toget alerts about some of the problems
like bullying, etc. That havebeen happening on Snapchat. Not only that,
but we were able to escalate acredible school shooting threat because of a

(01:09:08):
screenshot that somebody took of a threatwritten on a bathroom wall the school.
So we're still able to monitor Snapchat, although they make it very difficult for
us with iPhones. With the Barkphone, we're able to fully monitor Snapchat
not only Snapchat chats, but theMyai function that they rolled out without any
rental permission that can lead children astray. So the Bark phone and the Bark

(01:09:31):
app for Android phones can monitor Snapchatmore completely, despite Snapchat's unwillingness to work
with us. Titania, I can'tthank you enough for your time this evening.
You've been a trooper, appreciate itvery much. Thank you for all
the great information. Also, Iwant to mention that you authored co authored
the book Parenting in a Tech World, valuable resource and it's Bark dot us.

(01:09:57):
So again I think it was great. Sam Chapman mentioned you and how
you're working together with that legislation andwe're all going to keep a very close
eye on it. To Tany,I wish you a wonderful evening and best
of luck. Thank you, thankyou, thank You're awesome. Thank you
for joining us for part two ofSex, Drugs and Social Media. This
KFI News special is a production ofthe KFI News Department for iHeartMedia, Los

(01:10:21):
Angeles, Robin Bertolucci Program Director ChrisLittle, news Director. The program is
hosted by Steve Gregory and Aroxia Carpathianand is produced by Steve Gregory, Jacob
Gonzalez and Ritchie Cantero. Our technicaldirector is Ricardo Sarabia, the sound engineer
is Tony Sorrentino, and our videodirector is Vincent Hernandez. To listen to
the entire two part special Search forsex, Drugs and social Media on the

(01:10:44):
iHeartRadio app, This is KFI AMsix forty Time Now for a news update