Before her 16-year-old son killed himself in 2016, Maurine Molak’s political activity began and ended with voting.

Now, as she gears up for her 14th trip to Washington, D.C., Molak has become a formidable foe to the tech giants spending millions to block a new law that would regulate online child safety.

Known as the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, the bill would mark the first such legislation since 1998 — before social media and smart phones, which have led to mounting ills among young people who get sucked into the endless scroll, from anxiety, depression and sleep disturbances to cyberbullying, sexploitation and suicide.

KOSA appeared to be on a promising trajectory to passage, sailing through the U.S. Senate in July.

But as the clock winds down on this Congress, the momentum behind two years of painstaking bipartisan work and nonstop advocacy by parents like Molak, who have lost children to suicide and drug overdoses related to online activity, has stalled.

As she heads to D.C. Sunday for one final push this year, Molak and fellow parents in that most terrible club hope to get an audience with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who now holds the fate of KOSA in his hands. If he does not call a floor vote on the bill by Dec. 20, it dies.

Johnson has called parts of the bill “very problematic,” and it appears unlikely he will do so. But Molak believes — she must believe — that she and other grieving parents can persuade him.

“If Speaker Johnson would meet with us, and hear our stories, he would understand why he needs to join us,” she said. “This is a lifesaving piece of legislation — and families need a break. Families need to have safeguards in place. They can’t do this alone.”

Supporters cite polling that shows 88% of Americans agree that it’s time for Congress to combat harms to young people caused by social media platforms. But those platforms — led by Meta, which owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, and Alphabet, parent company of Google and YouTube — are fighting tooth and nail to block it, spending $51 million this year alone, to do so.

Grieving parents vs. Big Tech

David Bartlett Molak took his life on Jan. 4, 2016, after months of being harassed, humiliated and threatened by a group of students via text messages and social media. Even a change of schools didn’t stop the bullying.

Through David’s Legacy Foundation, Molak has spent the years since her youngest son’s death working to protect young people from online harm, targeting cyberbullying at the state level through David’s Law, and now advocating for KOSA.

The legislation would establish a “duty of care” for social media and gaming companies, meaning they would have to take reasonable steps to prevent and mitigate certain harms they know their platforms and products are causing to young users.

Its creation comes in the wake of whistleblower testimony that tech companies have been aware of the harms their algorithms promote, but have ignored, discounted or even suppressed that knowledge. The bill’s supporters include dozens of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including both Texas senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn; mental health organizations and parents’ rights groups.

Tech companies say they have already made many changes that will help protect young people. Meta, for example, lists dozens of upgrades and features it says give parents more control and makes their apps safer, such as hiding more results in Instagram’s search tool related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, and launched nighttime “nudges” that encourage teens to close the app when it’s late.

They are fighting hard to kill the bill. A Nov. 17 investigation by the Wall Street Journal found the companies were using culture war issues to undermine congressional support on both sides of the aisle. To liberal lawmakers, they warned that young people would be blocked from finding supportive LGBTQ information online; for conservatives, the censorship of pro-life positions.

Supporters point out that the bill does not hinder search functions, rather it seeks to limit the content kids aren’t seeking, but makes it into their feeds via algorithms designed to keep them scrolling.

“So many of the harms that young people experience online and on social media are the result of deliberate design choices that these companies make,” Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, a nonprofit working to protect children from today’s screen-obsessed and commercialized culture told the Associated Press after the bill passed the Senate.

He and Molak formed ParentsSOS, a coalition of parents who’ve lost children to online harms and are now advocating for greater accountability from Big Tech.

The organization’s website includes their children’s stories: Alex Peiser, 17, who killed himself after being fed pro-suicide content; Annalee Schott, 18, who before she took her life journaled about her deteriorating mental health, addiction to social media and distress after viewing a “live suicide” on her “For You” page on TikTok; Carson Bride, 16, who, like Molak’s son David, killed himself after being cyberbullied via anonymous features within SnapChat.

“I advocate for KOSA because in no other industry would a company be allowed to provide a product or service to children that gives them access to illicit drugs, pornography, predators, dangerous challenges and the ability to harm each other in the most public, permanent and humiliating ways,” wrote Deb Schmill, whose daughter Becca died of a fentanyl overdose after buying drugs through a social media platform.

‘Hear our stories’

In January, those parents filled the gallery during a Senate judiciary committee hearing to hear five Big Tech CEOs testify, holding photos of their dead children. Many raised those photos above their heads when Mark Zuckerberg was forced to turn around and apologize to the parents.

“He didn’t take any responsibility for his platform’s design, and the harm that it’s doing to our young people,” Molak recalled. “The science and the research is out there. To just ignore it is such a tragedy to American families.”

The parents’ stories and advocacy have been credited with helping the bill garner support in the Senate. But the tech giants and their lobbyists have found willing skeptics in Johnson, as well as the House Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Dripping Springs), who say the act would violate the First Amendent and give the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, who would enforce parts of the law, too much power.

Molak has met with Roy several times, and while she is crushed that he will not support the bill, she said she respects that he has met with her and other grieving parents on more than one occassion.

They have been unable, thus far, to get an audience with Johnson. Molak said they’ve been trying for nine months. She leaves for D.C. on Sunday, and said she would gladly extend her stay if it meant she could meet with him.

The votes are there to pass the bill, Molak believes, if Johnson would just call for a vote.

“We are so close,” she said. “We don’t want this to happen to anyone else. We know the misery — the empty chair at the Thanksgiving dinner table. And now Christmas, and I have an empty stocking on my mantle that won’t be filled this year.”

After almost nine years of advocacy, Molak is now used to fighting. She said social media companies also lobbied against David’s Law, which first passed in 2017. The state law, which gives school districts more tools to investigate and act on cyberbullying, was watered down to secure its passage, she said. But a second, stronger version of the bill passed in 2021.

She understands that additional compromise could be necessary to get KOSA through the House and onto President Joe Biden’s desk, where he has said he’ll sign it.

“But we need to have those negotiations” with House leadership to get the bill passed, she said. “We know Speaker Johnson is a good person, that that his heart is in the right place, if he’ll only meet with us.”

Passage of the bill would help parents like her “get through another Christmas without our children,” she said. “It will be a salve on our wounds, because it would protect others.”

Molak is not sure what she’ll do if KOSA dies.

“It’s exhausting to have to go and share the worst time of my entire life over and over and over again,” she said, “in hopes that Congress will take action and perform their duty to help American families and protect kids online.”