Lynn Shaw | 06-24-26

Well, what is today calling in is Lynn Shaw, lynn's warriors.org, and what does Lynn do? She protects our kids from, what, the computers, the environment, through sexual trafficking. The predators. A little bit of everything. Lynn Shaw, where do you want to start this morning? Good morning, John, and everybody. Thank you so much for having me. I always want to start with a reminder that you, John, it is you always give voice to everything we cover at the Warriors, which most media outlets never want to do. You are with us every single week, and we are so thankful because we're getting this information out to the public that basically they're not hearing pretty much from anybody else. So we are just really from the bottom of our hearts. I always have to thank you. Good news. America is waking up. The most important day on Capitol Hill, June 23rd, has been designated as Social Media Victims' Remembrance Day on Capitol Hill. And this is a day dedicated to honoring kids who have been harmed or lost, as in dead, because of online exploitation, extortion, cyberbullying. These algorithms we keep hearing about with the predators and dangerous platform designed by these big tech bros, as I like to call them. So listen, families yesterday poured into Washington gathered on Capitol Hill to ensure that kids, their children's lives are remembered and their stories are leading to meaningful change because right now on Capitol Hill, we have such a battle going on, but I am an optimist. We've got the house holding up a package of child. safety legislation. Because John, we always talk about it. There is so much money on Capitol Hill from Big Tech flooding Capitol Hill, flooding both Democrats and Republicans. The money talks, right? So we are now fighting. We have our beautiful Kids Online Safety Act. It is, we've got Marsha Blackburn behind the scene, Senator Marsha Blackburn, working so hard to correct things. Let's get the right language. The fight is on. And this is so important because There is so much more awareness from the public than one year ago when we started this on Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, we come together, more parents flooded in, more family members. We have placards of dead children, John. I sent you a picture last night. Hundreds and hundreds of kids, forever 12, forever 17, all over the Capitol law, and you cannot miss it. And it was started by these two moms who happened to me, Amy Neville and Kristen Bride. They learned this horrible tragedy that both their teenage sons died on the same day, June 23rd, 2020. This is how it all started. And, you know, we have Senator Marsha Blackburn working so hard consistently. And let me remind everybody, it's all bipartisan work, right? No, it's not about Democrats, Republicans, it's about American families. And we had terrific speeches from Senator Josh Hawley. We had terrific...

And, you know, I mean, we got to expose that if they care more about the lobbying fees and they care about helping their kids. It's everybody taking money. Not only. Publish it. Publish them and embarrass them. Listen, not only our congressmen, it's also the legislative staff, the legislative policy people they have in their office. It's all of them. They are flooding the market with money. And when I say all of them, I'm not kidding. I'm going to send you the list because it's basically. Everybody. Now, of course, there'll be some denial. We have proof on some things. But we know. We had Sam Altman two weeks ago running all over Capitol Hill talking to everybody. Media didn't really cover that at all. Why is he there? Because we had this Kids Online Safety Act about to break in the House to go to a floor vote. Okay. John, remember, this all started. I brought a group of parents March 1st to Mar-Marago to meet with our president. All their children. were killed by social media harm, extortion, cyberbullying, they bought some pills online that had fentanyl in them. Okay, I brought them to put them in front of our president to say, Mr. President, look at these families, hardworking Americans who voted for you, who support you. Look what happened to their children. Help us move this to a piece of legislation where we hold big tech accountable. They've been getting away. They have no regulation at all with harming our children. We have the proof now. We have 30 years of social media. We've got the educators, the doctors. We've got the whistleblowers who came forward who said this is what they're doing at these companies. They intentionally are harming kids. So we're going after them. The president is very sympathetic. We are working. It is very complex on Capitol Hill. Lynn Shaw, this is Jake Novak. You know, I think you're absolutely in the front lines and you're working on the members of Congress and the other people in government. Let's also speak to the parents and help them understand it because most parents don't know all the facts as you know. So here's a little saying that I have that helps everyone understand this, and I'd love for you to expand on it. If you're not paying for the product, then you are the product. So every website, AI thing that your kid is doing for free, quote unquote, free, they are the product. Can you explain that a little bit more? Well, absolutely. This is the greatest social experiment that has ever gone on. And now we're sitting on top of AI. Look, everybody was, nobody asked for all of this technology. Think back. Nobody asked for eye. Chromebooks. Remember, our American public schools, they have flooded the market in the classrooms with Chromebooks equals Google. No safety features have been in millions of Chromebooks. Okay, so everybody thought, oh, the iPhone, as an example, that's cute. Okay, now we can communicate. We can take pictures. We can do this. So we unwillingly were thrown into this. But again, 30 years later, we now have the harms, the mental health harms, all of this, the isolation only fueled up by that. COVID horrible period where kids were stuck at home. Families were stuck at home and they had to use their devices. And Lynn, I've seen it up close. I'm sorry, we have to take a break, but every parent needs to get more involved. Look at the websites and your kids going on. And even if it isn't questionable content, understand the, go ahead.

I was going to say parent up because we're working so hard, Washington legislation, state capitals, but you as the parent are the first line of defense. That's right. That's right. Lynn, talk to your kids. Lynn Shaw, thank you so much and for what you're doing. Thanks for listening to Sit and Friends in the Morning. You can hear Sid and Friends in the Morning, weekday mornings at six. If you like the podcast, share it with your friends, and listen anytime at wabcradio.com and download the Wabc Radio app. Hit that subscribe button on all major podcast platforms. Plus, follow WABC on social, on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X. See you next time for a new episode, so you never have to wonder. What the... What the heck is going on here?