New Scroll Models: Family Groups Swipe Back at TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat after Meta’s Child-Safety Concessions
Our children are being fed into a digital machine engineered to capture their attention, shape their behavior and keep them scrolling — and Big Tech has every financial incentive to keep the machine running. Now, with Meta agreeing to sweeping new protections for young users, the spotlight is turning toward competitors that have yet to embrace comparable safeguards. Craig DeRoche, president and CEO of Family Policy Alliance, is staying on offense and can explain why protecting children online demands more than corporate promises and parental damage control.
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- Big Tech’s Scrolling business model puts profits ahead of children’s safety
- Meta’s landmark agreement exposes industry-wide failures to protect minors when scrolling
- Algorithm-driven feeds and autoplay keep children hooked on scrolling and screens
- Parents need stronger scrolling safeguards, not empty corporate promises
- Craig DeRoche demands accountability and meaningful scrolling protections for American families
A coalition of parents, child advocates and family-policy organizations is demanding that TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat adopt protections modeled on Meta’s landmark agreement with state attorneys general. The proposed safeguards include daily screen-time limits, restrictions during school hours and overnight, stronger parental controls over algorithm-driven feeds and autoplay, hidden likes by default, and age verification.
The stakes are enormous. If children are restricted on one platform only to migrate to another, the protections become a game of digital whack-a-mole. No family should have to fight an entirely different battle on every app their children use.
The agreement followed allegations that social media companies designed products to encourage compulsive use and failed to adequately protect young users. Meta has agreed to pay as much as $18 billion under the reported settlement framework and overhaul protections for minors. Yet even major concessions by one industry giant leave a glaring question: Why should children’s safety depend on which app they happen to open?
DeRoche can address the deeper crisis behind the headlines: a business model that rewards engagement while parents struggle to shield their children from harmful content, sexual material, predators, and potentially damaging patterns of use. He can also examine whether voluntary corporate reforms will deliver meaningful change or whether enforceable standards are necessary to close the gaps.
The legal pressure is mounting, and the debate is no longer simply about how much screen time is too much. It is about parental authority, corporate accountability and whether technology companies should be allowed to make families shoulder the consequences of products designed to keep users hooked.
A relevant legal filing in the broader litigation alleges that platforms used algorithm-driven feeds and other design features to maximize time spent online, particularly among young people, while failing to provide adequate safeguards and warnings. Those are allegations, not a universal finding against every platform, but they underscore the questions policymakers and parents increasingly want answered.
DeRoche is available to discuss what meaningful child-safety protections should look like, why parents need stronger tools, and what it will take to make Big Tech treat children’s well-being as a responsibility rather than a public-relations problem.
Relevant Article(s):
TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat urged to adopt tougher protections for kids | Fox Business
Let Parents Parent – Family Policy Alliance
OPTIONAL Q&A:
- What will it take to force Big Tech to put children’s safety ahead of profits?
- Are social media platforms deliberately engineered to make children compulsively scroll, and who should be held accountable?
- Will Meta’s agreement with state attorneys general meaningfully protect children, or is it merely damage control?
- Why should parents have to fight a different battle on every social media platform their children use?
- Should TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat be required to adopt the same safeguards agreed to by Meta?
- How dangerous are algorithm-driven feeds, autoplay and other features designed to keep young users engaged?
- Are parental controls and screen-time limits enough, or does the government need to impose enforceable child-safety standards?
- What can parents do right now to protect their children from harmful content, online predators and social media addiction?
ABOUT CRAIG DEROCHE…
Craig DeRoche is President and CEO of the Family Policy Alliance (FPA), the central hub of the pro-family movement. He previously served as Speaker of the House in Michigan and president of Justice Fellowship, founded by Watergate figure, Chuck Colson. He is a frequent speaker and author on faith, culture, public policy, and civic engagement and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fox News, and Christianity Today. Craig is also a devoted husband and father and the author of Highly Functional and Outrageous Justice.
Facebook: @familypolicyalliance
Instagram: @family_policy
X: @family_policy and @craigderoche
YouTube: family_policy
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