‘We Can Save Lives’: Grieving Mothers Push for Safer Social Media for Kids

Maurine Molak has spent the past eight years advocating for online safety for children. A year after her son David died by suicide due to cyberbullying in 2016, she pushed for a new law, also known as “David’s Law,” in her home state of Texas. It makes cyberbullying a criminal offense and allows victims to seek injunctive relief against social media accounts used to harass or bully minors. When David’s Law was passed in 2017 in Texas, certain provisions requiring social media companies to prevent anonymous cyberbullying were removed from the bill. Ms. Molak said she believes this was due to those companies’ lobbying, and she vowed to address the issue on the federal level....