Substance Prevention Alliance of Needham
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Rethinking Success?

Should We Rethink Success?

An Interview with Deb Schmill of the Becca Schmill Foundation

Deb and her family were Needham residents when they tragically experienced the loss of their daughter Becca in 2020 to an overdose caused by drugs purchased online that turned out to be laced with fentanyl. This past year, Deb has been working in Washington, D.C., to ensure that the Kids Online Privacy Safety Act (KOPSA) passes in Congress. Deb sat down with Rethinking Success to share some of her current work.

Thank you so much for sharing your story, and my condolences again to you and your family for your tragic loss. Can you please describe your work in D.C. to advocate for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)?

For the last 3 years, I have been advocating for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which aims to establish guidelines to protect minors from harmful design features used by social media platforms. The bill creates a “duty of care” that requires covered platforms to disable features that among other things, are purposely “addictive” or allow strangers, including drug dealers, to connect with minors. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D‑CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R‑TN) co-sponsored this bill and introduced it to the Senate in 2022. Since KOSA was introduced, I have joined many other parents who have also experienced the tragic loss of a child, for trips to Washington D.C. to speak with senate office staffers. Last fall, I spent 2 and a half months living in D.C. to educate and advocate for bipartisan support. The bill was revived for the 2023-2024 congressional term under the new name Kids Online Safety Privacy Act (KOSPA) and passed through the Senate (91-3) in July 2024.  

In April of 2024, a companion bill was introduced in the House of Representatives, so my current efforts have shifted towards making sure House members recognize and acknowledge the importance of this legislation, with the hope that it is passed before the end of the year.

You had also mentioned your work with Project Liberty and Fairplay. Can you please explain what these initiatives aim to accomplish?

Project Liberty has a few different initiatives that focus on the harms of social media.

The first is Project Liberty’s vision for acquiring TikTok. Project Liberty’s Founder, Frank McCourt, is organizing a bid to acquire the app TikTok with the goal of placing people and data empowerment at the center of the platform’s design and purpose. It will allow users to access the internet without subjecting youth and adults alike to exploitation and sacrificing our society’s collective well-being.

The second initiative is ‘Safe Tech, Safe Kids’, which is a year-long campaign bringing together a team of organizations, technologists, and activists that aims to build awareness around the issue of technology’s impact on the mental health of children.

Fairplay is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending marketing to children. They also promote the ‘Screen-Free Week’ initiative and offer ‘Screens in Schools Action Kits’. In addition, they organized the ‘Children’s Screen Time Action Network’, which is comprised of a group of researchers and advocates that work to help kids and families in their communities find time away from commercialized digital devices.

It’s so great to learn all this information and I commend you for all your advocacy efforts. What message do you want everyone to get from your story?

Parents need to know that a child with access to the Internet is a child with access to drug dealers, predators, and social media companies that purposely exploit children’s vulnerabilities in return for advertising dollars. Parents should talk to their children about online dangers, including fentanyl in the drug supply. They should also expect the schools their children attend to provide age-appropriate media literacy instruction and substance use awareness that includes fentanyl awareness. Lastly, children need to be aware that any pill being sold online or given to them at a party that did not come directly from a licensed pharmacy is a fake pill and may contain a deadly dose of fentanyl. As could any powder pill they purchase online or elsewhere.

What might people do if they’d like to help or contribute?

Finally, everyone can:

  • Call the local school department to share your support of phone/social media-free schools, and the inclusion of media literacy and fentanyl education in the curriculum.

  • Call your U.S. Representative to ask them to support KOSA. Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) 617-332-3333 represents Needham.

  • Call House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) at 202-225-3015, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) at 202-225-2777. Ask them to work with Congressional Leadership to make sure KOSA passes before the December holiday.

Karen Shannon