A father lost his 16-year-old son because a drug dealer reached him through Snapchat. That father is now fighting for a law that could prevent the same thing from happening to another family.

Samuel Chapman's son Sammy died of a fentanyl overdose after a dealer contacted him through social media and delivered a counterfeit drug to their home while his parents slept. Chapman did everything right — he stayed involved, asked questions, set boundaries. But he could not supervise a platform engineered to limit supervision.

California Assembly Bill 1709 would ban children under 16 from creating or maintaining accounts on social media platforms with addictive features. It would put the responsibility for enforcement on the companies — not on parents. It does not cut kids off from the internet. It simply delays participation in addictive, account-based social media ecosystems until age 16.

The evidence of harm is overwhelming. The U.S. Surgeon General found that teens spending more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of depression and anxiety. A decade-long study of 1,200 children found two or more hours of daily social media use linked to depressive symptoms and poorer wellbeing. Social media companies have known this and kept building anyway.

California already regulates driving, alcohol, and gambling for minors because some risks demand clear boundaries for developing minds. Social media belongs in that category.

Sign this petition to demand California's legislature pass AB 1709 and make social media companies responsible for protecting the children they profit from.