Most parents today worry constantly about what their kids are doing online. For some families, that worry became reality, and they experienced the unthinkable. Their children were hurt, or killed, by dangers that lived inside the apps and platforms they used every day. And rather than grieve quietly, many of those parents decided to fight.
June 23 is Social Media Victims Remembrance Day. It was established by bipartisan Senate resolution to honor the children who were harmed or killed because of what they encountered on social media, and to push families, platforms, and lawmakers toward action. If you're hearing about it for the first time, you're not alone. But the more parents who know about this day, and about the legislation tied to it, the harder it becomes for the people in power to do nothing.
What This Day Is Really About
Social Media Victims Remembrance Day exists to honor individuals who have lost their lives or suffered serious harm because of social media, and to call on everyone from individual families to the platforms themselves to do more.
The children this day honors were targeted by predators in their DMs. They were cyberbullied past the point of crisis. They were sextorted through platforms that had no real mechanism for a parent to intervene. They were targeted by drug dealers on Snapchat. According to Bark's 2025 Annual Report, the volume of alerts flagged for self-harm, depression, and predatory contact continues to climb year over year. These are not fringe situations. They are happening in every kind of family, in every kind of town. And in too many cases, parents had no way to see it coming.
The Story at the Center of This Movement
Of all the families who have turned grief into advocacy, one story sits at the heart of the legislation that gives this day its urgency. It belongs to Sammy Chapman.
Sammy was 16 years old, a straight-A student, and by every account the kind of kid who lit up a room. His parents, Dr. Laura Berman and Sam Chapman, were attentive and careful. They did what most parents do: they watched for the obvious dangers and worked hard to keep their son safe.
What they couldn't see was that a drug dealer had found Sammy on Snapchat.
On February 7, 2021, that dealer delivered drugs to their home. Sammy snuck out after his parents were asleep to meet him. What the dealer gave him was fentanyl, a synthetic opioid so potent that a microscopic amount can be fatal. Sammy had no idea what he was taking. He was 16 years old.
Dr. Berman and Sam Chapman could not have monitored those messages. Snapchat didn't allow it. Third-party safety tools that could have flagged the exchange didn't have the platform access they needed. There was no alert, no warning, no chance to step in.
That's not a parenting failure. That's a platform failure.
Rather than let that be the end of the story, Dr. Berman and Sam Chapman took their grief to Washington. They started meeting with lawmakers, testifying before Congress, and pushing for a bill that would make sure other parents had the access they never did. That bill is called Sammy's Law.
Bark CMO Titania Jordan sat down with Sam Chapman on the Parenting in a Tech World podcast to hear the story directly from him. If you want to understand why this fight matters as much as it does, that conversation is worth an hour of your time.
What Sammy's Law Would Change
Sammy's Law is a bipartisan bill with support in both chambers of Congress. Its core goal is to require large social media platforms to open their systems to third-party safety software so that parents can actually use it.
Right now, some of the biggest platforms, including Snapchat and TikTok, do not give third-party safety tools the access they need to monitor a child's account. A parent can download every parental control app available and still be completely blind to what's happening on those platforms. The tools exist, it’s the platforms that won't let them work.
Sammy's Law would require large platforms (those with over 100 million monthly users or more than $1 billion in annual revenue) to provide real-time API access to FTC-registered third-party safety software. Parents or teens 13 and older could choose to authorize that access. It's entirely opt-in. Apps like the Bark app, which already monitor texts, emails, and social media for signs of danger, including drug-related conversations, predatory contact, and self-harm, would be able to do that work inside the platforms that currently block them out. See everything Bark currently monitors. If Sammy's Law had existed in February 2021, Sammy's parents might have gotten an alert before it was too late.
Why Your Signature Matters Right Now
Sammy's Law passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in March 2026. That's meaningful progress. But a committee vote is not a law. The bill still needs to clear the full House and Senate, and the platforms opposing it have significant resources behind them.
What tips that balance is voter pressure. Lawmakers respond when they hear from the people they represent, repeatedly and in large numbers.
The Organization for Social Media Safety is collecting signatures in support of Sammy's Law. Over 93% of parents already support requiring social media companies to allow third-party safety software. The petition is how that majority becomes impossible to ignore. Add your name here. It takes under two minutes.
Then share this post. Bring it up with other parents. Say Sammy's name. Dr. Berman and Sam Chapman have given everything to get this legislation this far. The rest of us can make some noise.
What You Can Do for Your Kid Starting Today
Legislation takes time. Your child's phone is in their pocket right now.
If you've been meaning to set up parental monitoring and haven't gotten there yet, today is a good day to start. The Bark app watches for warning signs across texts, email, and social media and alerts you only when something needs your attention. It's not about reading every message. It's about making sure that when something goes wrong, you're not the last to know. Bark was built specifically to keep families informed in ways that the platforms themselves haven’t supported. Try Bark free.
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Bark helps families manage and protect their children’s digital lives.
