[music]

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts,

radio, news. Before we start, I want to

let you know we talk about suicide and

self harm in this episode. Please take

care while listening.

>> Chase was a normal kid. [music] He was

an honors student. He was a football

star. Loved hanging out with his

friends. [music]

Chase Nazca was a 16-year-old boy who

grew up on Long Island. [music] He loved

going to the gym. He loved

weightlifting. He did his homework.

[music] He was just a normal kid. A kid

who would connect with his friends on

social media. Chase would go on TikTok

and watch videos about weightlifting and

basketball, motivational speeches,

[music] funny clips. That's the kind of

stuff he was searching for. That's just

not what the algorithm fed him.

>> [music]

>> Chase also used the app to listen to

songs about loneliness, hopelessness,

and in the winter [music] of 2022, his

feed took a turn, serving him more and

more content. In that vein, this is

video [music]

after video after video about

depression, sadness, hopelessness,

loneliness, self harm, and [music]

suicide. Chase's Tik Tok was stuck in a

dark loop. The videos he shared with his

friends got sadder [music]

and in February of 2022, Chase died by

[music] suicide. His parents filed a

wrongful death lawsuit against Tik Tok

[music] the next year. Bloomberg

investigative reporter Olivia Carville

wrote a story about Chase for Business

Week in 2023. [music]

In response to questions from Business

Week at the time, a Tik Tok spokesperson

said that it didn't comment on pending

litigation, but that the company was

committed [music] to the safety of its

users, especially teens, and that it

would continue their quote significant

[music] investment in safeguarding our

platform.

For the past several years, across the

[music] US, thousands of suits have been

filed against the world's biggest social

media companies, alleging that the

platforms [music] have harmed the mental

health of young people. These cases have

been filed by school districts, families

like [music] the Nazcas, and by state

attorneys general. And last week,

[music] on August 26th, one of the most

consequential of these cases against

Meta reached a historic [music]

settlement. Facebook has agreed to a

landmark $17 billion over teen social

media addiction and settle claims filed

by 47 states. William

>> Olivia says the meta settlement could

mark a sea change for the social media

industry and bring some of the

accountability people like Chase's

parents and many other families have

been pushing for.

>> They've been telling me they're

screaming into the wind. No one's

listening. They've been calling for

Congress to roll out laws and we finally

saw change through the justice system

which you know is remarkable. This

litigation has been going on for half a

decade and August 26th was a huge moment

for so many people.

I'm Sarah Holder and this is the big

take from Bloomberg News. Today on the

show, how did [music] Chase Nazca's Tik

Tok feed change so significantly?

Bloomberg investigative reporter Olivia

Carville on the consequences of [music]

a Tik Tok algorithmic experiment and how

Meta's landmark settlement could spark

broader changes for how social media

platforms [music] approach safety for

young people.

[music]

Tik Tok is famous for its powerful

algorithm. It learns what videos users

like to see and shows them more of them.

And a few years ago, that algorithm was

under a microscope. So, back in uh the

summer of 2021, [music]

the Wall Street Journal and other media

outlets started investigating Tik Tok's

algorithm because it was so mysterious.

And what these reporters started to

uncover is that users who were

interested in things like healthy eating

or excessive exercise or fitness started

to get pushed content that was more and

more extreme. So, healthy eating turned

to eating disordered content or posts

about breakups or sadness over a

relationship breakdown turns to self

harm videos. Some users were getting

caught in something called a filter

bubble, essentially an echo chamber of

content that could be as benign as cat

videos or much more harmful. And so, the

company was under scrutiny for these

filter bubbles in the summer of 21. By

the end of that year, they announced

they're going to start testing ways to

break up repetitive streams of videos

about harmful content like loneliness or

extreme dieting. But this month, Olivia

reported on a confidential internal

document produced by Tik Tok back in

2023 that was turned over to lawyers as

part of a legal case against the company

and placed under a court-ordered seal.

The document revealed that those changes

to Tik Tok's algorithm did not go out to

all users. As we know from what is

contained in the confidential document

in early 2022, they made the call to

roll out that safeguard to 90% of US

users to ensure that they weren't going

to be pushed into filter bubbles of

harmful content. But they held back that

control group. 15 million people did not

get the safeguard. One of those people

was Chase Nazca.

>> Chase Nazca, the 16-year-old from Long

Island.

>> His account fell into that filter bubble

of harmful content starting on January

25th, 2022. He was fed thousands of

videos about depression, sadness,

hopelessness, loneliness, self harm, and

suicide right up until his own death. On

February 18th of 2022,

Chase Nazca stepped in front of an

oncoming train and took his own life.

What we know now looking back is that

days before he died, he did view a Tik

Tok video of a young man standing on

train tracks with the caption, "Went for

a quick little walk to clear my head."

So, he viewed content about the method

of suicide that he ended up taking his

own life by.

When Olivia first reported on Chase in

2023, Tik Tok had not disclosed anything

publicly about the filter bubble test.

So, in 2023, I asked the company, "Why

was this 16-year-old boy being served

suicide content by your algorithm?" What

the company disclosed publicly for that

Business Week article was, "Our hearts

are with the family. This is a real

tragedy. We do everything we can to

protect young users on our platform. We

have robust trust and safety detection

teams. You know, we block harmful

content or anything about suicide and

self harm.

The story is what they didn't say. What

Olivia recently learned is that behind

the scenes at Tik Tok, her request for

comment sparked an internal review which

culminated in an internal document that

the company titled Bloomberg Business

Week youth safety and filter bubbles

escalation [music] summary. Individuals

from Tik Tok's algorithm team, their

trust and safety team, do a deep dive of

Chase's watch history in the weeks,

hours, and days leading up to his death.

They review more than 7,500

videos that Chase had watched. And what

the company determined is that through a

back test experiment, what they call an

an AB experiment, which is relatively

common place in the social media

industry, what that internal review

found is that this teenage boy's account

was placed in an AB experiment. He was

randomly selected in January of 2022.

Within a month of Chase Nesca being

placed in that AB experiment, he was

dead.

>> Wow. And what did Tik Tok say about why

they were running such an experiment in

that confidential document?

>> So, all I can say is what we've reported

on thus far, which is that the company

was running these experiments to test

user engagement. There are two really

important quotes that came from the

confidential document we reported on.

One, the company said, "Tik Tok's filter

bubble prevention strategies did not

take effect on this user by design." By

design. By design. The second important

quote in the document is Tik Tok

essentially explaining why they ran that

back test. Why was it important to

conduct this experiment and hold back

that control group from a safeguard? And

they explained that the user impact

decision was a delicate balance across

safety and the ability to measure impact

on DAU and core metrics. DAU is daily

active users. So, the company wanted to

know how the engagement levels of its

user base would be impacted between the

90% of users who had the safer version

of the algorithm and the 10% that did

not. 10% of Tik Tok's user base was 15

million people.

What has Tik Tok said in response to

your latest reporting on this

confidential document? So the latest

statement from Tik Tok was very similar

to what we got in 2023 when we wrote

that story about Chase Nazca. Kind of

echoed it almost word for word. What Tik

Tok said in response was that their

hearts go out to any family that

experiences a tragedy like this. And

they also talked about how they're doing

everything they can to prioritize child

safety on the platform. They talked

about how they have robust detection

systems to try and flag this kind of

content and that they're working at

safeguarding the platform, making it

safer for kids. And don't forget that,

you know, Tik Tok had more than 40,000

people working on its trust and safety

team, trying to ensure that its platform

is safe and trying to ensure that kids

aren't seeing this kind of content. They

don't want teenagers seeing non-stop

videos about suicide. that doesn't help

them in any way. And that's important to

remember, too. They've invested more

than a billion dollars in in trust and

safety over the years, and they continue

to do so. It's just that because the

companies are so prioritized to focus on

engagement, to focus on profit, to focus

on being competitive in this hyperco

competitive industry where they're all

vying to get the next user. They all

want to be the coolest product. So,

teenagers [music]

flock to them. if they have the teen

market, you know, they're deemed to be

cool and that means that teens are going

to use them and want to keep using them.

>> Olivia, the intersection of social

media, teens, and mental health has

[music] been a major reporting focus of

yours. As you said, since you started

covering the subject, have there been

any significant changes to how these

platforms approach [music] keeping young

people safe on their platforms?

>> I've been reporting on the dangers of

the digital world for children and for

teenagers for years now. [music] And

over those years we have seen the

conversation shift. It has shifted from

could social media harm the mental

health of young people to [music]

this is a full-blown public health

crisis. Our children are in need of help

and we have to block change regulate

these companies. Over the course of that

time the platforms have made changes to

try and make their products safer to add

guard rails. But as we've seen in

documents that have come out through

litigation, a lot of the safeguards that

they're adopting just aren't very

effective. And often times they will

[music] publicly tout like, hey, there's

this cool new feature and look how it's

going to protect teens from X, Y, and Z.

And then you ask the question of how

many people are are using [music] it,

and it's less than 1%. What we've seen

from the industry is repeated claims of

making the product safer when the

reality is it hasn't actually been

protecting young people. But that all

changed on August 26th. [music]

After the break, what changed on August

26th and how the outcome of a landmark

case could change the social media

platforms we use every day.

On August 26th, Meta, the parent company

of Facebook and Instagram, came to a

landmark settlement to resolve claims

from US states that alleged the company

used deceptive advertising and designed

its platforms to get children hooked. As

part of the settlement, Meta agreed to

pay up to $17.1 billion and made several

changes to its platforms in the US,

including safeguards aimed at protecting

teen users. Things like blocking

children from being able to access

Instagram and Facebook from the hours of

midnight to 6:00 a.m., putting a 2-hour

limit on teenage scrolling on on

Facebook and Instagram, so kids can only

scroll the platforms for 2 hours a day.

um increasing parental control

safeguards. And what we saw from Meta on

August 26th was a call out to the rest

of the industry saying, "Join us in

protecting teenagers directly asking

YouTube and Tik Tok to make those same

product changes to ensure teenagers are

safe because it's not going to work

unless they all do it." And so part of

the settlement is actually $5 billion is

contingent on other platforms joining

Meta and rolling out those same

safeguards. Mhm.

>> Meta is paying 12 billion. It is paying

an additional 5 billion only if those

companies follow suit and introduce the

same framework.

>> So this is Meta's condition.

>> That's right. That's right. They'll say

we'll give you an additional 5 billion

if you can ensure that those other

companies roll out the same framework

because they're afraid of their market

share. If we if we lock out teens for 6

hours in the night, they're just going

to shift to Snapchat, which doesn't help

anybody. So let's make every social

media platform playing the same rules,

play the same game.

>> So Olivia, I want to pause on this for a

second because this is extremely

significant in this space. Meta has to

pay this huge financial penalty and it's

rolling out these platformwide changes

that lawmakers and victims have been

asking for for years. What do you think

the effect of those kinds of changes is

actually going to be? And and do you

think other social media platforms will

follow Meta, will heed that call to

action?

>> 17 billion sounds like a massive number

and it is, don't get me wrong, but Meta

is one of the wealthiest companies in

the world. The last quarter its revenue

was 60 billion. So I think a lot of

people have pointed out that really the

financial penalty

probably isn't enough to make the

company do anything different. But

really the change lies in those product

updates. That's the significant thing

here. That's where the accountability

is. And I do think we are going to see

other platforms roll out additional

safeguards to protect teenagers. And I

think the conversation is shifting and

the winds of change are coming. Meta is

now rolling out changes that these

families have been calling for for

years. This August 26th settlement that

Meta made comes as thousands of personal

injury lawsuits have been filed against

social media companies. 4,000 over the

past four years. As more of these cases

get litigated, what new information is

coming out about how these platforms

work, and do you think that this meta

settlement will have a bearing on how

these other cases play out? We have seen

over the past 5 years thousands of

lawsuits filed across the US. Not only

personal injury cases and those are

cases that are filed by individuals or

families of kids who have tragically

died like Chase Nazca's parents. There

are more than 1,300 school districts

across America that have filed lawsuits

against these companies alleging mental

health harm and that have drained school

resources. Dozens of state attorneys

general have filed the same lawsuits

against those companies. So this is a

massive consolidated litigation,

nationwide litigation that has been

compared to big tobacco, compared to the

opioid litigation, you know, some of the

most significant mass-tra litigations in

American history. We still have

thousands of other lawsuits to go. The

story is not over. Really, it's just

begun. [music]

In response to your latest reporting on

Tik Tok, on this confidential document,

on the AB testing that was done,

senators sent a letter to Tik Tok

leadership demanding [music] answers to

some of their questions. I'm wondering

if you could just talk about the

lawmakers response to your reporting

about the existence of this experiment

and [music]

what they want from Tik Tok. Senators

Marsha Blackburn and uh Richard

Blumenthal have been advocates of a

safer digital world for kids for years.

They are co-authors of the Kids Online

Safety Act, which passed in the Senate

in 2024, but died in the House that

year. And after the story came out, they

wrote a letter to Tik Tok CEO Shiao Chu

and Tik Tok CEO of its US spin-off,

essentially asking the company direct

questions about this experiment. How

many other kids have been experimented

on like this? How many other users were

impacted? What other algorithmic

experiments has Tik Tok conducted over

the years? Asking specifically [music]

who knew about this experiment? What are

the names and titles of the employees?

Did leadership know about this

experiment? When did leadership become

aware of this experiment? And they also

asked for an unredacted document. They

wanted to see the confidential document

that this story was based on to

understand more about what had happened.

Those 13 questions were sent to the

company shortly after the story was

published and they gave Tik Tok a

deadline of September 1 to respond.

In that confidential document, Tik Tok

also included its own recommendations

to quote prevent future incidents. What

were those recommendations and do you

have any knowledge of whether or not the

company has implemented any of those

recommendations?

>> So what we know from the information

that was contained in the confidential

document is that the company decided

after that review was conducted and they

realized what had happened to Chase

NASCAR's account, they decided to reduce

the size of the control group from 10%

of American users down to 1%. 1% is

still 1.5 million people, but it's a

hell of a lot better than 15 million.

They also decided to reduce the length

of time those users would be exposed to

filter bubbles. So, they went from half

a year to a year that users were being

exposed in the control group to 7 days

and that's significant.

>> I want to end by talking about

enforcement. Is there energy around

broader federal intervention to change

the way these kinds of platforms operate

and the kinds of guard rails that exist

to protect teens on these platforms in

order to get federal laws? We need

legislators to work together. I mean,

we're just in a deadlock. The Senate has

their own version of a child safety bill

called the Kids Online Safety Act that

they are championing and that they want

to get passed. The House has its own

child safety bill called the Kids

Internet Digital Safety Act, the Kids

Act that it wants to pass. And they're

in disagreement over which bill should

actually land on Trump's desk. So until

we get some kind of agreement within

lawmakers, we're never going to see the

laws change. We're never going to see

any kind of federal regulation. And I

think that's why so many child safety

advocates and so many families turn to

the courts for accountability. And that

is what we have recently seen. It's all

still in flux right now. It was only

just recently announced, but there is

going to be an independent auditor who

has to ensure that the platforms are

rolling out the safeguards that they're

claiming that they've rolled out. Who

knows if we'll see Tik Tok, YouTube,

Snapchat, and other companies join Meta

in making these changes.

As for the wrongful death lawsuit

[music] that Chase Nazca's parents filed

against Tik Tok, it was dismissed by a

judge last year after Tik Tok argued it

was protected from liability under

section 230. An appeal [music] of the

case is pending.

Personally, as a journalist, as a young

mom, I hope that we make the internet a

safer place for kids because it has just

been the wild west [music] up until now.

We have run a giant experiment, a

psychological experiment on an entire

generation of children or a for-profit

industry. And I don't use that word

experiment lightly. That's how Tik Tok

described what it did. It was an AB

experiment. [music] We are literally

experimenting on the minds of children

without understanding the long-term

impacts and consequences of how that is

going to play out. Like I think 5 years

from now if we look back and think

[music] did we really let 11 12 13y olds

sit in their rooms at night with a phone

[music] you know you give your kids this

device and you give them access to

everything the entire world but you give

the world access to them [music] as

well.

If you or someone you know is having

thoughts of suicide or self harm, a

global list of helplines is available at

blog.openccounseling.com/suicide-hotlines.

This is [music] the Big Take from

Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. To get

more from The Big Take and unlimited

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Thanks for listening. We'll be back

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[music]