Is Social Media Destroying a Generation?

The Dr. Phil Podcast

Dr. Phil McGraw

Education, Society & Culture

4.3 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

He was eight years old the first time he logged onto Roblox. He was fifteen when his mother called the platform to ask why her son was in the hospital. They say the company sent her a copy-paste email with a suicide hotline number. Nothing else. Now 22, Michael ... known online as "Schlep” ... says he was groomed on Roblox as a child by a developer the platform promoted and profited from. He says he spent two years running sting operations on the platform that hurt him, getting six predators arrested and protecting children across the country. Michael says the social media’s response was to ban him, sent a cease-and-desist, and accused him of acting like a predator himself. Dr. Phil sits down with Michael and his attorney Steven Vanderporten ...who represents over 3000+ survivors who say they were exploited on on this platform, alongside Mark Lanier, the trial attorney who recently made history when a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for deliberately designing their platforms to addict children, with malice, fraud, and oppression. With over 100 federal Roblox cases now consolidated in court and 2,300 more pending against Meta, the question is no longer whether these platforms are dangerous. A jury already answered that. The question now is: what are you going to do about it?

Contact your representatives: https://protectkidsnotplatforms.org/

https://www.lanierlawfirm.com/

https://www.lanierlawfirm.com/product-liability/social-media-addiction-lawsuit/

https://www.lanierlawfirm.com/product-liability/roblox-lawsuit-lawyer/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I want you to think about where your child or your grandchild is right now.
0:11.0	Think about what they're looking at on a screen, because chances are they're probably looking at something on the screen.
0:18.0	And I want you to ask yourself one honest question. Do you
0:23.6	actually know? Do you actually know what they're looking at? Do you actually know what it
0:29.6	involves, what it entails? Because here's what I know. A jury in Los Angeles just found that the companies behind Instagram and YouTube deliberately designed their products
0:45.3	to addict your children and hit it from you.
0:50.3	A jury in New Mexico found that meta knowingly allowed predators to use their platform
0:56.8	to explore children while publicly telling you, oh, it's safe, don't worry about it.
1:04.3	Over 100 families are now suing Roblox in federal court, multi-state, attorney generals across these states have filed suit.
1:16.6	Congress is paying attention as well. And the young man sitting next to me tonight was
1:22.6	eight years old the first time he logged on to Roblox. He was 15 when his mother reached out to the
1:30.3	platform to ask why her son was in the hospital after a suicide attempt. Now his name
1:37.5	is Michael. He's now 22 years old. You may know him online as Schlepp. He has 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube.
1:48.0	He spent two years running sting operations on the platform that hurt him.
1:53.0	And he got six predators arrested.
1:56.0	He's going to tell us how he did that,
1:59.0	but you won't believe how the platform responded to Michael's
2:03.4	heroic actions. Now, Michael is also joining me with his attorney, Stephen Vanderporten. Thank
2:11.8	you both for being here.
2:13.4	Of course. Thank you for having us.
2:15.2	Steve, how did you two decide what to do with all of this?
2:20.3	Yes, so at our firm, we were on the front end of investigating this matter and bringing cases against Roblox.
	...

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