The Truth About Social Media and Teen Suicide — What Meta Knew

The Dr. Phil Podcast

Dr. Phil McGraw

Education, Society & Culture

4.3 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Antoinette left the house to pick up groceries, she believed her daughter Muffin was safe at home. But when she returned, she faced every parent’s worst nightmare. Her daughter had taken her own life after experiencing online bullying.

Now, as Meta and Mark Zuckerberg roll out new teen safety tools on Instagram, many parents are asking the same question: If the dangers were known for years, why did these protections take so long?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Too little too late. Meta should not be celebrating.
0:03.0	This company knew its platforms were absolutely exposing teenagers to harmful conduct
0:12.0	and did damn little about it.
0:15.0	One internal email reportedly read, quote,
0:18.0	We're exposed with nowhere to hide.
0:21.6	Your child has been targeted with an addictive device.
0:26.6	The Real Story is brought to you by Preserve Gold.
0:29.6	Catch the Real Story every day on your favorite podcast platform and watch a double episode
0:35.6	every night on Envoy TV.
0:42.6	Stay right here for an incredible free offer from Preserve Gold.
0:47.2	The past few weeks met a giant media company.
0:52.7	They run Facebook and Instagram has been giving itself an awful lot of credit.
0:54.8	They've been patting themselves on the back for introducing a new safety measure to protect teens.
0:58.7	Sounds great, right?
1:00.2	The real story?
1:01.4	Too little too late.
1:03.0	Meta should not be celebrating.
1:05.2	They absolutely shouldn't.
1:07.2	That's like you catch a bank robber that's running down the street
1:10.5	with sacks of money.
1:15.3	You catch them at the corner, drag them back to the bank and make them give the money back,
1:20.7	and they want to celebrate their great behavior for giving the money back.
	...

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