Childhood is not for sale (with Jason Frost)

A teenage girl falling prey to a human trafficker. A suicide attempt over a leaked nude. Young children acting out scenes from a pornography video. These are just a few of the incidents that led Jason Frost and his wife to start Human Wired, an organization dedicated to protecting children from online harm and exploitation. As former teachers, they witnessed the loss of innocence with the rise of social media– and it devastated them.   

What started as a tool for connection transformed into the most profitable data mining technology, and our children are the products that fuel the profits. The core of social media is predatory AI that seeks to keep kids hooked – at any cost. The algorithm predicts what content will resonate most and serves it up without regard for appropriateness. The content is often shocking and harmful, but ‘engagement’ is the only metric that matters to Big Tech.   

In this episode, Jason Frost, Co-founder and CEO of Wired Human, and Nicki of Scrolling 2 Death discuss the inner workings of Big Tech and the AI systems they built, along with guidance for parents who want to safeguard their children from online harms.