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Bloomberg Doc Reveals Social Media, Teen Drug Deaths Link

Mar 2025 🇺🇸 The Hollywood Reporter

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This Hollywood Reporter news article, published ahead of the film's release, previews Can't Look Away: The Case Against Social Media, the documentary co-directed by Matthew O'Neill and Perri Peltz. Reporter Etan Vlessing describes the film's account of Social Media Victims Law Center litigation against platforms including Snapchat, and its focus on cases where encrypted, disappearing-message features are described as easing contact between counterfeit-pill dealers and teenagers, a pattern the filmmakers link to overdose deaths. The article quotes Peltz calling the pattern part of a broader public-health concern and O'Neill saying platform companies choose profit over addressing harm to children. O'Neill also compares the case for platform safety regulation to historical auto-industry seatbelt requirements. TechKids Foundation cites this piece for its documented account of the filmmakers' own framing and the film's release details, not as independent proof of platform liability.

Filmmakers quoted directly on regulation

Peltz called the pattern "a public health crisis"; O'Neill said platforms "consistently choose profits over real harm to children," as quoted in the article.

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CITATION

Vlessing, Etan. "Bloomberg Doc Reveals Social Media, Teen Drug Deaths Link." The Hollywood Reporter, March 21, 2025. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/bloomberg-doc-reveals-social-media-teen-drug-crisis-1236169564/

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