Kristin Bride
Bereaved-Parent Campaigners ·
Senate testimony and state-level advocacy that helped drive KOSA and Oregon's Carson's Law.
Kristin Bride testified before the U.S. Senate in February 2023 regarding anonymous messaging apps and cyberbullying, testimony connected to the experience of her son, Carson. Her advocacy became one of the catalysts cited in the push for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) at the federal level. In Oregon, her advocacy is associated with the passage of Carson's Law, state legislation addressing online harassment. Bride has continued to engage directly with lawmakers on legislation aimed at increasing platform accountability for anonymous and cyberbullying-related harms to young people.
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WORKS IN THE LIBRARY (10)
VIDEOS
S5 Episode 5: Suicide by Cyberbullying — Carson's Story
In this podcast interview with host Hillary Wilkinson, Kristin Bride describes her son Carson — 'funny and witty, affectionate,' in her words — and the anonymous-messaging apps linked to Snapchat that she says were used to send him repeated harassing and humiliating messages before his death by suicide in June 2020. Bride recounts that her family had discussed online safety, but Carson had not disclosed what he was experiencing, and she uses the episode to explain broader patterns of underreporting among teens who face cyberbullying. She describes turning her advocacy toward Oregon's parent-notification law (Carson's Law) and toward the federal Kids Online Safety Act. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as a substantive long-form interview in which a bereaved parent connects a documented personal account to broader, association-language points about underreporting and platform design.
A Mother's Quest for Social Media Reform
In this public-radio segment, Marketplace profiles Kristin Bride, whose 16-year-old son Carson died by suicide in 2020 after, in her account, receiving more than a hundred negative, harassing, and threatening anonymous messages through apps connected to Snapchat in the weeks beforehand. The segment covers Bride's legal action against the platform and her continued advocacy for federal legislation, including the Kids Online Safety Act, intended to require social platforms to build in stronger protections for minors. It situates her personal story within a broader public debate over platform accountability for youth safety design. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as a mainstream public-radio treatment of a bereaved parent's advocacy trajectory, presented in association language rather than as a diagnostic or causal claim.
Online Harms: A Parent's Fight for Social Media Regulation
In this interview with CCDH chief executive Imran Ahmed, Kristin Bride discusses losing her 16-year-old son Carson to suicide in 2020, following a pattern of cyberbullying she says he experienced through the anonymous-messaging app Yolo, an add-on connected to Snapchat. She describes the product-liability and misrepresentation lawsuit she filed against the app in 2021, its dismissal on Section 230 grounds, and her subsequent appeal win on the misrepresentation claim, which she characterizes as creating an opening in Section 230's broad immunity. Bride frames her message as a call for collective pressure on large platforms rather than reliance on any single family's fight. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as a substantive interview connecting one advocate's personal and legal history to the broader Section 230 reform debate, in association language throughout.
Ep 30 (Season 2): Social Media Reform Advocate Kristin Bride
In this podcast interview, Kristin Bride again shares her account of her son Carson's death by suicide in 2020, which she connects to a pattern of anonymous cyberbullying he experienced through apps linked to Snapchat, including Yolo and LMK. The episode covers the same core themes present across her advocacy work — the dangers she associates with anonymous messaging features, her push for stronger platform accountability legislation, and practical guidance for parents on delaying or monitoring children's social media use. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as one of several long-form interview appearances documenting the consistency of Bride's public advocacy over multiple years and venues, in association language throughout.
TESTIMONY
Written Testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee — "Protecting Our Children Online"
On February 14, 2023, Kristin Bride submitted written testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for its hearing 'Protecting Our Children Online,' chaired by Senator Dick Durbin. The committee's own hearing record lists her as a witness identified as a survivor parent and social media-reform advocate from Portland, Oregon. Her testimony recounts the anonymous-messaging apps linked to Snapchat that she says were used to send her son Carson repeated harassing messages before his death by suicide in 2020, and argues for federal accountability measures — including a duty of care for platforms designing products used by minors — framed around what became the Kids Online Safety Act. TechKids Foundation includes this hearing appearance as a documented instance of a bereaved parent's direct input into federal legislative deliberation, described in association language rather than as a claim of clinical causation.
Estate of Bride v. YOLO Technologies, Inc. (9th Circuit opinion)
In this published opinion (No. 23-55134), the Ninth Circuit ruled on a class-action suit brought by the Estate of Carson Bride, through administrator Kristin Bride, and several other minor plaintiffs against YOLO Technologies, Inc., maker of an anonymous-messaging app connected to Snapchat. The suit alleged that YOLO's public promises to unmask abusive users were false and that this misrepresentation was linked to harassment plaintiffs experienced on the app. A district court had dismissed the case under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the product-liability claims but reversed dismissal of the misrepresentation claims, holding that Section 230 does not immunize a company's own false statements about its safety practices. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as a documented legal outcome directly tied to Bride's advocacy, described here as a procedural ruling rather than a finding of fact about what caused any plaintiff's harm.
Written Testimony in Support of Oregon HB 2251 (Restricting Cellphone Use in Schools)
In written testimony dated March 28, 2025 to the Oregon House Committee on Education, Kristin Bride states her name and role as a social media-reform advocate, recounts that her son Carson died by suicide in 2020 after being sent, by her account, more than a hundred anonymous harassing messages by classmates, and describes her related 2021 testimony that led to Oregon's parent-notification law (Carson's Law). She goes on to support HB 2251, which would direct Oregon school districts to adopt policies restricting student cellphone use during the school day, citing conversations with principals piloting 'bell to bell' phone-free policies who reported less in-school cyberbullying and stronger peer interaction. She resubmitted the same position to the Senate Committee on Education on May 12, 2025. TechKids Foundation includes this as documented state-level testimony connecting her personal account to a specific, still-pending device-policy bill, in association language.
STUDIES
Carson's Law: Oregon School Bullying-Notification Requirement (HB 2631)
Oregon House Bill 2631, enacted in the 2021 legislative session as Chapter 232 and commonly nicknamed 'Carson's Law,' requires Oregon school officials who receive a report of harassment, intimidation, bullying, or cyberbullying to notify the parents or guardians of both the targeted student and the student identified as the aggressor, with narrow exceptions where notification could put a student at risk. The measure is named for Carson Bride, the 16-year-old son of advocate Kristin Bride, who died by suicide in June 2020 following a pattern of anonymous cyberbullying at his Portland-area high school. In later written testimony, Bride states in her own words that she personally testified in support of the bill in 2021. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as a documented instance of bereaved-parent advocacy translating into state policy, described here as a parent-notification requirement rather than as a claim about the cause of Carson's death.
Keeping Our Kids Safe Online
In this guest essay for Jonathan Haidt's After Babel newsletter, Kristin Bride writes in her own words about her son Carson, who she says received nearly a hundred harassing, threatening, and sexually explicit anonymous messages through apps linked to Snapchat in the weeks before his death by suicide in June 2020. She describes filing a class-action suit against the platform, which she says was followed by the removal of the anonymous-messaging add-ons in question, and argues that current law gives social media companies no legal 'duty of care' requiring them to weigh child safety in product design. She positions her advocacy for the Kids Online Safety Act and COPPA 2.0 as the practical response to that gap. TechKids Foundation includes this essay as a first-person advocacy piece laying out specific policy asks, presented as the author's argument rather than an independently adjudicated fact.