For more than two decades, I've worked to protect children from online exploitation, first as Commander of the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, later as CEO and Co-Founder of Raven (a non profit focused on combatting child exploitation), and now leading law enforcement and safety policy at Snap Inc. Across those roles, I've investigated child predators, worked with survivors and families, helped shape child safety policy, and testified before Congress on online exploitation and technology.

One lesson has remained remarkably consistent: when people are prevented from using one online environment, they rarely stop going online. They simply move somewhere else. 

That reality should be central to today's debate over proposals to ban teens from social media. Many advocates of proposals like these share the goal of making young people safer online. The question is whether these policies will actually achieve that outcome.

The Migration Problem

During undercover investigations targeting child predators and exploitation networks, I repeatedly saw the same pattern. When a platform became more effective at detecting potentially harmful behavior, offenders adapted. When moderation improved, they moved. When law enforcement pressure increased, they shifted. When safeguards made it harder to operate in plain sight, they looked for places with fewer rules, less oversight, and weaker safety protections.

The same dynamic applies to young people.

A teenager who wants to communicate online does not suddenly lose that desire because a law prohibits access to a popular, mainstream service. Resourceful young people look for alternatives. History has shown this over and over again. From anonymous chat rooms to foreign-hosted platforms, users find other pathways when restrictions are imposed. Teens are no different.

The internet is not disappearing. Digital communication is not going away. The question is not whether young people will go online. The question is where they will go.

Not All Platforms Are Equal

One of the biggest false assumptions in this debate is treating every online service as though it presents the same level of risk. They do not.

Some platforms, like Snapchat, have invested heavily in trust and safety infrastructure, age-appropriate design, parental tools, proactive detection, reporting systems, content moderation, and cooperation with law enforcement. These systems are not perfect, and neither are offline approaches to protecting children. But when thoughtfully designed, platform safety tools can be more scalable, more consistent, and better equipped to support early detection, reporting, and intervention compared to many traditional approaches. But they create something essential: the ability to detect risk and respond to it.

That ability allows intervention and reporting. It allows accountability. The ability to detect and respond to real risk gives parents, platforms, and law enforcement more opportunities to identify threatening behavior and act before harm may escalate or even occur.

That matters because when young people are pushed off responsible, values-respecting platforms, they do not move into a neutral environment. In many cases, they move into spaces that are riskier, unmoderated, or hosted in jurisdictions that can evade law enforcement investigations. In those environments, parents, platforms, and law enforcement have limited ways to respond quickly.