Transcript: Mayor Adams Lawsuit Against Social Media Companies Fueling Nationwide Youth Mental Health Crisis and Holds In-Person Q-and-A

February 14, 2024

Watch the video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_OcSA67YhE

Mayor Eric Adams: My fellow New Yorkers. This is a city built on innovation and technology, a place where we celebrate progress and look to the future. But even as we have created jobs, opportunity and prosperity with new technology, there have been unforeseen consequences and new dangers, especially when it comes to social media's effect on the mental health of our young people.

Over the past decade, we have seen just how addictive and overwhelming the online world can be: exposing children to content they are not ready for, disrupting the educational process and seriously damaging their self‑esteem and well‑being.

Our most recent data found that young people in New York City are experiencing anxiety, hopelessness and even attempted suicide at rates we have never seen before, and there is growing evidence that the power of social media is a major cause. This is a serious problem that must be addressed now.

That is why earlier this morning our administration filed a lawsuit against the companies that own five major social media platforms: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube. As we announced last month in the State of the City address, we must take action to protect our children from harm online, including the growing dangers presented by social media.

Together, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York City Health + Hospitals and the New York City Department of Education, we are filing litigation today demanding that companies be held accountable for their platform's damage and influence on the mental health of our young people, and while seeking to recover the cost of addressing this ongoing public health threat as well.

Parents everywhere can see for themselves that their children are spending too much time online. New York City teens spending average of three hours or more per day in front of screens — not including time spent on schoolwork — much of it focused on the endless stream of social media that has been designed with one goal in mind: keeping the user engaged for as long as possible.

Adults find it hard enough to moderate the use of social media, but it's even more difficult for our young people. We know these platforms are designed with addictive and dangerous features that take advantage of a child's natural interest in novelty and play.

The social on these platforms — the likes, the trophies, the streaks — are designed to manipulate a dopamine release in the brain, and children lack the maturity and impulse control to continually regulate their use.

Instead of talking to each other over lunch at the cafeteria, they're absorbed in their screens. Instead of playing at the park with friends, they are inside on a sunny day clicking and scrolling. And instead of learning confidence and resilience, they are being exposed to content that often leads to insecurity and depression.

The feature that keeps young people clicking in these dark corners of social media have fueled an alarming rise in online bullying, depression, eating disorders and suicidal ideation.

Social media can damage self‑esteem, promote addiction, and often encourages reckless behavior like subway surfing and car theft challenges. We have also seen a dangerous rise in misinformation, xenophobia, radicalization and incitement to hateful acts; and even young people astonishingly declaring that Osama bin Laden was right as they rack up likes online.

Instead of connecting people to one another, as our social media companies initially promised, their platforms too often tear us apart. These companies are well aware that negative, frightening and outrageous content generates continued engagement and greater revenue.

Children who start watching an online video for a school assignment often find that algorithms keep playing other videos, potentially taking them down a rabbit hole that is inappropriate, hateful and even dangerous, a place they never even meant to go.

There is, of course, a great deal of education and positive content out there, too, but there is also a 24/7 digital dystopia that even very young children can easily access without parents or caregivers ever being aware.

The harm from social media is particularly critical in our schools where students' addictive social media use is disrupting the learning environment on a daily basis. Teachers are burned out from dealing with students' phone use and the fallout from online bullying leading to lost instructional time and low morale.

That is why New York City is joining hundreds of school districts from across the country in filing this litigation to protect our children.

Measuring the true impact of social media is difficult because companies often limit access to their data. But Frances Haugen, a whistleblower who went public with her experiences working at Facebook, said that the company had internal findings that showed that 32 percent of teen girls said that they felt bad about their bodies, and Instagram even made them feel worse.

Internal TikTok documents reveal that more than 20 percent of children are active on the platform between midnight and 5:00 a.m. when they should be sleeping. In recent years, there was a 40 percent increase in high school students reporting persistent sadness and hopelessness.

Emergency room visits for anxiety disorders are up 117 percent; and nationwide, suicidal rates for youth are up an alarming 57 percent. These are not just numbers, these are our children, and this is not a reality we can accept or normalize.

We're facing a serious youth mental health crisis, and it's up to us as parents, as a city and as a society to take action. Not just to improve academics or build social skills but to save lives, because if we don't stand up to powerful companies on behalf of our young people, who will?

These companies must change their behavior and their business practices and join us in building a better society for all. We know our tech community can and must be part of the solution. But the path forward starts with a firm commitment to prioritizing the health of the many over the profits of a few.

We came into office two years ago with a clear mission to protect public safety, and public safety includes protecting the mental health of our young people. We do all we can to keep our children safe from gun violence, drugs and climate change, and make sure they have access to education, healthcare and all the services that they need.

Now, we must support families fighting the harmful effects of unregulated social media, just as we protect them from air pollution and other environmental dangers. That is why Dr. Vasan issued a Health Commissioner’s Advisory last month declaring social media a public health hazard, and why we are filing this lawsuit today.

New York is the first major American city to take combined steps of this magnitude and call out the danger of social media clearly and directly, just as the Surgeon General did with tobacco and guns. We are treating social media like other public health hazards. We are following up the advisory with this lawsuit to ensure that tech companies take responsibility for the impact of their products.

Not only do we aim to hold TikTok, Meta, Snapchat and YouTube accountable for their role in creating the youth mental health crisis in New York City by purposely manipulating and addicting children and teens to social media applications, but we seek to hold them financially responsible for what they cost our city year after year.

We spend over $100 million on youth mental health programs each year alone, even as these corporations reap billions of dollars of profit at the cost of young people's emotional, mental and physical health.

Young New Yorkers have told us about wanting to have a healthier relationship with social media and wanting to spend more time offline, connecting with friends, but they need help.

That is why today we are also releasing our Social Media Action Plan, which will help us chart a new course forward in several key areas. First, we are advocating for state and federal policymakers to put in place laws that require social media companies to ensure that their platforms are safe for youth mental health.

Second, we will be providing media literacy and education to support our young people and families. This includes promoting tech‑free zones to encourage young people to socialize in person.

And finally, our action plan will study the long‑term impacts of social media on our youth to understand how New York City can better address the harm caused by these platforms.

Tech companies should agree to share their data with us and open their books to independent research as part of that effort. These companies have been a partner here in New York City, but friends need to be honest with one another.

We know that some have begun working to tackle these issues. While we welcome those efforts, this entire industry must do far more. We must have enforceable and agreed upon standards, not a patchwork of voluntary fixes that ultimately shifts the burden right back to parents, teachers, and young people.

Our children, our families and our future are more important than that, and more important than profit. That is why we are taking bold actions on behalf of millions of New Yorkers, an important step in a larger reckoning that will shape the lives of our young people, our city and society for years to come.

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Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Good afternoon, everyone. First, thank you to the mayor for his powerful remarks and his powerful commitment to this issue, to protect our kids. I want to start also by recognizing Norma Nazario, who's with us here today. As many of you will know, Norma lost her 15‑year‑old son, Zachary, to subway surfing and has been a tireless advocate for her son and for the safety of all children online, because we know that our kids' lives are at stake.

And this work will take all of us working together, from our young advocates to partners of all levels of government, so I'm pleased also to recognize State Senator Andrew Gounardes, who's been a real leader on this issue.

I'm Dr. Ashwin Vasan, the Health commissioner. I'm very proud to be here today in that role, but I'm particularly proud to be here as a parent of three small kids. I was telling my daughter this morning that we were launching this today, and she knows we've been working on this issue.

And I said, today's the day that we're going to be talking about this. And she said, so you're going to take it away from me? And you know, for those of us who are parents and frankly, those of us in public service, sometimes we have to do the hard thing because it's the right thing, even if it's not convenient.

It's certainly not convenient to launch litigation against some of the most powerful corporations that are ubiquitous in our lives, but it is the right thing to do. And I'm very proud to be standing up for the right thing with this administration, this mayor, on behalf of my kids as well as the kids of this great city and this country.

Since we issued our public health advisory a few weeks ago, the response has been nothing short of a groundswell of support from policymakers to educators to caregivers and parents and from young people who each have reached out and expressed support and gratitude. Not because of any one piece of the announcement or but rather that a signal that this administration, this city is taking this issue seriously at the highest levels of government.

And in our way, in the face of incredibly powerful forces and ubiquitous forces in our society, we're doing our part to try to take some of the power back and to fight back against this scourge which is really hurting our children.

Since the launch of the Mayor's Mental Health Agenda, we've had an ongoing conversation. We didn't get here just overnight, we started a conversation nearly nine months ago with our social media convening to discuss with academics, researchers, parents and young people about what we know and what we don't know. And some of the most important people, some of the most important voices in that conversation are young people themselves, those who are directly impacted.

So, one of those young people I had the honor of meeting was Tina Tamba. She's someone I know we'll hear much more from in the future because she's a leader. She's a future leader. She'll be standing up here one day. And she's an advocate for mental health and well‑being of her community and her peers.

She attended our social media summit back in June 2023, and recently introduced me at a Teens Against Gun Violence Conversation with the Commissioner's event. And so now it's my honor to return the favor and introduce Tina Tamba here today.
  
Tina Tamba: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Tina Tamba. I am 19. I currently attend LaGuardia Community College, and I am a TAG ambassador for the Community Initiatives of New York. TAG stands for Teaching A Generation. I stepped up to become an ambassador because I like what Reverend Al Cohen and Janet Cohen have us do at TAG with community services to promote engagement with peers and work around teens against gun violence, mental health, and most importantly, giving young people a platform to use their voices for a greater good.

The Covid‑19 pandemic took a huge toll on the youth, and some carry depression and anxiety in the community from being isolated for so long. This is leading to many students not wanting to be around people, not feeling mentally stable enough to travel to school and to home.

And I myself have fallen victim to this. Sometimes I could be on the train and I'll just catch an anxiety attack out of nowhere, or like there'd be some mornings, I'm in college right now, like college is important for me, you're paying for that out of your pocket, and my mental health in general, I just feel like as if I'm not well enough to even go to school or like just too anxious.

And many adults out there don't understand what we are mentally going through. There are things that misunderstood teens have done and are going through that shine a bad light on all of us teens as a whole.

I say all the time I feel as if it starts at home. Or someone's bad day that continues this ongoing cycle. Some kids from a young age have nobody to talk to, which leads into adulthood. Don't feel comfortable enough to talk to a therapist or a guardian about how they are feeling, and those people turn to social media or become bullies on social media, jeopardizing someone else's self‑esteem of making a real connection.

At TAG, however, we have so many different individuals with different backgrounds and situations they've been in or are still going through. Coming in during TAG nights, we are able to express how we feel or just listen to other individuals and what they're going through. We talk on our mental health and we talk on current problems within the world and how we could change it by acting on it and not just speaking on it.

But in general, we have to come together. It is important for adults, guardians especially, and government leaders to use their power to take accountability to raise more awareness about positive programs within New York City like TAG, helping with making that change.

Of course, it's not just something that's going to happen overnight, which is why we all have to work together. We have to use our voices, our power and also what we are going through to advocate for this change.

And once again, my name is Tina Tamba. I am a senior TAG ambassador with the Community Initiatives of New York City, speaking on behalf of the youth.
  
Commissioner Vasan: Give it up for Tina one more time, she did great. You did great.
  
Just want to briefly call up State Senator Andrew Gounardes, who's been a real leader on this issue for some time with the introduction of his two bills, the Safe for Kids Act and the Child Data Privacy Protection Act, has displayed a real legislative commitment and hopeful that this goes through in the next budget.

State Senator Andrew Gounardes: Thank you, commissioner. I want to just say a huge heartfelt thank you to the mayor and the entire administration of the City of New York for taking this incredibly bold step. New York City is stepping in where our national leaders have failed us.

For years there have been discussions in Washington D.C. about trying to do something about the hold that big tech and social media has had on our lives, especially about the lives of our children, our kids, the mental health of our children, the personal data of our children.

Congress has failed to take any meaningful action on protecting kids online since 1998. We were all still getting America Online disks mailed to us back then and going online via dial‑up. The world has changed a thousand times over, the Internet has changed 10,000 times over, and so in the failure and in the absence of national leadership, it falls on us, state and local governments, to take the lead, to do what we know is right to protect kids' mental health.

We can't expect the big tech companies to do it themselves, because it is in their vested interest to keep the status quo. In 2022, according to a Harvard Medical School study, social media companies made $11 billion off of ad sales just targeted to minors. They have 11 billion reasons to not give a damn about what is happening to the mental health of our kids.

And yet we see, as we heard from Tina and as we see from children all across our city, the rates of self‑esteem, depression, self‑harm and suicidal ideations continue to grow while social media remains unchecked.

And so we are pushing at the state level to pass, as Dr. Vasan said, two pieces of legislation: the Safe for Kids Act, which would regulate the use of addictive algorithms for minors under the age of 18, and, the Child Data Privacy Protection Act, which would prohibit Internet companies from collecting data from kids and using it for ad sales and for a commercial purpose.

But this is just one step and one part of a comprehensive fight that needs to happen, and it's going to happen with leadership like here in New York City by filing litigation to hold these tech companies accountable for the harms they are causing, that they are knowingly causing on young people because they know exactly what they're doing.

And that's why I'm proud to stand here with this team today and proud to offer my support. And we're going to do this comprehensively, collectively as one, so that we can finally once and for all protect the most important people in our lives, and those are our kids.

So, I want to thank the city, I want to thank the mayor again for his leadership here. Thank you.
  
Mayor Adams: We're going to open to some questions, but I really want to thank Norma for being here. When she lost her son, we spoke together, and we did a video together. These children who do the subway surfings, they post millions of views on social media. When we did something as children, it would just stay on the block, and now that block has expanded to millions and millions of views. And those likes mean a lot. And they become more and more daring.

And I want to thank the corporation counsel for filing this suit, Judge Hinds‑Radix and the entire team on what we believe is so important. And Senator Gounardes and I were talking about this when he was my counsel in Borough Hall. We knew how important this was.

And we had many meetings with social media companies to talk about this to see how we can come to a resolution. And so, this is not a demonizing of the industry of technology and social media, but this is specifically addressing the impact this is having on our children. So, we'll open to a few questions.

Question: Good afternoon, mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Good, thanks. Could you just provide some more details, I guess of the strategy behind the lawsuit? Is it to sort of, I've seen in the press release alludes to it [inaudible] hoping to get some money to help fund some of the mental health services the city needs, or do you actually want to ban some apps that's been done in some states around the country?

Mayor Adams: It's a combination. And Dr. Vasan could go into the mental health aspect of it. But this costs us, as we stated, $100 million a year. And we're using social media or we're using technology for our children to have the access to an app to talk with a mental health professional.

So, we know that if the tool is used correctly, it could be helpful and not harmful. So, the cost of $100 million a year is an impact on our mental health ability, and that is one aspect of it, but Dr. Vasan, you may want to go into the other aspects.

Commissioner Vasan: Sure. We're certainly deploying a toolkit that we've used for our other environmental health challenges. Affirmative litigation like this is one strategy, but it's a part of a broader toolkit. Today we also released our Framework for Action which outlines the steps we are going to take for New Yorkers to empower them, to provide them with information, skills, training, resources for pediatricians, parents, teachers, caregivers, and young people themselves to start to reshape our relationship with social media while suits like this, while legal action like this is underway.

And we are joining a large national multi‑district litigation here that is based in California, which is the home state of most of these companies. And so the strategy is very much that we not only need to empower people with tools and knowledge and the power to fight back, but we need to demand change. And it doesn't happen by asking nicely. It happens sometimes by using the tools of the law to get what we need.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. How are you?

Mayor Adams: How are you? Good.

Question: I have two questions for you. They're both fairly technical. I was wondering, could you or someone else go through sort of the legal argument, sort of maybe any precedent about why this has worked before?

And then my second question was, I was wondering if you could expand on the idea that the city's joining this larger network. To me, it looked like the city was just a plaintiff on this lawsuit, but could you clarify how it fits in with a larger legal [inaudible].

Sylvia Hinds-Radix, Corporation Counsel, Law Department: The claims in this lawsuit are negligence, nuisance and gross negligence. And as the mayor has stated, this lawsuit is not about us trying to get rid of social media. This lawsuit is about us trying to abate a nuisance that we know, that the mental health impact that is being had on our youth.

The action had commenced in California with these other companies before, there's over 400 of them. It makes sense for us to be a part of that lawsuit rather than to start a new lawsuit because timing is everything. To start a lawsuit then we'd start from scratch; here, we are able to join a lawsuit and to have our voices heard at the time that this is being held. Was there another question?

Question: I think you answered everything.

Hinds‑Radix: Okay. And if I may just recognize, mayor, Melanie Ash from our office who has done the significant amount of work on this action who's penning all this, so I want to give her some credit.

Question: So, I just wanted to circle back on Katie's question, Mr. Mayor. I noticed in the lawsuit there's not a price tag for damages. I'm just wondering, is there a number that you are seeking that you think is reasonable to seek in damages?

And then on a second note, I noticed that the lawsuit is filed together with a private law firm. I'm just wondering why the decision was made to retain that firm? How much the city is spending on that, and when the work started?

Hinds‑Radix: We have a private law firm because we've used this law firm in the past on other issues. The very well‑known litigation firm out of Seattle does work in California and so they are co‑counsel with the Law Department on this action.

It is, we are not paying anything, this is on a contingency basis. Should monies be recovered on this action, then that's how they get paid. And we're not, at this time it's kind of, it would be premature for the mayor to say that we're going to be getting $100 million. It's in its infancy. So, we at this time, to give you a number about what we expect is not something that we are prepared to do at this time.

But however, Dr. Vasan has told you about numbers that we have spent on mental health. And so when we're talking about an ability to abate it, those are the things we'll be looking at when we start dealing with what has been spent or what we're requesting.

Question: Hi, Mayor. I have two questions for you. You mentioned the subway surfing and the car theft challenges. People in the public safety community have also told us that over the past year there's been a substantial increase in the number of stabbing victims under the age of 18.

One law enforcement source told us there was a 45 percent increase last year, 17 percent increase in felony assault victims under 18. Why do you think that's happening?

Mayor Adams: And I just want to also go back, we said this is the cost is $100 million. I just want to be clear that is not the dollar amount we're seeking, but that's how much we spend on mental health.

I think there's a combination of things that are giving way to the stabbings. Number one, the police department has done an amazing job of cracking down on guns. I believe over 13,000 were removed off our streets. And some young people have started to use knives.

And also, again, we hear this over and over again that many of the platforms are displaying fights among children in schools, off school grounds, they're getting hundreds of thousands of views. This is all playing into the anxiety that our young people are experiencing.

And I think there, you know, there's just many roles that are leaving into some of the increase in, you know, the use of knives and the stabbing. We had a young girl that was stabbed today in the hand, I believe, in one of our schools. And so it's the continuation of keeping our children safe. And it doesn't matter what weapon is used, we want to ensure that our children are in a safe environment.

Question: Just one other question I had on teens and crime. One of the teenagers who was arrested in the Times Square [inaudible] NYPD was released and then arrested again. Wanted to get your thoughts and reaction to that?

Mayor Adams: Well, you know, we've always made it clear that the small number of people who are repeated offenders should be addressed accordingly, and I was briefed last night of the potentiality that the person who was involved in the police incident may have been involved also in other incidents. I will find out later when I speak with the chief of patrol. So, I'm going to hold back until I get more information.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. How are you?

Mayor Adams: Good. How are you doing?

Question: I'm fine.

So, it seems like you’re requesting some sort of funds to offset the cost of mental health treatment, but like it seems like without some regulation to social media or this is going to keep happening, right? So, are you calling for either a ban for underage use of social media, would this require some sort of age verification?

What is the technical thing, what is the win here in kind of regulating this, because just treating it after the fact really doesn't seem to be the… 

Commissioner Vasan: Yes, and I'll just speak mostly from the public health and social protection standpoint, which is that we need to host of changes to these platforms. And what companies will say is, we're working on this. We've already developed tools. We have the things.

But as the mayor said in his remarks, we can't rely… First of all, we can't expect or rely on them to police themselves, number one. Number two, we can't put a patchwork of solutions together and then expect parents and young people to have to navigate it on their own.

So, age verification is one example, linking parent and child accounts is another standard tool. In our framework for action, our action plan, we have a list of changes we want including some of the things that Senator Goundardes is talking about in terms of algorithmic boosting, the automatic playing of subsequent videos and the targeted ads that then come as a result of the data being collected on the behaviors of our young people online.

I also just want to say one of the key research questions we outlined, a set of research questions that we are diving into is, what's the contagion effect here, right? We are talking about the mental health of young people, but what Norma's experienced in her own life is that it has direct action. It can have a direct impact and can take lives.

And what is the ripple effect of that? Whether it's bullying or violence or self‑harm or dangerous risky activities, we need to better understand the role that social media plays in that contagion effect.

And when you look for an analogy, just look at how the tide turned against tobacco once we understood what secondhand smoke did. That's when the groundswell of people came and said, actually, we need to hold tobacco companies accountable.

Question: Kids could not use social media but just regulate it under a certain age.

Dr. Vasan: In our public health advisory we issued a few weeks ago, we said that parents and caregivers should avoid giving a device that can access social media to their child before the age of 14, at which point we reassess the data and reassess the social and emotional development of the child.

We know this. Why did we set age 14? Because we know that in particular the ages of eight to 14 are incredibly vulnerable times in brain development, social development, identity development, impulse control, risk‑taking behavior, and that is the time when they're most vulnerable to what they see.

And it's not that there's a magic number at 14, but 14 is also an age when New York City children start to go, they go to high school, they start to ride the subway alone. And there is an expectation of parents — I have somewhat of that same expectation — that I know where my kid is.

And so we're working through this and learning as we go, but no one is talking about a ban here, no one is talking about taking, snatching away devices or snatching away platforms. We're talking about a fundamental set of rules and regulation, and sometimes litigation is the way we have to go about getting it.

Moderator: Great, we'll do a couple more. Kelly and then [inaudible].

Question: To follow up on that question. I'm wondering, litigation can sometimes drag out for a long period of time. The strategy behind the lawsuit instead of going to state first and maybe doing a bill there and getting that through for regulation that can take less time and then take the lawsuit path if that doesn't work.

Commissioner Vasan: I would just say it's not instead, right? It's all about the above. There's a playbook here, a public health playbook, frankly, because we're the main rationale for this is public health and youth mental health. Litigation, affirmative litigation like this is just one arrow in the quiver.

Legislation like that being proposed at the state level, like the Kids Online Safety Act, which is floundering in Congress but has two co‑sponsors, bipartisan co‑sponsors in the senate, is another example.

And then New York City is stepping up to put tools out there to empower people to take actions today, parents, caregivers, pediatricians, young people themselves to start to navigate and reshape their relationship with these devices, with these platforms, because we know they're not going anywhere. This is not about banning, this is about harm reduction, which is a core principle of public health.

Question: I just want to ask, mayor, you've talked a lot from a police officer about young people, you know, you've been involved with violence interruption, you know, there was the shooting in the Bronx on the train the other day, young people.

I'm wondering where you rank social media among the many other issues that young people in New York City are facing, including violence, you know, [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Jeff, that's a great question, because what I'm seeing now in my observations particularly in the area of violence — and Dr. Vasan could probably talk about in the area of mental health issues — social media is probably in the top one or two.

As I stated, when we had an argument with someone on the block, it stayed on the block. Now it spreads at a rapid pace. The number of disputes that turn physical and sometimes deadly comes from someone disrespected me on social media. Someone said something inappropriate to my friend or love interest. If you were to speak with young people who are caught up in violence, you are going to find a nexus somewhere with social media. It has become the feeder of what has caused some of these actions.

Earlier in the administration, we lost a young man who was the beat on drill music and it turned into violence. His dad and I have communicated regularly. But it all stemmed from that, these disputes that go back and forth that then escalate to violence. And so I think that when it comes down to violence, I think it's up in the top one or two positions. Doctor?

Commissioner Vasan: And when you look at our community violence interruption work that the Health Department runs, that our public hospital system runs, you can trace it. You can trace it to the chain of events, the chain of videos being posted, the call and response. It's very clear that social media, if it isn't a direct, "the" direct agent causing, it's amplifying the violence, and it's the conduit through which violent messages and acts are spread. So, it's an issue.

Mayor Adams: Yes. I think that I just want to end on what Dr. Vasan said, that really personifies this administration, the willingness to do the hard things, to do the right things. It was a hard call to do involuntary removals, but it was the right thing. It's a hard thing to not have people sleep in tents, but it was the right thing. It's a hard thing to do 30‑day notice for those, but it was the right thing, because 80 percent are taking their next step.

This administration is filled with things that other people were willing to walk passed and say it's just too challenging and difficult, and you're going to take a hit for it. We have to really start doing the hard things because they're the right things. And it's not popular, but it's just the right thing to do. This was a hard thing to do. Our social media companies have been partners in the city, our tech industry has grown here in the city.

We have a great partnership with Google and what they're doing. This was a hard thing to do, but this is the right thing to do. And that is going to be the trademark of this administration. Thank you.

Question: Mayor Adams, are you concerned about the… 

Mayor Adams: I want to talk to today's shooting in the Bronx. We had, you're talking about the shooting on the train?

Question: No, a different arrest.

Mayor Adams: Okay.

Question: So, just the context is that NYPD executed a warrant in the Bronx and an additional suspect in the Times Square officer assault was arrested. What we're curious about is during that raid, two people that were previously charged and released were taken into custody again and now they're in ICE custody.

So, our question is, you know, given the discretion that NYPD does have, do you think that their communication with federal immigration authorities in that situation is appropriate, and where do you think that line is?

Mayor Adams: Well, we're not allowed to, City Council law prevents us for using city resources to coordinate with ICE around immigration issues. And we're going to follow the law. I think there needs to be more conversation when it comes down to serious violent crimes. I think that we should engage in conversation, and we're looking forward to speaking with the City Council about that.

Question: [Inaudible] communication in that case yesterday was...

Mayor Adams: I need to find out all the details of that case.

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