Did you know you wanted to work in Journalism when choosing to come to UC and study towards your BA?
Yes. I love meeting people, I love writing (even studied a creative writing masterclass during my BA at UC) and I鈥檓 inherently curious 鈥 about context, culture, societal norms; about why things are the way they are and who stands to benefit from the status quo. So for me, it was always journalism. Simply because I truly believe there鈥檚 no better job.
Investigating child safety and the digital world must be a challenging area to work in. What drives you to keep working in this area?
When I joined Bloomberg鈥檚 investigative team, I was assigned a tough beat: corporate wrongdoing. But it was the beat I wanted and the reason why I moved to the US. I shifted from New 成人大片to New York in 2017 to study my masters in financial journalism at Columbia University in order to write corporate accountability stories that matter.
I wanted to write about the biggest corporations in the world, but through the lens of their impact on consumers. I wanted to write about how decisions made inside boardrooms change the lives of everyday people. And because the dangers kids face in the digital world is one of the most essential issues of our time, I was naturally drawn to the social media industry. I鈥檝e spent the past four years investigating this topic and have grown increasingly frightened at what I鈥檝e found. How the harm kids experience in the online world can bleed into their offline, or real world, realities. How an entire generation has been manipulated by recommendation algorithms designed to keep users glued to the screen and warped by an ever-changing sense of what鈥檚 normal.
Today, we鈥檙e seeing international sextortion cyber-rings driving teen boys to suicide, AI tools turning innocent photos of high school girls into deepfake porn and children, some as young as 9, accidentally taking their own lives while trying to play a virtual game promoted to them by a machine. In some cases, my stories have resulted in real change and that鈥檚 what drives me to keep going 鈥 even on the days when it feels too hard.听
How do you feel recent Netflix shows like are contributing to the conversation?
Since I started reporting on the dangers of the digital world four years ago, I鈥檝e noticed the zeitgeist change remarkably. The conversation has shifted from 鈥渃ould social media harm mental health鈥 to 鈥渢his is a full-blown public health crisis for our children.鈥 A lot of factors are behind that.
We鈥檝e watched these companies grow from scrappy startups with a few hundred users to the biggest corporations in the world with billions of daily active users and a lack of regulatory oversight. We鈥檝e seen teens, parents, teachers and lawmakers get louder and demand accountability. We鈥檝e seen whistleblowers come forward with damning documents showing these companies knew they were harming kids and did it anyway. We鈥檝e seen a tsunami of lawsuits filed against these platforms in the US, alleging product liability, negligent design and wrongful death. We鈥檝e seen investigative reporters, researchers and academics take aim at Big Tech. And, more recently, we鈥檝e seen fictionalized Netflix shows like Adolescence, which is about teen murder in the manosphere, top most-watched TV charts. While it鈥檚 not easy to talk about this issue 鈥 it鈥檚 not easy to read about it, to watch shows about it, to report on it, we must do so. Because children鈥檚 lives are at stake.听
Read more of Olivia's work at Bloomberg听.
Tell us more about your role in . How did you get involved with the production of this film?
The film is based on my reporting. I鈥檇 spent years writing about how teens were being harmed by social media for Businessweek magazine, but was growing concerned that teenagers themselves weren鈥檛 reading the stories. I thought a good way to potentially extend our reach into youth culture was through multimedia formats and began working on a podcast series about high school students targeted by deepfake porn (called ) and this documentary.
I pitched shadowing attorneys from the Social Media Victims Law Center in their fight for justice in late 2022 and soon after I was working closely with the extraordinary team at DCTV, including award-winning directors Matt O鈥橬eill and Perri Peltz. I had a front-row seat during the production process and will be forever grateful that I had a chance to watch this film come together from inside the editing studio. It was a deeply rewarding journey, one that was filled with heart 鈥 and heartache.
It鈥檚 crazy to think back to where this all began. When I first raised this idea, we didn鈥檛 know if any of these lawsuits would be successful and the Social Media Victims Law Center only had a few hundred clients. As the film shows, the center now represents more than 4,000 families. While Can鈥檛 Look Away serves as a testament of what鈥檚 to come, the fight for corporate accountability is only just beginning.
Do you have an investigative piece that you are most proud of?
I respectfully resent this question. Mainly because I鈥檝e been asked it a number of times and have never found a satisfying answer. I imagine many journalists would feel the same.
The question is simple yet the answer is not because each story means something different to me. Some have stayed with me long after the publication date. I鈥檝e developed deep personal connections to the people I write about 鈥 for example, every year I receive an invite to a local high school graduation from a father who hands out a scholarship in his dead daughter鈥檚 honor. Other stories mean something to me because of how much I grew during the reporting, research, writing and editing 鈥 and how much I was able to uncover. But, for the purposes of this exercise, I鈥檒l say it鈥檚 a Businessweek cover story I wrote in April 2024 about the suicide of 17-year-old Jordan DeMay, a homecoming king from Michigan who fell victim to a . I鈥檓 still close with Jordan鈥檚 parents and girlfriend, and often find myself thinking about them, but I鈥檓 choosing this one because of the impact it had. Shortly after publication, Meta removed 70,000 accounts linked to financial sextortions off its platforms.
This type of reporting can be grueling. But on the days when it feels too tough, I like to realign my thinking by focusing on what this job gives back: the chance to make positive change.听
Read Olivia's first-person piece on sextortion and Can鈥檛 Look Away听.
How do you find living in New York compares to back home? What do you enjoy most about living in the city?
I鈥檓 loath to make comparisons between my two homes which I love equally, for vastly different reasons.
What were some of your highlights from your time at UC?
I look back with great fondness on my quiet walks into UC from my dingy student flat in Riccarton and always enjoyed wandering around the university grounds between classes. I鈥檓 a sucker for a good library and cherished lazy summer days in the vast UC library, when I could set myself up between the books for a day of study.
