Mayor Eric Adams and the MTA are calling on social media companies to pull down videos of riders surfing on the subway amid a spike in the dangerous and often lethal practice.
Adams and MTA chief executive Janno Lieber announced Tuesday that they are urging social media companies to clamp down on these videos, with the mayor saying that they are attracting teenagers to perform such stunts.
“Some of these sites, they’re more addictive than drugs, people can’t get off them. And you start duplicating this behavior,” Adams said at a press conference.
Adams said that federal regulators should get involved and social media companies should be held accountable.
“I think the national government must come in and say, ‘What is the corporate responsibility of social media?’ I’m just surprised this hasn’t been done,” the mayor said.
Adams said he plans to launch a public service campaign warning New Yorkers about the dangers of subway surfing.
The calls come one day after a 15-year-old boy was killed subway surfing on a Manhattan-bound J train across the Williamsburg Bridge. The teenager died at around 6:40 p.m. on Monday when his head struck a beam, knocking him onto the tracks.
Officials say that social media may have played a role in his death, since videos of teenagers subway surfing are all over Instagram and other sites.
The 15-year-old’s death is far from an isolated incident. On Dec. 1, another 15-year-old boy was killed when he fell from a J train at Williamsburg’s Marcy Avenue station, while a teenager had his arm ripped off on Aug. 29 when he fell off a northbound R train at the 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue station.
Lieber at an MTA meeting Tuesday said Monday’s incident was “heart-wrenching.”
“This is something nobody wants to see,” Lieber said. “A 15-year-old kid, just breaks your heart. So, we’ve got to keep pushing social media companies.”
The MTA released figures Tuesday of the number of straphangers who have reportedly been “riding outside of subways.” The number has skyrocketed, from 490 in 2019 (pre-pandemic) to 928 in 2022. The numbers, however, do not specifically break down the number of subway surfing incidents.
