His 17-Year-Old Son Died After an Online Sextortion Scam. Now He's Fighting Back

[Cold open] Nick: The last words you said to him were good night. I love you. Brandon Guffey: And I hope those were the last words that I said. Brandon Guffey: He was trying to explain to me what a multiverse is and all these characters. And those were the things that would drive me crazy in the car. And now I wish I had those moments, you know. Brandon Guffey: I wanted to quit politics. You know, I didn't even feel like getting up off the floor or out of bed or anything else. And my wife said, absolutely not. Brandon Guffey: You're one of the few people that can get in there and make a difference.

Go save the next Gavin. Brandon Guffey: As a father, it's your job to protect your home. And I felt like not only had I failed my son, but I'd failed my wife and my other two sons. Brandon Guffey: Never did I ever expect a predator to be able to enter the bedroom of the house that I feel like I've got so secure through social media. Brandon Guffey: If you're too scared to talk to them, imagine how scared they will be to talk to you if something does happen. Nick: South Carolina State Representative Brandon Guffey lost his 17-year-old son Gavin in 2022 after Gavin was targeted in an online sextortion scheme.

Since then, he's helped pass Gavin's law and worked to protect other children and families. He joins us to talk about his son living with grief and the changes that he's fighting for. Brandon, thank you for being here today. Brandon Guffey: Thank you for having me on. Nick: I'd like to get a sense of what should we know about Gavin just as a person before we talk about what happened. Brandon Guffey: you know, he's my son, so of course I think he was special, but the more and more I talk to parents and especially survivor parents, just like e any other teenager, you know, he was typically the smaller kid growing up and that taught him to generate a personality, kind of that class clown, about him and often self doubt and Brandon Guffey: Very artsy.

He loves skateboarding. He was just the opposite. I'll tell you, this is a perfect example. you know, I wanted, I'm a big Clemson football fan. And I wanted to basically have a Clemson football team myself. And Gavin being my oldest son, we would go to Carolina Panther games and we would go to Clemson games and he had paint up his face and You know, I everything was go tigers or go panthers. And my wife came up to me one day and he was probably seven or eight. And she said, You know, he really doesn't like football games. And I was like, What are you talking about? We have the best time together.

And she said, He he he just wants to spend time with his dad. And so I sat him down, like, and it's one of those conversations I'm extremely grateful for because whenever I sat him down, I was like, Hey, bud, like, I really have a great time with us at the football games and everything else. But just so you know, like football's not the only time we get to spend together. Brandon Guffey: Like if you if you ever wanted to do something else, you just let me know. We can do that as well. Well, from that point forward, we never went to another football game. Never saw him in a football jersey. Never saw him, you know, liking anything Clemson or the Panthers.

And he would take me to Comic-Cons and I would say he Geek out on all these comic book movies. He was trying to explain to me what a multiverse is and all these characters. And those were the things that would drive me crazy in the car because it was just that hundred miles an hour, that excitement, that yep, yep, yep, yep. And now I wish I had those moments, you know. but Gavin was living his best life whenever prior to his death. It was one of those points where he was I I think he he started becoming a man quicker. than I did, and the fact that he got comfortable in his own skin. And he ha finally had that confidence.

And it it took me meeting my wife before I ever gained that confidence, you know. Nick: Yeah. At seventeen, what was he looking forward to in the future? Brandon Guffey: He wanted to be an art teacher. he loved drawing. He was constantly drawing. and he loved sticker bombing. Sticker bombing was his thing. He'd get something brand new and he'd cover it in stickers. It'd drive me crazy. His the dash of his car. He could tell the whole story with all the stickers that were connected throughout the dash of his car, but at nighttime all you saw was a reflection of all the stickers. but he was an skateboarding.

And just like any other teenage boy, you know, he's chasing girls and he's out playing sports with his friends. But he decided he wanted to be an art teacher because although he loved art, he had a teacher in high school and it might have something to do with me. I went to high school with that with that teacher as well, but he said that he wanted to be a teacher just so no one else had to deal with people like her. He wanted people to truly enjoy art. Now, you know, being a parent, I I think just like whenever I coach sports, sometimes your best teachers can be the hardest on you. Brandon Guffey: And it's because they expect more from you.

so I don't know if that was a fair assessment, but that was his assessment and his reason for what he wanted to go to Winthrop University to study. Nick: Yeah, yeah. can you take us through what then happened to this young man, your son? Brandon Guffey: So, and I'm I'm gonna go back a little bit further, to bring in my politics side of things, because I was on county council and the state rep, I had no aspirations to ever go any higher than just a county commissioner. And my state house rep, who had been a previous sheriff and then served fifty years of public service, decided he was gonna resign.

And a lady had moved here that I thought was extreme in her views is for lack of a better terms, and I didn't feel like she represented our area. And so I decided to run just to keep her from getting in office primarily. And that election got very contentious. So you know supporters within these political races, people will spread rumors about your family, spread rumors about you, things of that nature. Well Gavin ended up being one of those rumors that things were spread about. Brandon Guffey: And so the night that we won my primary is actually one of my favorite pitchers. And it was a because all these teens throughout the community came out and rallied together to help get me elected, standing on street corners holding signs and but they weren't doing it for me.

They were doing it for Gavin to say like, hey, you don't attack him. And And Gavin was just that person, he had an eclectic group of friends because he knew what it was like to be alone. So he never wanted anyone else to be alone. So he would have, you know, friends out on the reservation. He would have friends that were country boys. He had friends that were, you know, hip hop guys. Like it was just all across the board with his friend group. And but all those teens, that was one of the happiest moments. And that was mid-July of 2022. July 27th of 2022. Actually the twenty-sixth. I'd been at a political event, still having to gear up for a general election.

Brandon Guffey: And Gavin and my other son Cohen, who was sixteen at the time, had just come back from a young life camp. And most of the kids at the camp come down with COVID. And so we had them quarantined. and I had my four-year-old sleeping in the living room to stay away from the boys. And whenever I came in, like a father of often does, you come into a house and it's quiet. So I come in, I check, you know, Callahan's asleep and I go, and my sixteen-year-old, he's asleep. My wife's asleep in our bed. And Gavin's playing video games in his bedroom with his friends and he's being loud. And like a father does, I open the door and just say, Hey, bud, keep it down.

You know, your your brothers and your mom's trying to sleep. And it's like, okay, yeah, sorry, Dad. And he gets back on his game. I take a phone call, go outside, and I just start pacing on the porch. I'm a walker and talker. and I'm on the phone for forty-five minutes or so, come back in, lay in the bed, just replying to emails. Brandon Guffey: But whenever I came in the second time, it was quiet. And I just made the assumption, you know, he went ahead and went to bed. He got off his game. but while I'm sitting there replying to emails, he comes out of his bedroom. And the door is quiet. Like that dad reflex says, Hey, don't don't slam that door.

Your brothers are trying to sleep or your mom's trying to sleep. And he was very quiet. And I didn't see him leave leave his room other than just the peripheral view. And he's walking to the other side of the house and I'm waiting for a cabinet door to slam or a refrigerator door to slam. And I don't hear anything and just something in my gut just tells me to get up and go check on him. so I get up and I start Walking down the hallway. and as we're walking, we have a bathroom right in the middle of our house in a foyer, from the left side to the right side. So we're walking towards each other, and he's a seventeen-year-old boy, he's just in his underwear.

Brandon Guffey: and he's covering himself up. And I'm thinking being a dad, give him his privacy, just look him dead in the eye, and I just say, Good night, buddy, I love you. And I proceeded to walk into the living room to kissed my four-year-old on the forehead, just say goodnight. I love you to him. And as soon as I did, I heard what sounded like a bowling ball coming. Like if you put it on top shelf and it just took the shelves down. That's the only way I can explain it. so immediately I run to the bathroom door where we had crossed paths, yelled his name, door was locked, and I immediately shouldered it in.

By this time waking up my wife and My other son. And Gavin's laying in between the toilet and the bathtub. And he looked like my initial thought was that he was trying to step in the shower. He slipped his head on the toilet bowl. and I grab him and, you know, Gavin was my wife's Panamanian. Brandon Guffey: Gavin's had this beautiful thick dark hair. and whenever I grabbed him, he started to bleed. and I yell for my wife to call nine one one. I'm trying to wake him up. and about that time I smelled gunpowder. and it just hit me at that point, but I had no clue why. Like I said, I felt like Gavin was living his best life at that moment.

and of course, unable to save him, it seemed like EMS got here. very quickly. and it was just just a shock. for one, you know, being in the south is not anything for teenagers to have guns around. Matter of fact, I I used to have guns out throughout the house until the boys got up and you started hearing about these school shootings and stuff. And then I started securing firearms. Brandon Guffey: and for it the only reason there was even a gun accessible, which I still don't know how he knew it was there. was my wife and I went camping while they were while they went camping and I brought a pistol with me.

And my four-year-old, whenever we're unpacking the camper, he had never seen a gun out in the house and he goes to grab for it. And I'm saying, nobody, that's not a toy. And I'll put it on this coat rack shelf that's, you know, I've got to reach I can barely reach it. I'd say eight feet high. And I don't know how Gavin knew it was there, but he had grabbed the gun from there. that night I I I really didn't know what to do, what what happened, anything. as a father it's your job to protect your home. And I felt like not only had I failed my son, but I'd failed my wife. Brandon Guffey: And my other two sons.

And you know, one of the things I was talking about whenever we first started was I was always that rough and tough, like suck it up, man up, rub some dirt on it. And it just got me going through a mental health process of my own, like, did I cause this? Was he holding something back because I thought suicides happened with people that were depressed? And was he too scared to come to me? And talk to me about. I didn't feel like there was anything Gavin couldn't talk to me about. Because he was, while he was my rambuctious teen, he was also the one that always got caught in everything he did. I knew whenever he experimented with drugs.

I knew whenever he was sexually active. And we already had to have those conversations. And in my mind, those are two of the hardest conversations that you'll ever have. So I didn't feel like there was anything that he couldn't come to me and talk to me about. Brandon Guffey: so it never crossed my mind as to what happened. The only message that we had was a less than three symbol on a dark screen. And it was his way of just saying I love you or like a heart emoji to his friends throughout Snapchat and his brother. And that was the only message. What we found out was that Gavin jumped off video game with friends shortly after midnight on July twenty seventh, at twelve forty AM so about the time I came in, this person pretending to be a college girl, freshman, volleyball player, started the conversation with, Hey, you're cute.

And it just started flirting. And for these teens, it's nothing for them to have online relationships. And it turned into her saying, Do you want to play truth or dare? And they began to exchange images. Brandon Guffey: Well, she sent over images and then asked for an image in return. And once he sent an image, an explicit image, immediately at twelve forty AM, they began blackmailing him for money, demanding money or they're gonna make it go viral. Showing all of his Instagram contacts, his Snapchat contacts. and Gavin sent over twenty five dollars and he begged for wait until Monday whenever I get paid and I can send over more.

but it wasn't enough. The demands kept coming. Gavin even told him that he was just gonna take his life and you know, the response I I I can't go through it's been four years and I still can't go through all the messages. because I can't imagine the amount of fear and shame that he held that night. But 140 a.m., Gavin took his life. Brandon Guffey: so this was only an hour and 40 minutes. And we found out that it was a term called sextortion, which I'd never heard of in 2022. And I had to stay quiet after that. well Before I skip too far ahead, the week that we're trying to bury Gavin, I get a phone call from an aunt that is up in North Carolina.

She's got a fourteen year old son, so a fourteen year old cousin, that he is being extorted over pictures of Gavin. And so I grabbed the phone. There's an investigation into the death, of course, anytime there's a teenage death, and I called The FBI agent, the sled investigator and the local police person to let them know, like, hey, these messages, these were just sent to me. They have intimate images of Gavin and there's threats on here. I didn't really understand why somebody's blackmailing over this. Brandon Guffey: And this person was pretending to be Gavin's online girlfriend, who I'd never heard of.

and I we had a ton of people at the house, so we kind of go over by Colin's bedroom. And I'm trying to explain to my wife that law enforcement's coming. And Cohen walks out of his bedroom. He's angry at the world, just lost his brother. And he picks up his phone. He says, I don't know who the hell you are, but quit calling. And I said, Who's calling you? And he and he said, I don't know, somebody from Instagram. And I said, Let me see your phone. The person that attacked Gavin was Bella Janet 28. The person that was extorting the 14 year old cousin. And extorting my 16-year-old son at the time as well, the while we're trying to bury Gavin was Bella Janet 30.

Yeah, 30. So it went up two numbers. same image, same friends, same connections. They even posted on Gavin's Instagram page, hey, do you have what we talked about? Brandon Guffey: And I think another comment was like, make it snappy. and I just never put two and two together because you don't know who all the friends are because they have so many online friends that you've never met. and we turned that over to law enforcement and I was told they're gonna try to get you to there. This is a sextortion, someone's blackmailing Gavin. And in my mind at that time, I'm thinking, what could he have done that was so horrific?

Like, did he did he rape someone? Did he molest a child? Like what could be so horrific that would cause him to take his life? I still didn't know it was over intimate images. And but I would come to find out, I was told not to reply to the person, but they would try to elicit emotion out of me. And once we found out what it was called after the coroner's investigation of being sextortion, I end up getting a message sent to me through WhatsApp. Brandon Guffey: And it comes from Bella Janet, of course. And it says, Did I tell you your son begged for his life with a laughing face emoji? And at that point, of course, I couldn't hold back.

now going through all of that, you know, I often say the the good, I don't I don't want to say the good. But if there was anything that was good that came out of the situation, is that it taught me that everything that we work for, all this materialistic stuff is not important. I can literally watch my house burn to the ground and everything I've worked for my entire life and do it with a smile on my face if I've got my wife and kids by my side. And that, Like at that point, you just realize what's important. So being in politics, I wanted to quit politics. Brandon Guffey: You know, I didn't even feel like getting up out of off the floor or out of bed or anything else.

And my wife said, Absolutely not. You're one of the few people that can get in there and make a difference. Go save the next Gavin. And, you know, my next step was, okay, so how? Because I'm a mess. How do I get up and go do this? And The only thing that kind of got me up and going was to think about it if this was my sixteen year old son Cohen and he just lost his son due to this. What advice would I give him? and where I'm from in Rock Hill, we always joked around. There was always a saying, What are you gonna do? Are you gonna barbecue or are you gonna stew? Are you gonna sit there and stir about?

Or are you gonna get up and you're gonna get cooking? And it's like, okay, I'd want him to get up and I'd want him to get to barbecuing. Like get up there and fight. Fight with everything you got. And we as dads are great at giving advice. Brandon Guffey: We're not always the best at following our own advice. but that's what I've tried to do. Just wake up, you know, just create motion every day. that was something else I learned during the grieving process was in order to change an emotion, create motion. That's what Gavin did whenever he skateboarded. that's what I would do whenever I get anxiety.

And as I'm talking to teens, it's it's a it's a key talking point whenever I'm talking to that the high school to college age kid because they are the anxious generation. and it wasn't until the funeral that it really hit me, hit me with that, or to completely understand it, but. Guffies, we have a tradition. It's an old Western North Carolina mountain thing, but we have a tradition of burying our own. We don't allow other ones to put dirt on our loved ones. So at Gavin's funeral, it's 100 degrees in August. Brandon Guffey: And we've got all, we've probably got a hundred people out there at the burial site.

And all of us Guffy men have our shovels. And my four-year-old Callahan, who had never been to a funeral. I had to lean down while he's crying, explain to him the purpose of us doing it. And I really didn't know the purpose. It was just like this is just what we do. And someone snapped a picture of it, and I have that painting hanging in my office in the Capitol now. but that painting was so impactful because while me, Callahan and Cohen dropped the first dirt on the casket, You know, after ten minutes or so, me and Cohen pass our shovels off to others to allow them to finish, but Callahan refused to give up his shovel.

And he just kept digging and digging and digging. And as the crowd dissipated, I'm standing there and I look back and Callahan's got red dirt on his face and he's got the tear streaks, you know, where it's washing it away. Brandon Guffey: And I just it he takes that last scoop and kind of pats the mound. on top of the grave. And I said, Are you okay, buddy? And he said, Yeah, daddy, it helped get the yucky out. And at that point, it was like, okay, that's the purpose. It's creating that motion to change an emotion. And so that's something I had to keep in mind. So every time I get anxious, you know, even sitting in the sitting there, we can have a discussion on the floor and I'll just walk out.

And I'll just go take me a lap or two around around the building just so I can kind of clear my head. but that was all important journeys, but the thing that I hate the most is I had to stay quiet. I didn't take office until January of 2023. But leading up to it, I had to resign. Well, my personal belief is I don't believe that you should run for an office if you have another office to fall back on. And since I was on county council Brandon Guffey: I resigned the day before the election. So that way if I lost, then, you know, I'm not hedging my bets here. but I knew that could be possibly be my last time to have a public forum, so to say.

And although the investigation was going on, I was told to be quiet. I told them like this could be my last time. I have to speak up. And that was the first time that I spoke about, and that was November of twenty twenty two. And by that time, we already had three additional teens take their life. And all of our stories kind of came out at the same time, with it being sex tortion. And, you know, I I often say the only thing God blessed me with is a big mouth. And the only thing I could do was try and shout it from the rooftops. And politically, I'm more of a bull in a china shop. I tell people before I got in office, I was always the type that It was like, I'm right.

Brandon Guffey: And if you disagree, you're an idiot. And it wasn't until, you know, you get in and you realize that everything's not as the media portrays it down there. And it's e even people that are polar opposite politically of me are some of the best people that I know. And it's about knowing someone's heart and actually where you stand and which ways we can get there. but I came in with that mindset of This is what's going to happen. This is what we're going to do. I'm going to use my voice. I'm going to use my platform. But I was blessed whenever I came in. You mentioned about passing Gavin's law.

in South Carolina, bills do not move fast. Laws are not made fast. It's known for historically moving very, very slow. but we came in with the second largest freshman class in the history of South Carolina, 27 members out of 124. And truthfully, all of those members, Republicans, Democrats, Freedom Caucus, they would gather around my desk on Tuesday before I came in and they would pray. Brandon Guffey: And then we would strategize, like, what can we do? Like we're a big group. We might not have a big voice in here, but we can pool our votes together and we can hold legislation up. And You know, we started fighting and just trying, okay, can we get a hearing on this?

We'll support you on this if we can get just get a hearing. Even though we had a supermajority in South Carolina, my bill was still not moving and I couldn't figure out why. with my personality being very impatient, I finally got fed up and the guy that I hated the most in the entire General Assembly was the minority leader. me and him had had shouting matches as soon as I came in. He's a defense attorney and in my mind he, you know, he's defended cartel and he's defended all these horrible people. And, you know, I didn't have any respect for him whatsoever. Didn't really understand the profession.

Brandon Guffey: and I finally got fed up and I walked up to him one day at the well and I said, Look, you're the only one with the balls that'll tell me what's wrong with my bill. Will you help me? And he put his hand on my shoulder and I still remember it like even whenever I tell it, I still remember it like I'm standing there. And he said, You're right. I'm the only one that'll tell you what's wrong with your bill. And he said, So you got this nonprofit called less than three. Like, what do you do? My mind first thought was he's trying to figure out a way to funnel money to my nonprofit. And I'm Yeah, that doesn't matter.

And he's like, No, stick with me. He's like, So you got this nonprofit. What do you do? And I said, I go around talking to teens about mental health and cybercrimes. He said, but why? I said, because I want them to know what's going on and how they're under attack. He said, yeah, but why? I said, because I don't want this to happen to another Gavin. And he goes, but why? And now I'm just getting furious. Like, how do you not understand that? And I was like, because awareness is 90% of the battle. Brandon Guffey: And he and he said, so why don't we mandate the Department of Education to teach every student in South Carolina what sex tortion is?

And I said, I didn't know we could do that. And he said, sure we can. I tell you what, I'll grab two Democrat attorneys, you grab two Republican attorneys, meet me in the back room, and let's go through this bill line by line. And that's exactly what we did. We sat down for about one hour, went through every bit of the bill. he made suggestion, another suggestion that him or Seth Rose, the other Democrat attorney that was there, made that I'm very appreciative of. was that he said, so you want anyone that attacks a child or an at-risk adult in South Carolina, you want it to be the max penalty of 15 years, right?

And I said, yeah, absolutely. And he said, so what happens whenever it's your son that commits the act? What if your son and his girlfriend had videos or pictures? Brandon Guffey: And then he says, if you break up with me, I'm going to share these. And he just says it out of anger, no different than whenever you're a teenager and you I'm gonna kill you. He said, Do you think that's worth 15 years in prison? And I was like, Well, no, I kind of get your point there. Cause I I went back to me thinking, What could Gavin have done that was so bad that would cause him to take his life? And I'm running through those scenarios in my head and I'm like, even if he committed the most horrific crime, he's still my son.

I still love him. I still Gotta be there for him. and so we made sure that that was not penalized. But we did add things like if great bodily harm or death occurs, it's an additional 15 years in prison. And the purpose of codifying it in state law was it gave our local law enforcement the ability to really feel like they could go after cross county lines and not worry about the jurisdictions as much if it's a felony. Brandon Guffey: and so We go to put it on the floor. The bill that we rewrote together, it passes unanimously. You know, 124 to nothing, not a single vote against it. And then it goes over to the Senate.

And we were right at the end of session. So I was worried it wasn't gonna pass. and we finally get it on the floor, and the senator is now about to be congressman for my area. came up and it's a friend and he said, Look, I wanna make a proposal to name this Gavin's Law. And in South Carolina we have a strict rule that you cannot name bills after someone because people use it to elicit a motion. but we were at the f final deadline and he said, Well, if a senator will probably stand up and object because we're stickler for the rules, but I wanna do this. whenever it was proposed on the floor, of course Brandon Guffey: the senator I probably liked the least as well stood up and I'm thinking, here we go.

And instead of invoking the rule, he asked for the role of the entire Senate to be put on it. That way it could never be challenged, that it would forever be known as Gavin's law. and then whenever we they passed it unanimously, getting a little teary eyed apologize. But that was a All these moments are impactful, but that was a big one for me. the Senate stood at ease and came up, gave me hugs, and we ended up passing what is now known as Gavin's Law within four months of taking office. And while I get the credit, it wasn't me. It was all of us working together for a common cause. And it taught me.

In trying to pass legislation and every bit of legislation that I've passed, whether it's working on the federal level or state level, has always been nonpartisan. Brandon Guffey: And it's always been, let's have the conversations, let's work things out. And ultimately, at the end of the day, we all want to protect our children. And I think that's one of the reasons that I have been successful politically with trying to protect children online. but you know, I I All of that leading up to that point was to try and fill a hole that unfortunately doesn't get filled. It's a temporary relief, but now it's like, what's next?

I I joke around in my book and I talk about it reminds me of Dude, where's my car? If you've ever seen that movie. And they go up to the drive-thru and they place their order, and then the lady's like, and then. And then they order something else. It's like, and then like that's the way I feel. Every time I do something, it's and then okay, what's next? What are we doing? how else can we help? So I just rambled on for thirty minutes. Brandon Guffey: I apologize. Nick: This this is your story. I'm I'm just here to be present and listen to this today. Something that really struck me in your story though is that the last words you said to him were good night.

I love you. Brandon Guffey: I so I wrote about that in the book. And I hope those were the last words that I said. Because I often do. It doesn't matter if I'm just running up to the gas station. I always say bye, I love you. and just like I was walking in there to kiss Callie on the head, just to whisper, Goodnight, I love you. He'll never hear it, because he's asleep, but just something I always have to do. But I still question in my mind Going back and forth with him in the hallway. Because I wanna say whenever I say goodnight and I love ya, he said, I'll see you in the morning. And I pray it wasn't him that said, Good night, buddy, I love you.

And I replied with, I'll see you in the morning. It's like trying to replay that. And especially with going through my PTSD journey. Brandon Guffey: And this whole time it was like I always said goodnight. I love you, bud. And then as I'm going through that, and it's like, well, did I say goodnight? And I Was that the last words that I spoke? And I pray that it was. And I I don't doubt that I don't doubt that my son knew that I loved him, and I don't doubt that I was a good father, but it would be ignorant of me not to think that I can't look back and possibly give someone else advice or even myself advice on trying to raise two other young men on things I could have done better.

Nick: The other thing that really struck me from the story is these people that he was dealing with and that you were you and other family members were dealing with after. I mean, the messages that you mentioned there and that they knew he had taken his life clearly from that message and then They're continuing with the blackmail of other family members. They're they're mocking you guys about it. I mean, these I d I don't have the words for that kind of evil. I mean, that I I I just I don't have the words. but who are did we did we ever find out who these people are and where they are? Brandon Guffey: So we have extradited one of the main person that was talking.

There are other people involved, but unfortunately the extradition did not go through for a couple of the others. he is being held. He's been extradited from Lagos, Nigeria. college age kid out of there. And what I've come to found find is many of these scams originate from The Nigeria area, the Ivory Coast, and it's groups. They call themselves the Yahoo Boys from the old Yahoo Prince email scams. they take pride in scamming people. I mean, that is their entire function of living. And over there, it's almost like a college fraternity group of scammers. And it's like they're competing against others to see who can get the most money.

What they found was that. Teenage boys, while traditional sex tortion started off with teenage girls. Brandon Guffey: And what they would do is pretend to be a boy, get the images, and then they would say, send me more images, or I'm going to share these. Now, this was prior to AI images and everything else. So then they would use those girl images to then go and extort teenage boys for money. To them, if you're in America. It's nothing for a teenage boy to have a couple hundred dollars. And it was quick, easy picking. They could ex they could scam ten, fifteen at a time each night. and they're living the high life over there from scamming these teenagers.

In this person's mind, the only thing I can think of, and this I I can't pronounce his whole name. I just call him a little wall, because that's the middle name of him or last name. And In his mind, I think that he just saw politician. And that was one of the things that I was most worried about. Brandon Guffey: you know, people see politician, they think that you're wealthy or that you've got money. Like to to him, I think he thought we were his his will. but unfortunately, that's not what it was. Now, what really frustrated me through that as So I to focus on the legislation part. That was my number one goal.

My second thing was raising awareness and to talk about the mental health, because I was going through my mental health journey. and at the end of the day, My son took his life due to shame. His most shameful moment. And while parents might not understand, go back to whenever we were in high school and think about your most shameful or your most intimate moment. Now just imagine the people in your school knowing. With the internet nowadays, it's not just that. It's everyone in the community. Because it's not just one school, it's all schools. Brandon Guffey: And then they got the images to back it up.

and too often, especially in twenty twenty two, parents were saying, Whatever you do online is gonna stay with you forever. Don't do this. And I go back to, you know, the the person I ran against politically was a a female pastor that was one of these absolutists. And I would say people like her is what kept me from finding my faith for so long. Because I thought you always had to be perfect. Or a hypocrite. And I couldn't be either. And it wasn't until I learned that we all fall short that I could move forward. And it was finding that grace that allowed me to find my faith. And yet, in this situation with the teenage son, what he was missing was grace.

If he felt like, you know, one of the I try to take a different approach politically now. Brandon Guffey: And it drives me crazy because, and I never would have thought about this before. But one of the images that was shared in the extortion, and I don't know if it was to Gavin, to the cousin, to my other son Colin, but one of the images was Gavin's photo, and it was on a CNN like headline. But it was from whenever I cross-referenced the picture, what they did was they took a Hunter Biden headline. Because that was the big story back then was Hunter Biden and crack and all this other stuff. They took that headline and then put my son's image on it.

And you know, if if I wasn't in politics, would have would he have had that fear? But since then we've had fifty plus teens that publicly have that parents have publicly came out. Brandon Guffey: You know, my wife didn't even want me to originally we had the discussion, like, do we share what we know? If he was so embarrassed by it that he took his own life, who are we to say, Well, the people need to know? And to me, is in order to save the next Gavin. is to be as real and as honest about the story as possibly can. Like, should he have sent a picture? No. Does that mean that his life should end?

No. You know what? We're all going to make mistakes. And it I I think that the only way we move forward is especially with these teens, all their mistakes are documented. We can't be pulling scholarships from somebody that, you know, said something stupid whenever they were 14. And we've got to start extending that grace across the country because I think if you take people's mistakes and and if you take I don't delete anything from social media. Brandon Guffey: And I tell people, if you think what I said yesterday was stupid, look what I said two years ago. And you'll see growth. Like, but that's the approach we have to take.

I call it the the eight mile approach, you know, whenever he's in the rap battle. It's like the only thing he can do is he's like, I'm just gonna lay it all out there. Now you ain't got nothing to say. Like, yeah, you know what? You're not perfect either, Nick. I'm not perfect. None of us are perfect. And that's the message that resonates with teens as I'm going around talking. and I got way off balance. I apologize my ADHD medication is not holding up with flying out. So normally it wears off about five, but it's wearing out a little bit earlier. But, you know, we did that. And then the other thing we had to focus on was getting tracking down the person.

You know, whenever they sent that message to me, I I think my response was, I will find you. I will end you. If it's the last thing that I do. And I Nick: God as a father that feels good to hear that you said that. I I I don't know that that's the right thing to say, but that's exactly what I would want to say in that moment. Like Brandon Guffey: And you know, we had We had the mass shooting here in South Carolina at the church from the racist guy that went in and shot up the church. I serve with another member, J.A. Moore, who lost his sister in that church. And whenever the guy goes to court, every one of those members of the church stood up and said, I forgive you.

And I went to JA whenever we're doing the arraignment. And I said, Man, you got to tell me like how can you like I don't have that. I've got vengeance. I mean, that that's still, I don't have that forgiveness. There is no forgiveness for me. and I I I just haven't reached it. It's something that I do pray about because I don't feel like I can get. Fully better, but maybe that happens with conviction and feeling like there's actual justice instead of you know, I'm I'm sure he's probably living better in prison here now than he was over there. Brandon Guffey: but at the end of the day, even though we got him ext he was extradited in January of twenty twenty.

No, January of twenty twenty five. Brought back to the States. Sorry. They flew out one year to the day of Gavin's death, they flew over to Lagos, Nigeria. And ended up it was part of a sting grabbing others from other countries as well. But he was arrested in August, early August of twenty twenty-three. the extradition took all the way till January of twenty twenty five before he was extradited. And he's still sitting in jail and they just keep asking for continuances, which I'm beyond frustrated. Brandon Guffey: I know everyone's got a right to a speedy trial, but I should have a right to speedy justice too.

Waiting and we're hopeful that something will get done before the end of the year. and then the other thing I had to do was, you know, in my mind, and my background started off in the Web 2.0 launch in the early 2000s. In my mind, Meta was fully aware that this was a scammer. They allowed someone from another country, and while As parents, you want to protect your house, like it's your job to protect your family. Never did I ever expect a predator to be able to enter the bedroom of the house that I feel like I've got so secure through social media. Granted, you can't stop every bad person on social media.

That's not their job. However, Bella Janet28 was pulled down pretty quickly after law enforcement reached out to Meta. Brandon Guffey: But they left up all the other profiles that was affiliated with the person. If I send you a friend request, you can choose block this person and any new profiles. But Meta did not remove any of those other profiles. So Bellogen at 30 began to extort two other teens within my family, extort me, extorting my wife sending messages, and then continued to extort, I think it was a dozen other teens that were not affiliated. And meta left that account up. And so I filed a lawsuit in January of 2024.

I didn't want to join one of the class actions. I wanted to file my individual lawsuit against Meta. And the same day it dropped, I was invited up to DC whenever Zuckerberg and everyone came up there to testify. Brandon Guffey: and what made it special is Senator Graham, who invited me up there. And it's a funny thing because I'd I'd that was the first time I met Senator Graham and I told him I always called you I said, I always called Flimsy Lindsay. And but I'm grateful that you took up this cause. And I told him my story. And he put on the less than three lapel pen. And you go back to that hearing, he kicked off that hearing with the less than three pin on, told Gavin's story, and told Zuckerberg, You have blood on your hands.

And, you know, that was a powerful, impactful moment. And then he invited me along with him and Durbin had me host a press conference with them afterwards, addressing the harms of social media. And then he became one of my biggest advocates. I mean, it truly was a sad day for me whenever he passed, because he was such an advocate on protecting kids online. Brandon Guffey: and, you know, I I work well, I've I started working with Senator Cruz. on the Take It Down Act. Amy Klobuchar, the other co-author of that. and the first lady, whenever she whenever they came back into office. I'd worked with Cruz and Klobuchar the session before, and Cruz was trying to get it up and he asked for unanimous consent, but Corey Mills declined to allow it, go to unanimous consent, which Even though it's something to help kids, it's kind of hard to just say unanimous consent without truly having a full floor vote.

but we the following year, the first lady wanted to make it her first initiative. And it wasn't just about Gavin, but it was two teenage girls because the rise of artificial intelligence came about and they made deep fake images of these girls and were sharing them. Brandon Guffey: And I would say, out of all the moments that I've had, once the first lady got involved with that, I'm gonna tell this story because I think it's funny, kind of shows a little bit of my personality. But one of the members, one of the staff members down in Columbia was telling me, Hey, Guffy, whenever you meet the first lady, don't talk about how beautiful she is.

Don't like you're gonna come off as a creep. Like she's a very stoic woman, like. Hey, they say, just compliment her shoes. And I was like, What? Like what? They said, just say you have I love your shoes or beautiful shoes. So the whole time this was a a a staff member within the caucus back in Columbia is telling me that, just trying to 'cause I I I can be blunt, brash, and not realize it. My wife jokes around, says I'm like the dumb guy from Big Bang Theory. I don't have all the facts, but I'm just as direct sometimes. So Brandon Guffey: just they were he was trying to give me advice to tell me, like, hey, you know, just don't come off as a creep or anything.

So as I'm standing there the whole time, I'm thinking, nice shoes, I love your shoes. And she comes up to introduce herself. and she's got an entourage. I think this is whenever she was filming her movie. And as she come up and I go to shake her hand, I said, I really love your shoes. And she said, your son's story was one of the reasons I wanted to make this my first initiative. And at that point, that was, I mean, how do you follow that up after talking about shoes? You know? but that was a a very proud moment. But the proudest moment was whenever we got the bill passed. and the White House does not allow children to come up there.

And I had never been to the White House before, but we was invited for the bill sign and Senator Cruz and Clobuchar's office wanted to make sure that we were included with the bill signing there. Brandon Guffey: but I refused to go without my five year old or six year old at the time, Callahan. because I thought it was important. It was Gavin was his best friend. and After negotiating and ensuring that he's gonna be good, they allowed him to come. They were just worried to death that he was gonna be loud or make a scene. But whenever we got up there to sign the bill, you know, my s my wife and myself stepped out to the back, but we made sure that Cohen and Callahan, they were standing up front by that bill signing.

And I'd say maybe the proudest I've ever been in my life was seeing seeing my son Cohen look over at them signing the legislation and Callahan looking with them and it was almost like this proud moment. I go back to like you're gonna barbecue, you're gonna stew. Brandon Guffey: And it's showing him that even though we're from little old Rock Hill, South Carolina, that if you fight hard enough, you can take it to the most powerful office in the land and actually make a difference to try to save the next kid. Nick: Yeah. Brandon Guffey: But one of the few times that, you know, you can see that pride.

And I think every father wants to see that pride. because whenever you're whenever they're real little, you're a superhero. They're always pride, prideful. And then all of a sudden that disappears. And then that becomes what you yearn the most for. so whenever you get those moments, that's that's what matters. Nick: Yeah. Yeah. And and for those listening, because you mentioned the Take It Down Act, which I think is a very important, powerful piece of bipartisan legislation. And it also got done fast. I mean, this seems to be all the issues surrounding this seem to really rally people around some just some core basic human stuff.

We want to protect our kids. We all want to have those moments with our older kids where they feel Pride for us. just take us through what that take it down act is for people that that don't know. Brandon Guffey: So take it down act essentially says that if any images, intimate images are loaded, real or fake, or augmented the artificial intelligence images, if they're uploaded on a profile and it's reported on the platform, then that company only has forty eight hours to remove those images. Brandon Guffey: you know. I I I think it's a FCC violation, if not. and there are companies out there that have the software.

Even Meta worked with NickMec to do a take it down software for underage kids, but there wasn't anything for adults too. So you think about our our trafficking victims, or whenever we look at pornography, how many of these people and we hear that they were raped and these videos are uploaded and stuff and all they want is to pull that stuff down. And they can't even get them down. And they're they're constantly being re-victimized over and over. So it helps out with things like that. It helps out with whenever these teens, you know, in Gavin's case, if his images were uploaded and shared out there, which would be a violation of sharing child sex abuse material.

And it's important for your listeners to know that it doesn't matter what the consent of sex age is in each state, if they're not above 18 and there are intimate images, that is child sex abuse. Brandon Guffey: So these teens that share images back and forth, I'd try to stress that severely with them. That is CSAM. So you need to make sure that those are not and you are not sharing. If you know, you got a 16-year-old and somebody sends them an image. And they decide they want to send it out because they think it's funny, they are distributing child sex abuse material. And that becomes a a major crime.

but on the Take It Down Act, it gives them that ability and that that them knowing that these images won't be up long. And they're gonna be taken down. Now that's not the take it down act is not the best law. It's the first step. And my my honest belief is Congress is beyond broke. House, Senate, I don't care. It all seems bought and paid for. And big tech is the these are the world's richest companies since the inception of man. Brandon Guffey: Think about that. We can talk about big tobacco and everything else. These are the richest companies since the inception of man. I think one of the stats I heard last night, I went to the movie premiere of the social dilemma.

and I think it's called the social dilemma. We need to have a third one come out going further to state these fights with us survivor parents trying to hold him accountable and how he just doesn't own up to it because delaying a week that's an extra 40 million dollar or forty bill maybe it's forty million dollars a week that they make like just by delay in legislation a week. That that's how important it is to fight against this. And section 230, which was written in 1996, and I often joke around saying 1996 Brandon Guffey: I remember it took me an hour to download a Wu-Tang Clan song to burn it to a CD, you know?

I remember sitting in class at school in computer class, and that was the first thing I ever did on the internet was I looked up, I think it was Brooklyn Zoo by ODB to download that C to burn that onto a CD, but it took that long to download. That's how much the internet's changed. I would have supported it as well. I think that it was a public square. And you can't police everything. But once you start using algorithms and you're feeding this information to kids, well, that's you speaking on yourself, not a public square any longer. And a lot of these survivor parents, you know, their kids were just watching something on YouTube.

And you feel safe, your kids just watching a tablet. And next thing you know, their their kid hung themselves because a choking challenge was the next thing to show up. or their child was suicidal. Brandon Guffey: And they looked up self-help terms. And then the algorithm sends them suicide ideation videos. you know, there there's been a lot of harms by social media, and I think section two thirty is something that has to be I worked with Senator Graham, worked with Joseph Gordon Levitt was an advocate of it as well, called Sunset Section 230. Which is not to get rid of 230. You need two thirty protections.

You don't want lawsuits going out there willy-nilly, but the sunsetting of it would bring all parties to the table to say this is the best solution now and allow us to rewrite, ensure that we're protecting our online freedoms and that people are not losing those freedoms, but our children are protected. Because whoever thought that 13 was the magic age. It's funny ev they scare everyone saying you gotta upload a digital ID and all this other stuff. They already know the age because they're not marketing to twelve year olds because they know that they can be held liable if it's under thirteen. Brandon Guffey: So, but they want those advertising dollars for thirteen year olds.

And now their fight is to say, Well, you can only go to sixteen because it's Supreme Court press and that's sixteen and seventeen year olds are treated differently. to me, I'd see it no bit different than big tobacco or anything else. It you know, I I'm not a big fan of the laws that go above eighteen unless you're gonna start saying that's the age that you can sign up and choose to die fighting for your country. I think once you're able old enough to make that decision, there's not a more important decision that you could make as an individual. So all rights should be afforded to you at that point.

Nick: Yes. W right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If that's where we're gonna say you need to be that old enough to make the decision to buy alcohol or not, then maybe some of these bigger choices should be at that age too. Brandon Guffey: I mean I was still a idiot I was still a idiot at forty, so Nick: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that I'd I'd count myself in that group as well. the you mentioned the the federal government being broken. And I, you know, I have talked to a lot of people that raise similar concerns to yours, which is basically tech companies getting to experiment on kids. just had a lovely conversation with the director of Screenagers Generation AI and Talking about you know AI models giving advice on how to disguise an eating disorder for young girls, or there have been various teenagers that have been given advice and told to keep it quiet when they are planning to take their life and Brandon Guffey: There's been AIs to tell to take their life.

How to do it. Where to order the where to order things, how to get supplies. and Nick: Well, and we and we know, I mean, we know these are major problems, and yet it feels like the government is very slow to solve like they're still working on solving social media issues that are at least ten years old. Brandon Guffey: That's actually the exact my exact quote from meeting with the department of ed, because I'm fighting to keep AI out of K through twelve unless it's going to be like in a applied technology center, like whenever you're in high school and you're doing like skilled trade classes. If you want to just take a class based on AI, but I don't want it mandated.

And I I think the children's brains need to develop. My exact words to them was whenever I told them that, they said, well. You know, we've got to prepare them for the future. We've got to ensure that they can do it in a safe environment and that none of these problems I say, Well, y'all sure shit the bed on social media and tablets, didn't you? Gavin wouldn't have had Instagram if it wasn't for a teacher telling him to download it in middle school so she could communicate with all of them. Like the these are the pr and and the tablets we're seeing the i and i and you can stop me if you want to, but politically, I say the Where this country started to go backwards started in the 90s.

Brandon Guffey: And it started two main reasons. Number one, since then we've had too many politicians making decisions based on their next election and not enough leaders making decisions based on the next generation. Prior to then, people were making decisions based on the next generation, and it wasn't about what's gonna happen this election, so to say. That's changed. The other thing that changed, you can go back to our liberal arch universities. Used to, it didn't matter if your professors far left or far right, you could be polar opposite, you could have a debate, and as long as you could articulate your argument, you were not punished, you were not treated differently.

And somewhere in the 90s, these professors and these universities started saying you need to agree or you need to see things the way that we see them. Doesn't matter if they're left or right, but it started taking away our ability to critically think. Now we go into 2007, 2008. Brandon Guffey: That time period, which data analytics took off, social media, web two point all that. We had the introduction of something called algorithms. And we had this law written in 1996 called Section 230 that allowed these companies to not be held liable for anyone that's 13 and older. So we started using algorithms on 13-year-olds.

And I I I truthfully think that even a lot of the gender confusion that we have, people Can truly struggle. I'm not debating that. But I do think it caused a lot of confusion. Because at that age, if you're 12 and the wind blows, you might get an erection. That doesn't mean because you were beside a dog or anything else, that's why it happened. Like you don't need to be looking in this deep self-reflection. But if you Googled, am I this because this is what happened, then that algorithm's going to continue to feed you that content. Brandon Guffey: And it starts confusing teenagers at that age and it's taken away their ability to critically think.

Now we're talking about bringing in artificial intelligence, and I'm chair of artificial intelligence regulations in South Carolina. We're talking about bringing in AI and education. I have a second grader I just held back. We found out he's dyslexic, and we felt like he needed a little bit more time because third grade, you're you're reading to learn, not learning to read. And we want to make sure that he is prepared. I could easily create an agent to say, okay, we're going to build this just for him. He likes dinosaurs. He likes he loves math. Scores high on all these other things. And that agent says, okay, well, what we're going to do is we're going to write out a math problem in words that's going to include dinosaurs.

And he's got to read it in order to solve it. Brandon Guffey: But whenever he does it, he's going to love it and he's going to get it. And that's going to help him with reading. I agree. That awesome tool. My second grader can read now. The problem is, is whenever he gets to middle school. And he wants to like butterflies. That agent's gonna say, nope, we know you better. We've been working with you. I know I know who you are. And it's gonna say, you like dinosaurs. And it's gonna try to transition to that. It's not gonna allow them to grow. It's not gonna allow them to develop. And in my mind, yes, great tools can be great.

But even if the founders of artificial intelligence can't tell us how to put guardrails in place, you expect the school system. That allowed the tech companies to convince them that we need tablets in every classroom, which has been shown to literally hurt brain development. Brandon Guffey: And schools are still doing that. Like I I think we go back to pen and paper, and I'm willing to take that risk to say, you know what? I feel like kids were smarter in the nineties. They weren't as tech savvy, but that's something we can teach them once they're in high school. And have it through these other classes.

I don't think it has to start so early on. We need to allow their brains to develop first. Nick: Absolutely. And any agent system model that you're using, I I just when I picture myself at 15 years old, I would be doing everything I could to figure out how to hack whatever you made to get it to do my homework for me. Like guarantee it. I would spend it would be worth it to spend more time just trying to get it to do my homework than even if that that was took me longer than actually doing the homework, just to Just to win on that level. But we need to work hard to learn. Like. Brandon Guffey: I I I we come in, we're not in session right now, but I was down at the state house and throughout the weeks, like seniors will come in, whether it's you know, classes or anything else, they might sit in our desks, they might do government role play and things like that, and they typically will leave a letter.

I got one the other day, and this a person that said that they were hoping to become valedictorian for their high school. So high school senior top one, two, or three in their school. Three or four misspelled words. The grammar was horrible. Like instead of writing your it's you are. Like it it's just those and I'm not one that was ever like I'm not a grammar nerd. I whenever you read my book, you'll see I I literally wrote it by talking into a recorder and then taking the transcript, editing the transcript. Brandon Guffey: I'm not a writer. But having those basic core skills is extremely important.

And I don't feel like the kids graduating right now have Nick: Clearly not. I mean, there's no I of course. Brandon Guffey: There's exceptions to everything. I mean, there are some schools, but I'm saying in general, I feel like we got too much to where we were instead of allowing teachers to be teachers and love their profession, I feel like we started putting too many stipulations of we want to test you. Now we're overwhelming you. And now your measure of success is based on how these kids are doing. Instead of you just taking your passion that you want to teach kids. And then trusting that we are hiring the right principals because we're electing the right school board members to ensure that they are putting the kids' interests first.

And we got too much into this. Let's analyze everything. Let's let's and it you know, benchmarks are important, but it shouldn't be tied to funding. Because people were any time that you incentivize with funding, I I think I don't know that there is a system that's ever worked where we incentivize by funding. Nick: Well, the the early in my career with the first company that I started there was a yeah there was a a very successful we we were doing preparation for the SAT and we worked with this gentleman's daughter, she does really well. He came to me, I didn't realize what a huge entrepreneur this guy was.

And he says he says, Hey Seems like you've got a really good thing going with this company. He said, you know, I'd love to, you know, you you did a great thing for my daughter. How can I help? And we sat down and I was taking him through, had lunch, taking him through the whole business and what we're doing. And he paused on the incentives, right? Cause the guy didn't he didn't talk a lot. It and it felt important when he did. And he said, You said incentives there. He said, I just want to let you know when you tie money to an incentive. You gotta be very careful what you're incentivizing. Nick: Because quite honestly, when money's attached to it, if the incentive to get that money is to wear pink underwear, people will wear pink underwear.

That's just you can make them do anything. And so you gotta be extremely careful. Brandon Guffey: And that becomes their number one goal instead of actually well, I don't I don't know how to Yeah. Nick: Doing what it doing the work, right? What with that important thing. And yeah, yeah, I think I think that has happened with education to get back to your original point there is that the incentives have have warped the work and that and and not that the benchmarks aren't important and and but it should be a blend of things, rather than than just yeah. Brandon Guffey: I mean, I I just remember growing up, I never, I don't know that I ever knew any of my teachers' political affiliation, nor did I care.

I don't think we ever really discussed things like that other than have an open discussion, you know? And somewhere along the lines, our country's broken. And I think a lot of it goes back to tech. I think a lot of it is algorithms. And it puts people more. into their echo chambers. Imagine being a teen. This this generation, the the message I share with the this generation is tomorrow need you. But you were built for it. So whether whenever I was going through my mental health journey and the reason it became tomorrow need you is I went to a it was a PBS mental health forum. And that was the first thing I went to and I said I'm not probably on just going to Cry up there.

Brandon Guffey: I don't know what else to do. but a lady came up and she started talking about gun safety and started talking about suicide. And she said the majority of suicides are impulsive. And she said the average time it takes someone to make a decision to commit the act is 20 minutes. Now, what I heard next was if there's a gun involved, it's less than three minutes. She said, I misheard that. But at that time, I was like, okay, well, Gavin sent out the lesson three. It's less than three minutes. That's what I'm gonna do. and I think the statistic was saying that it's it can be as little as three minutes.

and in my thought process, not just on the team side, I'm imagining how many soldiers we have lost due to PTSD, due to being in that moment. And, you know, eventually I would love to not only reach every school. To just make the teens know that they're not alone, that they are under attack, be aware of this, but they need to rally together and to educate them on what's happening. Brandon Guffey: But at the end of the day, I would love for every service pistol that's ever issued, military, law enforcement, to have either the suicide hotline on it or the message tomorrow needs you, or the less than three symbol, or just something because What we do know is that if you can make it past twenty four hours, your stats go up tremendously.

And if we can get you to make it to tomorrow, you know what? Tomorrow might not be awesome, but it's gonna suck a lot less than it does right now. And if you can just make it to that point, and I think about how many soldiers are sitting there, you know, embracing the suck as they say, and don't feel a way out and just make that impulsive decision. How many lives it could save. I don't know. I was saying something else before then, then I got off on the lesson three. I apologize. Nick: No, I really like that that idea. well, okay, and and I know, I mean, there are people listening to this. They've they've heard your story, Gavin's story, and and feel some of that frustration that maybe that government's not new moving fast enough to address this.

w how can they take a step to help support some of these issues? Brandon Guffey: Number one, I would say start electing a new generation. We can't expect people that were 50 whenever the internet was invented to be able to make decisions for the future, regardless of political affiliation. You have to you know, I'm I'm considered the leader of tech in my state. And yet, if you ask, would I or my 20-year-old be more qualified to make decisions? evolving around TikTok, I'm gonna say my twenty year old. You've got to kind of know what you're talking about. We don't have time to learn. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

If you know, Jim Klyburn said the other day, he's like, I finally use Chat GPT. Like there's there's a lack of knowledge, a lack of understanding. And whenever you get overwhelmed with information, because we as lawmakers cannot be experts in everything. And Congress right now is being ran by lobbyists and 20-something year olds. Brandon Guffey: The members cannot keep up with everything. There's so much overwhelming information. We have the least effective Congress since the Great Depression. Like as far as passing bills, it it's horrific. but I will say that I actually I want to use a perfect example.

There's a bill that is trying to pass right now called COSA, the Kids Online Safety Act. Marsha Blackburn, I think Blumenthal have been working on this for I think eight years. Every time it gets to the finish line. But two years ago, it passed the the Senate 91 to three. How many votes do you ever see 91 senators agree on? I don't even think it's the perfect bill, but it puts in what they call a duty of care. If you're selling a product that you know is killing kids, then you have to implement safety precautions or you could be held liable. Brandon Guffey: Simple thing. Solution, duty of care.

Pass the Senate, goes to the House. We had a brand new speaker. I'm thinking, this will be great. Republican speaker, Republican majority leader. Like I can go and talk to them. Like, we can be able to get this done. Well, of course, I can't just walk in and just talk to them on the DC level. But I'd heard rumblings, and I'm friends with many congressional members on both sides. I'd heard rumblings like this will never make it to the floor. Because of big tech lobby. I'm actually I go to the bathroom in DC outside of a committee hearing, and a couple of lobbyists walk in the bathroom and they're talking about how it don't matter.

They've already nothing's gonna move. They've already talked to the higher powers. Nothing's gonna move. Come back out. Of course, it goes to energy and commerce subcommittee. I think it was energy and commerce. But it goes to the subcommittee, which is the process. Brandon Guffey: And from what I was told, many of them were told to mark it up to make it a bad bill. They marked it up, but if you look at their sayings, they say, we're still going to pass this, although I don't agree with these markups. So then it goes to full committee. And then you can kind of feel that same pressure because you got members on that committee know that if they're not doing what leadership wants, then they might not be in that position anymore.

Or they might not get help on their next election. Right. And truthfully, the constituents back home don't pay enough attention. Majority of our voters are uninformed with actually what's going on day to day. And we all got lives. We don't have time to follow all that. but so in full committee, you see them mark it up again. And you hear them say again, I don't agree with this bill. But it deserves to go to the floor for a vote. Well, the next thing that should happen is it goes to the floor for a vote. Brandon Guffey: Well, there's only two people that can stop that from happening. That's the majority leader and the speaker.

I'm thinking, okay, well, I just need to get the message to Mike Johnson. Like, I'm a survivor parent, but I'm also in politics. I don't agree, but I could understand if you're saying I'm a brand new majority leader. My level of success, because once you get into leadership, it can't just be about your decision. You have to, it has to be a decision of the people you're leading as well. Once you get in leadership, your job there would be to get more of your party elected. And this is your first time. Now you've got the world's richest companies. Since the inception of man, saying we can either fund against you or we can fund for you.

And I made sure that message was shared. If that's the case, I don't like it, but I understand. Brandon Guffey: If you'll just tell me that's case. No, then I'm told, no, no. The problem is language. It's language. So I called BS and then went to Louisiana and ran radio ads and press conferences with groups and everything else, because there's no reason that our democracy should be held up by one or two people after it's gone through the entire process and you don't put it on the floor. Even if it's a bad bill, you don't have the power. And I even whenever I'm in committee, I will sit there and talk about how much I hate this and then I'll vote for it.

And I know that hurts me in elections and everything else, but I don't believe it's ever the right of one person or a couple of people on a committee to kill legislation that we as a whole are trying to push forward. Put it to the floor. We're all elected to represent the will of the people. Put it on the floor and let the people decide. And there's not enough of that. It's too much political games. Brandon Guffey: now whether big tech bought and paid for it, I don't know. But what I can tell you is that there was a group that was just about Out of the picture, funding wise, out of Texas. They got a big donation in 2024.

Right about time I'm doing these press conferences and everything else. 2025 is not an election year for me, but on the anniversary of my son's death, that group came from Texas with paid volunteers and went door knocking in my district. Just to be like an F U to me. And the way politics is set up, like I can only raise so much as a state rep. I in South Carolina, we can only get $1,000 per person. and that's in a two-year cycle. So you can imagine how hard it is to raise, say, $100,000, but yet they could pay $200,000 for an outside dark money group to come in and do these things. Brandon Guffey: And then Meta announces $300 million.

just to fight against state lawmakers that are going to advocate for policy. You know, there's there's a a guy that I work very well with out of New York. And he's opposite side of the aisle. His name's Alex. And, you know, he's no longer in politics. But big tech coming after him. and and this this is across the board. It's not Republican. It's not Democrat. It's about who controls things due to money. And my fear is with this AI, you know, I I feel like a lot of that's being pushed as well. that it is going unregulated. And I'm not saying I know the way to regulate it, but common sense says if you create a product that causes harm, you should be held liable.

Nick: Well, look look at the number of regulations there are to open a sandwich shop in New York, right? I mean, the temperature of the meats and that the oven is clean and there are inspectors that can pop in at any time. And that's for one little sandwich shop. And yet a generative AI product that can reach billions of people and possibly do harm, that's really that that that one, yeah we we don't need to inspect that or worry about that or question it in any way. Brandon Guffey: Well, the problem is is how do we how do we do it? It and I will say once I became a lawmaker, and I'll use the morphed images or AI images as an example, because whenever we started having that argument, I think that if you use an if you create an AI image of a four-year-old naked, that should be child sex abuse material.

But at what point percentage wise of real versus drawn Do we draw that correlation? And that's what you have to specify within law, because if not, then we're going to start charging Wally the Coyote for trying to kill the roadrudder, you know? At what are Cal or people's going to go to jail for a Calvin and Hobbes peeing on a Chevy symbol or something? You know, I mean that so you have to, you have to be intentional. And what I have learned is that the majority of law is based on intent. Lawyers are constant, that is what they are arguing. Brandon Guffey: Whether it's the intent of the lawmakers, whether it's the intent of the law, or it's the intent of the person who violated the law.

That is what they are constantly arguing. And with whenever you take an industry and you give them blanket immunity, like we have with tech, with section 230, there is that that liability is gone. So they don't have any the only thing that could stop or that would make people think twice is what's the ramifications? What happens if I do this? How big of a problem could this be? but you know, we we just had the big settlement from Meta with the AG's office about the mental health. I think it was weak. You know, what 18 billion, I think it was, between Forty eight states, the opioid epidemic, opioid settlement was larger, and yet it wasn't we weren't giving opioids to children in second grade in every school.

Brandon Guffey: And we were putting this tech at every kid in every school and the mental health crisis that it has caused. and it's not tech is just one problem in government. There's so many. and there's so many good things that AI can do. The best way I try to explain to people that don't understand AI, like say an older lawmaker that I serve with or something, I tell them this is like the invention of the automobile. But instead of inventing a Model T, we invented a Lamborghini. But we don't have any roads. We don't have any regulations. We don't know how we're going to get there. And we're having to work, but yet we've got this beast of a car right here.

So, yes, there can be danger, but at no circumstance should our children ever be the guinea pigs. We cannot afford to fail enough. Nick: Absolutely. And for the record, I mean, I am deeply involved in AI work and love the tools at a very high level. And I think it enables individuals to do things that they especially when you when you get into the coding side of it and and being able to build on your own and realize big ideas that you have, it they're incredible tools. And so I don't mean to be all negative on it. but I recognize it is, like you said, a Lamborghini or Atomic energy can power all kinds I mean, that can bring power to to millions of homes, but it can also invent the atomic bomb.

the same technology, right? And it's it's like we we just need to be careful. I just feel like a balance with any of this big tech is is the I feel like that's the common sense approach. Brandon Guffey: Part owner in an AI company called Campaign AI. that is myself, the Democrat that's running for governor in South Carolina, Jermaine Johnson, and an independent, Tom Crummings. and Tom's got, I think Andrew Gang has become an investor. It's called Campaign AI. And the whole point of it is to ensure that we are tripartisan, to ensure it does not get weaponized. politically and that we are ensuring we're trying to give people the tools to build campaign videos, but we don't want it weaponized for misinformation or, you know, deep fakes.

We're one strike policy company. And we want to make sure that whenever people are making the campaign videos, if it's got our logo on it, that they know that this is legit. This is paid for and created by the candidate. and You know, that's that's the hope. Brandon Guffey: That's the future, if we could all do that. Nick: I like that. I like that. Well you're doing excellent work and I really yeah, just appreciate your you coming on to tell an incredible and tragic story and that you've taken an event that would break most people. I I feel like it would it would break me right in half. Brandon Guffey: It did break me.

That that's still broken. You know, I I tell people all the time like I I wasn't suicidal until I lost my son. And now it's a constant thought. But then how many, especially with the children that I travel around talking to with less than three, how many of them would I be setting the example whenever I've been sitting here preaching that tomorrow need you, tomorrow need you. I can't be that guy. I have to put myself in what would I want my son to do and try to live that way. Try not to get in my own way and and you know, I I really appreciate like I said earlier, the only thing God blessed me with is a big mouth.

I like to think I got a big heart too. My intent's always right. I'm not always right, but I'm always opinionated. Brandon Guffey: But ha being able to come on to your platform to reach your users. At the end of the day, I hope that success will never be measured. And I mean that by I hope that no kids are committing suicide. Because I know that it's reaching everyone and it's making a difference. But every time I see another kid take their life due to sex torsion, I feel like if you could have just talked a little bit more. If you could have just did a little bit more. You know, I I met with last year I was in Colorado and I was exhausted from traveling, similar similar to the way I am today.

I'd been away from home for 10 days and went out there and was meeting at a it was numerous groups, but Tim Tebow was there. Brandon Guffey: And, you know, I I walked up and and he was asking, you know, how are you doing? And I was like, Man, I'm just exhausted. Like, I you know, I I'm ready to get home. I picked a fight with my wife. We don't fight. And like I can just tell I'm just I'm road worn and I'm exhausted. And he put his hand on my shoulder, just kind of similar to the same thing as the minority leader did. And he said, Wouldn't it be awesome if we could all enter the kingdom exhausted?

Knowing that we're fighting to save children. And it was like, All right, shut up, suck it up. Time to get cooking, get going. Like, just gotta go. Drink another Mountain Dew. Nick: Yeah. Yeah. What was it get get in motion to change the emotion? Brandon Guffey: In order to change emotion, create motion. Nick: There we go. Yeah. Yeah. and yeah. Brandon Guffey: That's one of the things that I I think is most impactful to the teens whenever I'm talking to whenever they have that anxiety, they don't know what to do because they're so used to just sitting on that device. But if you just get up and you run until you're done, if you go ride a bike, like Gavin, Gavin wasn't a team sport player.

That's the reason he skated. Like one of the things I'd love to do with nonprofits, like I I want to I I hear Tony Hawk helps build skate parks. I want to build a skate park. in my hometown, so kids like Gavin have somewhere to go skate. You know, that might not be able to play team sports. They can go and just get it out, just that emotion. and I don't feel like we've got enough of that anymore. Nick: Yeah. Yeah. Well and people that want to find less than three online, want to find you online, want to support all of these movements that you're involved with. Where are the places that they can find you?

And we'll of course put all this down in the description so that it's easy for people to access it. Brandon Guffey: on Instagram and Facebook, I believe it is vote guffy. No, Instagram's vote guffey. Facebook is Think it's just Brandon Guffy48. And then Twitter is Brandon Guffy SC. less than three has their own. I don't know the handle because I don't run it. but the less than three website, which has all of the links, and we're not the best at updating that because I'm hey, look, I I'm not the best at campaigning. If you look, I'm in the middle of a campaign right now and I hadn't ran in four years because this is more important.

And sharing the message. but the website is less than three, the number, sc.org. and it is completely ran without any government funding. It's only donations that help us go. and it all goes towards talking to teens, bracelets, stickers. Brandon Guffey: Did I even mention the the struggle bus? Do you know anything about the struggle bus? Nick: No No Brandon Guffey: So I did talk about how Gavin loves loved sticker bombing. So I had this old, it was a 79 Volkswagen type two bus that I got out of an old field and I was going to restore it. Gavin wanted to drive it off to college. And I told him, you know, after the election, I'll get it running, then we can teach you how to drive a stick.

But I don't know that I'm gonna give it to you because I've been wanting one of these my entire life, too. He loved that thing. He also loved sticker bombing, which he did the dash of his car. So after his death, one of the coping mechanisms, create motion, was trying to restore this van, get it going, get it road ready. We got it completely done. And at the one year we had a an event we called Wheeling on the Rock, which I live in Rock Hill. And it was like a music festival, car show, bring everyone together. and I brought a bunch of stickers and I just wanted the teens to put stickers on it to help help me sticker bomb it, the way Gavin would want to do it.

Brandon Guffey: They put stickers on it. And then as I started pulling up after that event, I'd pull up at a gas station or a store. And teens would I'd come out and teens were taking Instagram or TikToks with it. And I would start telling them why it's like that. And nine out of ten times I'd end up with them crying on my shoulder. Either they were struggling with mental health or they knew someone had been extorted or they had been extorted. Some admitted that they were in the middle of being extorted at the time. and what I did as a memory for him became my biggest asset in sharing the message.

So I just started driving that bus around and it got completely covered in stickers. In May of last year, it caught fire. The starter stuck on it and it burned to the ground. So we didn't raise all the money, but we had some money that was raised in a nonprofit. And I ended up getting another old school bus and we call it the Struggle Bus two point that kids have started re-sticker bombing. And then at the beginning of this year, we had an auto dealership donate an E V van so that way I can make these longer trips, like because you can't drive those old ones four or five hours away. Brandon Guffey: They they're air cooled, no overheat on the interstate in a heartbeat.

And they only go like 60. So now I have an EV one that's completely sticker bomb too. And we call it struggle bus three point or E point O. but yes, that that I that's pretty much what I drive full time now because it makes such a difference. You know, I spoke at a high school, Gavin's high school, just recently. and that was the first time I've been able to speak at his high school. And it made such an impact that I told kids, you know, like I do every time, like if you see the old bus, you honk, you wave, I'll pull over. I carry stickers with me, and you can put a piece of your struggle on it as well.

And I was just ran to get ice cream the other night for my wife. And I start to pull out, and all I hear is a bunch of screaming, and I turn around, that's a bunch of teenage girls screaming and waving. And I pull back around and it was like, somebody's 16th birthday, they were all meeting at this place and they were like, Do you got stickers? Brandon Guffey: Do you got stickers? They probably put out thirty stickers on it that night. But, you know, those are the things whenever I feel down and just out. Like I'm just worn out. I just want to get home. And then a teenager starts honking and they get so excited.

They're like, Hey, Mr. Guffy, do you have stickers? Do you have stickers? I'm like, Yeah. And I'll pull over and let put stickers and they they own a piece of the struggle. And they carry the message. They're wearing the less than three bracelets that say tomorrow need you on that's whenever you know that you're making an impact. And the the bus was supposed to be to honor Gavin, but it's been the the greatest asset, I would say. Nick: For parents who are of teenagers who are concerned about this, what Brandon Guffey: Number one, yeah, number one, I would say, you know, the average age that a child is seeing full hardcore pornoc pornography is 10 now.

So for many of you that think that it is too young to have the conversation with your child, if you're too scared to talk to them, imagine how scared they will be to talk to you if something does happen. So you have to have the conversation. And then I I say the same thing to the parents that I say to the teens, and that is tomorrow needs you. Tomorrow needs you, me, our generation to be the example of grace. Whenever they see us kicking people whenever they're down instead of lifting them up and not offering forgiveness, they're following our lead. Tomorrow needs us to teach the kids that, to have the conversations, to know that they're built for this time, but to arm them with the tools that they need.

Brandon Guffey: And tomorrow needs us all to speak up to our elected officials, demand protections. I'm all for freedom. You know, I'm I would be what so many call, you know, a right wing nut whenever it comes to freedom. But we have to protect children at all costs. I don't care how free you want to be, children must be protected. and we've got to start using our voice. Unfortunately, I feel like it's going to take a a social movement. Watch it any of these films that are coming out. you know, the one, the new one about Zuckerberg just shows you how it's not choice. This isn't something where you just say, just don't get online.

Don't hand them a device whenever schools are giving them tablets. and don't buy into the narrative that's being bought and paid for by big tech too. There's some good actors out there. I think that I think that some companies, you know, I can name bad in every company. Brandon Guffey: I will say TikTok is the quickest to respond to me whenever I have an issue with a team. Meta won't even reply at all. But TikTok will jump on it and handle it right away if it's reported to me. Google. I think is making the most changes. However, there are still some bad things within their platform. And it's just the business model that they have to work within.

and then finally I would say don't trust Meta. I haven't seen a single good thing come out of Meta. I've I'll use the example in August of twenty twenty four. They announced they pulled down sixty four thousand sex tortion accounts just from Lagos, Nigeria. Just off of Instagram and they did it in one day. Did they continue to allow these people to extort up until that day to pull them all off at one time? Or do they have the technology to just pull off that many at one time? Brandon Guffey: And if so, why haven't they done anything since? Everything about at Meta is about bottom line. and I even go further and tell people, you know, if you've got money invested in them, pull it out.

Demand that they change. They're not going to change as long as we keep investing in them. I'm not saying Zuckerberg's not a a brilliant guy, but until he prioritizes protecting children over profits, we shouldn't be involved at all with the company. Even though I use it as my platform, you know, I'm not peeing it money and I know I'm the product, but at the same time, we've got to start demanding these changes. Nick: Absolutely. Well Representative Guffey, just yeah, I so appreciate your coming time and coming on to share all of this and and for the work that you're doing. we all appreciate the the work that you're spearheading.

Brandon Guffey: Thank you. If you got a good filter, I just looked at myself on this camera and realized how white I look. I shouldn't have worn a white shirt and shouldn't have this bright light on me. God I I look like Casper with his haircut in this light. Nick: Well I Think I think he looked fine. but we'll we'll I'll I'll I'll mention it to the to the team. Yeah. We gotta make we gotta make him look beautiful. yeah. Brandon Guffey: yeah, I'm I look, nothing's gonna make me look beautiful. Just don't make me look like the powder movie. Nick: Okay, there we go. That's a that's that's like a 1996 reference right there.

Yeah, yeah, rubber powder. Yeah, nice. Brandon Guffey: Yeah. Yeah, I haven't broke out any Friday quotes, but other than that, I do stick to a lot of nineties. Nick: let's Okay, let's let's just let's end on one. What you what you got? Such a good movie. Brandon Guffey: Every time I get upset about something I just wanna run away, I'm like, this is my grandmama's chain Everybody looks at me like, You stupid. Like, what are you talking about? I'm like, Y'all ain't seen Friday, you don't know Nick: Yeah. Yeah. love it. Love it.