The top of the MTA warned Wednesday that tech large Meta must “get on the stick” about taking down social media movies of subway-surfing daredevils driving on prime of trains.
With 5 deaths up to now in 2025 from subway browsing, Lieber singled out Instagram — operated by Meta — because the platform the place “subway surfing videos do get to live for too long.”
“They should have the capacity to shut this down,” Lieber mentioned of the corporate. “If it were child pornography, they would figure out how to shut it down.”
Lieber’s pointed feedback on the mum or dad firm of Instagram, Fb and Threads got here within the wake of the newest high-profile cases of lethal and near-deadly subway browsing.
Final week, a video made the rounds of a 14-year-old boy tumbling onto the tracks, from the highest of a B prepare in Brooklyn and surviving after being bloodied and knocked unconscious. In October, a pair of women have been killed after driving on prime of a J prepare in Brooklyn.
The daddy of one of many lifeless ladies, 12-year-old Zemfira Mukhtarov, informed THE CITY that social media corporations bear some duty for the scourge of subway browsing.
“Whatever she was doing, she learned this from social media,” mentioned Ruslan Mukhtarov, 48. “I don’t teach this at home, you know, my kids going to subway surfing — they learned this from the social media.”
Mukhtarov mentioned the youngest of his two youngsters had been trying ahead to a milestone birthday shortly earlier than her loss of life.
“She told me, ‘Papa I’m so happy that I’m going to be a teenager in two weeks,’” her dad recalled. “I said ‘Yes, yes you are.’”
MTA CEO Janno Lieber, June 10, 2024. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The choice to take the daring journey has too usually been deadly, mentioned the top of the MTA.
“It is unbelievably heartbreaking when kids make this decision for a momentary thrill for literally an infinitesimal moment of glory on social media that can end their lives,” Lieber mentioned.
Subway browsing has remained a persistent downside for the MTA since incidents skyrocketed in the course of the pandemic — with 928 studies of individuals driving outdoors of trains in 2022, in response to transit authority information. These numbers confirmed that in 2019, there have been below 500 such studies, whilst MTA officers informed THE CITY on the time that the toll could possibly be even deadlier than the stats indicated.
NYPD numbers present six deaths linked to subway browsing in 2024 and 5 in 2023.
The top of the union for transit staff mentioned the carnage leaves a long-lasting impression.
“Subway surfing is an act that is not only potentially lethal but puts a burden on our members when we are trying to operate trains safely,” mentioned John Chiarello, president of Transport Staff Union Native 100. “And if a subway surfing fatality occurs on a train crew’s watch, that’s a devastating incident they have to deal with for the rest of their lives.”
Subway-surfing deaths have remained regular in recent times, in response to NYPD numbers, whilst the town and the MTA have made efforts to chop down on the lethal stunts.
The MTA is testing padded limitations positioned close to the tops of some subway vehicles alongside the No. 7 line which can be designed to maintain subway surfers from driving atop trains. The NYPD dispatches drones to subway-surfing hotspots in an effort to seize pictures of individuals on prime of trains and alert officers to intercept them. A report final summer time discovered that the daredevils ranged in age from 9 to 33.
The MTA and the town additionally launched the “Ride Inside, Stay Alive” public-service announcement marketing campaign in stations and on trains.
Lieber mentioned “most” social media corporations have “gotten the message” from the MTA and elected officers about growing algorithms that extra rapidly shut down subway-surfing content material.
However he mentioned Meta is one thing of an outlier.
“I have sent that message to them a couple of times, most recently this week, that we want them to get on the stick,” he mentioned. “They’ve been cooperative in discussions but they haven’t been successful in stamping it out.”
Brian Fritsch, affiliate director of the Everlasting Residents Advisory Committee to the MTA, mentioned tech corporations have a “moral obligation” to fight subway browsing by limiting the sharing of content material that’s posted on-line. He added that the MTA can proceed exploring high-tech methods to stem the possibly lethal act.
“We encourage the MTA to continue to look at options, such as track-intrusion technology, adding sensors on top of subway cars to quickly alert train crews when surfers are present and procuring open-gangway train sets to reduce access points to the tops of trains,” he mentioned.
A Meta spokesperson mentioned the corporate will proceed to work with the MTA to handle subway browsing.
“Videos encouraging subway surfing violate our policies and we remove them when we become aware of them,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Ruslan Mukhtarov mentioned he has no thought if his daughter and her mates have been recording their subway stunts for social media, including that he’s unable to entry her accounts.
He mentioned he centered on maintaining his daughter — “she was lovely, people loved her so much” — out of hassle with out imagining she would ever contemplate climbing atop a shifting prepare.
“We never thought that this was going to come to us,” he mentioned. “Now my life is ruined, my life is completely ruined.”
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