I nominate this for the “Most Expected News Of The Decade” award.
Today, The Tech Oversight Project published a new report spotlighting newly unsealed documents in the 2026 social media addiction trials. The documents provide smoking-gun evidence that Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok all purposefully designed their social media products to addict children and teens with no regard for known harms to their wellbeing, and how that mass youth addiction was core to the companies’ business models. The documents contain internal discussions among company employees, presentations from internal meetings, expert testimony, and evidence of Big Tech coordination with tech-funded groups, including the National Parent Teachers Association (PTA) and Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), in attempts to control the narrative in response to concerned parents.
↫ The Tech Oversight Project
Modern social media companies are not entirely different from tobacco companies. They and everyone else know full well just how dangerous social media is, and how being addicted to it has disastrous consequences for the people involved. Tobacco companies, too, knew how dangerous smoking was decades before the general population was aware, and yet they kept pushing cigarettes, even to kids, deaths be damned. In fact, they’re still doing the same thing today with “vapes”, and we’re kind of letting it happen all over again.
Social media is directly responsible for genocides, extreme polarisation, the spread of endless amounts of lies causing parents to harm their children, mass generation of child pornography, and much, much more. All of this is not a coincidence, mere side-effects, unintended consequences – social media are designed and optimised specifically to achieve these goals, like cigarettes and now “vapes” are designed specifically to be as addictive as possible. The people responsible – social media companies, their executives, their employees – need to face justice, answer for what they’ve done, and face the legal consequences.
Of course, that’s not going to happen. Billionaires and their megacorporations are untouchable, too big to fail, too closely tied to especially the current regime in the US. I don’t think social media bans for people under 16 are the answer, since they tend to come with onerous and invasive online identity checks and because they cut vulnerable people off from their support networks, but it’s clear we need to do something.
And now to ensure the kids below 15 are “forbidden” from social media, adults have to provide their credentials. Next step : prevent VPN.
Kochise,
Short of a chinese style firewall, I don’t see this being technically enforceable. It would require massive investments by ISPs, which is unlikely to happen. The more likely scenario is for governments to pass laws that retroactively punish VPN users who get caught.
With western governments becoming more authoritarian and legislators actively trying to pass bills that increase government control, it may only be a matter of time before VPN prohibitions make it into law.
https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/vpns/michigan-lawmakers-call-for-total-vpn-ban-as-part-of-a-proposed-public-morals-bill
After they ban VPN they will introduce a Digital Wallet app that everyone will need to use for identity verification, and that app will use hardware attestation to ensure it only runs in a goverment-approved OS. Then they will ban devices running unapproved OSes from the internet and they will ask government-approved OSes to only allow apps from verified developers, which will give them total control over all digital communication and get around end-to-end encryption by forcing spyware on all government-approved OSes. It will happen very slowly, just like hardware attestation got introduced slowly so people won’t notice.
“This is such a beautiful fake news”
Magnusmaster,
I think you are describing the path UK is on.
They recently started talking about “age verification” in VPNs.
As many predicted that “slippery slope” was not a fallacy, but a real thing. Something started as “protect the innocent children” is going exactly that way. Real ID verification to get on the internet, and possibly VPNs as well.
(Digital Wallet and ID as well, check out “hardware attestation” and “one login”)
I’m not sure what their stance on TOR or other decentralized netwoks is though.
Big Techs are doing it for money, so the easiest way is a massive tax on their ad revenue, like there is on tobacco and alcohol.
The easiest way is to forbide kids from less than 16 to join. And to forbid the companies from having adiction generation algoritms.
kwanbis,
Those don’t seem easy to me. Kids are already ignoring government mandated age restrictions by lying. To actually be effective you need to mandate id verification (which I’m against) and penalties for parents who assist kids get around restrictions.
As an outsider it can be notoriously difficult to get information about the algorithms companies are using internally.
I am not sure how laws can solve this outside of trusting companies to police themselves.
If you don’t want to force the algorithms public, you can at least establish practices or goals that can’t be part of any content-selection algorithm. Just as “can’t sell tobacco products for children” or “can’t advertise at sport events”, or whatever.
This is what your algorithm can’t do: A, B, C, D. And establish a body with legal rights to audit algorithms, just like the IRS (in the US) has the authority to reject your tax reports and demand more information.
“You claim your algorithm is within the guidelines but we suspect not. Audit.”
Shiunbird,
Even if you believe the government should have a right to “audit” private code that doesn’t belong to them, it’s still not a given that corporations can’t hide things. In a normal IRS audit, which is your example, the audit involves getting your private information through 3rd parties. There’s only so much they can do if they’re dependent on you. Are you envisioning they actually go raid the corporations and confiscate critical hardware etc? Maybe that’s what you think should happen but it’d be quite an escalation of government power and I’m not sure the ends would justify the means.
I understand people have different opinions about it but governmental power abuse actually worries me more than corporate algorithms.
You don’t really need an audit if you just introduce one rule. There should always be a clearly visible button on a website or application to switch to a time-based feed without any recommendations, just like in old days on LiveJournal.
Age mandates are stupid, for at least three reasons; being 16+ does not make you immune to addiction, kids will find a way to access, as they do with any other age restricted stuff, finally this mandates Big Techs to profile users, which is the very foundation of their evil deeds. And may end up in real name policies. Total ban is too easy to be killed in courts.
That is why i said: The easiest way is to forbide kids from less than 16 to join. AND to forbid the companies from having adiction generation algoritms.
When did government become the parents of EVERYONE?
Yup.
Tiered age access restrictions to walled gardens should be mandatory.
Penalize with heavy monetary fines access violations on the provider’s end. And see how quickly Meta, X, et all fix those issues.
As it is, these providers of walled gardens are wanting to have it both ways: feel entitled to have their access to mass audiences protected, while bearing no responsibility to protect those mass audiences.
What exactly is a “addiction generation algorithm”?
Who will determine that? Some bureaucrats?
And shouldn’t it be up to the parents, what they allow their kids to see?
Revenue is not profit.
Any tax on revenue is wrong.
A tax on revenue is fine, you just incorporate it into your pricing, e.g. VAT or GST, as a cost of business, but has the potential to make the tax take quite volatile during big economic shifts, so you’d hope they don’t run the coffers bare in good years. Tax without revenue can be difficult to handle and property taxes may fall into that category where setting a fair price is difficult, maybe introducing hardship for some without a rebate system to make it more progressive.
I would make a distinction between a sales tax like VAT and some (additional) tax on revenue alone:
Here these social media companies sell ads and already pay a sales tax – or the companies buying such an ad do.
But taxing the general revenue, which might be billions, while e.g. no profit is generated easily ruins a company.
No one will invest in a country proposing such a tax.
And of course: taxes on property are even more harmful in the long run.
cybergorf,
I think there may be some miscommunications here. We talk about taxes on revenue side but it doesn’t mean dismissing deductions on the expense side. These deductions are how corporations can end up having effective tax rates be much lower than the actual tax rates that apply to them.
“Qui aurait pu prédire…”
(quote from Emmanuel Macron talking about climate change and Ukraine invasion as unforeseen events)
I feel like the solution has always been there. Denote social media as news outlets. That act alone will make them liable. Fake news stories will lead to them being sued for millions/billions and I guarantee they’ll suddenly find the capability and/or manpower to effectively vett the content.
When you upload something to social media they claim ownership of that asset. With ownership, comes liability.
I’ve always tended to be against taxing them as a solution
What that does it continues to allow the same behaviours but puts a price on it that the doesn’t go to the victims
That is nonsense. This would also target any web hosting or eventually every ISP.
Or even any publisher for e.g. books.
“Social Media” only make it easier for an individual to publish their own content.
They are already liable..
If a book publishes libel or inappropriate pictures they can be sued.
If a site hosts porn (in the UK) age verification is required.
Web hosts are liable for what they publish..This is why MegaUploads were found liable.
ISP have some liability, that’s why they block Pirate bay.
Only social media has managed to seperate itself from the legal liability of the content it generates, hosts and serves.
Publishing houses and/or printers can a do sell pornography or any kind of now so called “hate speech”. The worst thing that can happen to them is some court orders a book can no longer be sold – but they are not fined, as they are (usually) not responsible for the content but the author is. Same goes for defamation.
How is a “social media platform” or a ISP any different from a printing press?
omg, I will bite.
Countries with high vaccination rates, such as Latin America overall, would be populated by autistic people if that would be the case. You know, places with malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, etc, tend to be more accepting of vaccines.
The burden of proof is on the accuser. Asking someone to prove that “vaccines don’t cause A, B, C” is the same as if I ask you to prove that “God doesn’t exist” or that “humans can’t fly”. If you are accusing vaccines of causing whatever side effects you claim they cause, the burden of collecting the data and proving it is on you.
Prohibiting something for a part of society is the best way to destroy trust and the society itself.
We’ll see this when children who are not allowed access to social networks grow up.
It’s just a way to teach your children how to lie en masse.
You mean like cigarettes, alcohol, porn, driving over the speed limit, walking naked on the streets, etc? And children lying to their parents! How in the world will we ever cope with that!? Let me go find some pearls to clutch.
Children lie to their parents when they have no other choice, and government is not your parent!
When you forbid something out of the blue, you take away people’s freedom. It’s not a figure of speech, it’s philosophy.
user name checks out…
Nonsense! There are always rules and laws that prohibit something for some parts of the society.
But social media/tiktok etc. are comparable with drugs like nicotine or alcohol.
Kids with their immature brains get even quicker adcited than adults.
I’m not against the idea of doing something. I just don’t understand why some people support the worst choice.
I am not in favour of these sorts of materials, nor of manipulating others images for your own use without permission. I am completely aware that if you ask the government to fix this, you will not like how they do it.
Warnings since the beginning of the Internet have been pretty consistent, “Don’t put pictures of you | your children online. As soon as you do you lose control of them.”
2026: AHHHHHHH!!!! I lost control of the pictures I put online!!!!!!!!!!!! SUE ELON IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
FML. You have discovered that people who believe they are anonymous on the Internet tend towards assholery.
You realize we have two choices, right?
Either we choose to allow people to build LLM models to do shitty pseudo-AI, or we don’t.
Either choice has consequences.
People are assholes. Not all of them, but you will come across many of them in your lifetime.
When you do, learn quickly they are assholes and avoid them.
And if you are a parent of minor children, it is your responsibility to raise them. You are in a far better position than the state to do that.
People project, who they are, in order to make sense of the others.
Assholes see assholes everywhere.
“And if you are a parent of minor children, it is your responsibility to raise them. You are in a far better position than the state to do that.”
As father and uncle I have to say: W/o the help of state/law you are lost.
I can tell my kids, do not smoke, do not drink alcohol. And teach them the dangers. But kids are social beeings and are involved in their commuinities and sometime “social pressure” is stronger than parental advices.
So if the access to cigarettes or alcohol is restriced, it is easier for them to withstand the social pressure.
The very same with social media and video games.
Sadly, the ultimate consequence of the libertarian stuff, like the poster you were replying to, always leads to not-so clever forms of victim blaming.
E.g. if a woman gets raped, somehow the parties at fault are her and their dad for not having “policed” her fashion choices…
I do not blame victims. A woman raped is _only_ a victim. Even if she walks naked through the streets.
I say, laws and rules are there to support people. If I need to be 18 to buy cigarettes, it is a lot more complicated to do so with 14, even for the “cool” kids.
And if you can swip through tiktok videos only for an hour per day, it is more complicated to continue. Even if you can open another account and another account …
What next? Will they ban all the good games for being addictive!? Seems a very killjoy-ish attitude that they want to ban things just because people like them.
They should ban the “I win w/o effort”-games. All those small games which are only intended to keep people in front of there device and are only made to show ads.
Those billi
Those billionaires and their megacorporations exist for quite some time. They are tied to the current USA regime as much as they were to many previous ones, and they will likely be to any future ones. I see nothing especally different about current USA regime in that regard.