Tech Companies Acting like Tobacco Companies

A summary of an essay describing this observation - and link to the essay

First, the link to the essay - if you have the time to read it, I would suggest it. The forward is written by Jonathan Haidt (“Anxious Generation” author) and Zach Rausch, deeper essay content by

Gaia Bernstein

Law Professor and Technology Policy Expert.

The Tech Industry’s Playbook To Prevent Regulation

My summarized takeaways for those who don’t have the time or focus to read the full essay

Social media / tech companies are using tactics similar to what tobacco companies used in the past to avoid responsibility for harm to children [persons].

The concerning practice is generally they are actively fighting against laws that would make them responsible for protecting kids.

1. A key example is their opposition to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which has provisions to make their platforms safer for children (age verification, default privacy settings, etc).

2. They are using a three-part strategy to avoid responsibility:

   1. They blame parents and kids instead of taking responsibility themselves. Their message is basically "You chose to use our products, so whatever happens is your fault."

   2. They create "parental controls" and "digital wellness" tools that look helpful but don't really solve the problem. This is similar to how tobacco companies once created "filtered" cigarettes that weren't actually any safer. The real purpose of these tools is to shift responsibility to parents.

   3. When they can't avoid new laws entirely, they push for laws that put all the responsibility on parents instead of the companies themselves. This lets them say "Well, the parents are in charge of monitoring their kids, so it's not our problem."

These companies know their products are harmful to children, but instead of fixing the problems and removing exploits, they're spending their resources on political lobbies and PR to skirt/avoid responsibility.

Under current lack of regulations, they have competitive pressure to keep making their products more addictive to compete with other companies, which is exactly why proper regulation is needed - to make all companies follow the same safety rules at the same time.

The KOSA bill is currently stuck in Congress and may not pass unless people contact their representatives to support it.