Social Media’s Addiction Trial: Where Was the Outrage for Other Digital Harms?
📰 THE STORY: Three major tech companies – Meta, ByteDance (TikTok), and Google (YouTube) – are facing a trial in Los Angeles over claims their platforms deliberately addict and harm children through their design. This bellwether case, centered on a 19-year-old plaintiff, could influence thousands of similar lawsuits. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: While concerns about tech
addiction are valid, the weaponization of psychology and media for societal control is not new. In the 1960s, the CIA funded MKULTRA experiments exploring mind control and psychological manipulation, techniques that later found echoes in corporate advertising and political campaigning. More recently, in 2011, studies revealed the Pentagon's creation of fake online personas to spread propaganda and
manipulate social media foreign audiences. The 'engagement-maximizing' algorithms now under fire for youth addiction were pre-dated by state-sponsored information warfare that shaped public opinion for decades. Double Standard: Mainstream media is currently framing this as a critical reckoning for tech giants' unethical profit motives. Yet, where was the similar outcry when Facebook, Google, and
Twitter executives routinely testified before Congress, often after being pressured to censor or promote certain narratives, particularly those aligned with Western foreign policy interests? The very platforms accused of 'addiction' also served as conduits for narratives promoting regime change in countries like Venezuela (2019 Guaidó support) or Syria (White Helmets propaganda), without similar