Paul Krugman recently compared access to social media to the legalization of heroin–to what would happen if heroin was sold without any restrictions on its marketing or use.
Heroin distribution and sales would quickly become a huge, multibillion-dollar industry. They would become a significant part of GDP, even though heroin harms and often kills those who consume it. Given the increasingly naked corruption of U.S. politics, the heroin industry would be able to purchase massive political influence, enough to block any attempts to limit the harm it does — the harm it knows it does, because heroin industry executives would surely be aware of the damage their products inflict.
Through massive political donations — enabled by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling – and de facto bribery enabled via cryptocurrency deals, the industry would be able to enlist the U.S. government as an ally in its efforts to block regulation in other countries. For example, U.S. officials might threaten punitive tariffs against countries that try to limit and regulate heroin use.
Krugman insists that this fanciful exercise–which may seem “extreme and implausible”–is actually a pretty accurate description of the social media landscape. As evidence, he quotes a report issued in 2023 by the U.S. Surgeon General’s office, titled “Social Media and Youth Mental Health.” (Krugman advises downloading it quickly, before RFK Jr. suppresses it.) That publication summarized the now-extensive evidence that children and adolescents who consume excessive amounts of social media sustain mental health damage.
It isn’t as though the tech “bros” responsible for these platforms are unaware of the damage being done.
In 2021 the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Facebook Knows Instagram is Toxic for Teen Girls, Documents Show: Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public.” In 2024 Meta finally introduced some relatively ineffectual limits on what teens can see.
The Journal reported that Meta’s own internal projections estimated it would earn 10% of its overall annual revenue – that’s $16 billion dollars– from advertising scams and banned goods. In other words, Meta’s platforms are knowingly pushing (and I use the word “pushing” intentionally) “fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.”
And where have our intrepid Senators and Representatives been while these facts have emerged? Evidently, the same place they’ve been hiding while Trump dismantles the federal government.
Krugman writes that last year Congress was on the verge of passing the Kids Online Safety Act, a law that would have been the first to impose any rules on social media. The Act initially had bipartisan support; some ninety-one senators had signed on. But then, Krugman reports, “Mark Zuckerberg and his billions came to town, and the legislation died.”
Once again, other countries have done what the U.S. won’t. The European Union passed the Digital Services Act, which–among other things–requires large platforms to self-police and refrain from engaging in a variety of activities, including “dissemination of illegal content” and matter shown to have “negative consequences” for “physical and mental well-being.” Australia has recently passed a law that would prevent anyone under 16 from having a social media account. (I’ll admit to skepticism about the ability to enforce this, but at least Australia is trying.)
A couple of weeks ago, under its Digital Services Act, the European Union fined Musk’s X 120 million euros, based on several violations of that Act, including the fact that X’s “Blue checks” are a fraud. (X claims that a blue check means that the poster’s identity has been verified. But in fact X sells them and makes no effort to verify identity.) X also refuses to provide information on advertisements sufficient for users to identify scams, and refuses to make its public data available to researchers.
Unlike the EU, the Trump administration is pulling out the stops to support our tech titans’ resistance to European regulation.
Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, has explicitly linked U.S. tariffs on European steel to demands that Europe weakens its digital regulations. If the EU tried to make comparable demands on the United States, we’d consider it an outrageous infringement on our national sovereignty. And I’m pretty sure that making this linkage violates U.S. trade law too. But rule of law is for the little people.
As Krugman argues, unregulated social media is a lot like unregulated drugs. Powerful social media billionaires are preventing us from protecting our children. They are also using that power to dictate U.S. foreign policy, “punishing our erstwhile allies for daring to limit their ability to push their product.”
America is now a digital narco-state.
Another comparison to heroin in the real world is firearms. Lots of bribe money ( aka “donations”) to stop even the most tepid legislation that could reduce the slaughter is spent by the NRA and firearm manufacturers and their industry lobbies.
The legislation died when Zuckerberg’s millions came to town. Gun legislation dies when that industry’s millions come to town. Insurance reform legislation dies when United Health’s millions come to town. Tort reform dies when the ABA’s millions come to town. See a pattern here? Truly the best government money can buy.
Richardallen, To your point, the number of lobbyists in D.C. pentupled (sic) following Citizens United to now being in the mid-5 figures. This is the sort of thing Marx predicted would happen to capitalism: It will die by its own hand,
Our founders never anticipated the revolving door between lobbying firms and politicians in Washington. There was an ideal called morals that was expected to prevent that from happening. LOL
Sadly, our federal government has long been influenced by outside money. Morals were tossed out the window because in capitalism, profit is the absolute key. As Vern notes, Marx picked up on that problem a long time ago, too.
As billionaire Zionists suck up all our traditional media, the stats show the industry is dying. All the trend lines are downward. I don’t expect them to rebound due to this latest round of acquisitions. As we just saw with CBS and 60 Minutes, the new editor, Bari Weiss, cut a program at the last minute to appease the Trump administration. That has gone around social media like a firestorm.
I don’t want the government interfering in social media, where it’s the parents’ responsibility. The federal government uses innocuous terms to insert pure censorship for everyone. In case you haven’t noticed, free speech is under attack in this country and in Europe. The last thing we need is to give them more power.
As in all issues, it is important to find a balance between conflicting forces such as capitalism and socialism or between personal freedoms and personal responsibilities. No freedom is absolute. No unrestrained ideology will satisfy all people or all the needs of society. As Sheila keeps reminding us, it’s complicated.
Common sense mitigation of the growing reality of Earth’s climate changing to be hostile to our civilization dies when Big Oil comes to town.
Let’s get real. There are about 200 million Facebook users in the US. What if a material number turned it off and sent a message saying it’s because Meta’s products are hurting kids and their support of The King. Imagine….
Pew reports that in 2024, 62% of White Catholics who attend church voted for Trump. The segment’s increase in GOP voting from 2020 to 2024 was 57% to 62%. White Catholics are a large segment of voters. Pew reports the small segment of Jewish voters voted 63% for Harris in 2024.
There are both politically active, wealthy White Catholics and Jews backing the right wing e.g. Leonard Leo and Larry Ellison. Based on my limited knowledge, the Jewish GOP influencers are driven by libertarian goals for unfettered control of the economy by the richest 0.1%. The White Catholic GOP influencers may have a goal to concentrate wealth. What I know for certain is that they’ve been highly successful in taking away Americans’ freedom. While Americans used to be able to vote for the boards of their tax-funded schools, now they can’t because more of the schools are tax-funded Catholic schools. Women can’t get abortions in red states and the Catholic SCOTUS may overturn same sex marriage,
Americans should familiarize themselves with the site, Military Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Addiction can be to anything, not just drugs, alcohol, sex. And unless the person is aware of their addictive behavior and desirous of change of it they may not even kniw they are cauggt in an addictive behavioral script.
Often we need to be able to see our own similar patterns of living reflected in others stories (this is the genius of the 12 Step Programs) in order to have awareness we are caught in that cycle of addictive thinking and behaviors.
I agree wholeheartedly that the social media as we understand it today absolutely needs comprehensive and practical rules and guidelines, but please not by the current mess that inhabits Washington DC at this moment. That would be a disaster, but I feel that the disaster they will actually be part of – by not doing anything – may be equally as bad as whatever these ideologues could dream up. Let’s just know that whenever the moment is that we are back in charge, even if it’s 2026 and we win Congress back, even with the worst-ever-POTUS still at the helm, this issue can be on the front-and-center list of to-dos. Then, in 2028…..
All the “online age verification” controls are Trojan horses. In countries that’ve implemented these rules, teens have found workarounds, like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Now, Western countries want to ban all use of VPNs. It’s not about “protecting users,” it’s all about control. Apparently, three of the top VPN sites are owned by Israel with close affiliations to Mossad and other intel services. #shocking
It’s called surveillance and suppression, especially when Trump/Bondi are claiming that all left-wing speech comes from “domestic terrorists.” Don’t give up your freedoms.
“In both cases, the unparalleled network effects of the internet were used as a powerful weapon against government’s repressive designs for the internet. The problem today, however, is that governments keep learning from these failures and adopting their strategy. They are also more determined than ever to bring the internet under their control, even if it means doing so in a salami slicing way — something the EU is particularly adept at.”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/12/in-their-total-war-on-online-privacy-the-liberal-democracies-of-the-collective-west-are-now-turning-their-sights-on-vpns.html