Tech Policy

It's now official, tech is the new tobacco

Philosopher Cailin O'Connor argues that newly reported internal Meta documents, including plans to shape National Academies research on social media and youth mental health and legal pushback on studies that might find harm, support her and collaborators' research arguing that tech companies are running the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries' playbook on the science of their products.

Opinion · Tech Policy · Social Media · Science

Meta censored the No Kings Instagram account during a nationwide campaign and is now backtracking on its excuses

Paul Walsh examines Meta's 17 October 2026 suspension of the No Kings Coalition's Instagram account during a nationwide early-voting campaign, Meta's shifting explanations (first excessive posting, then Claude-based software reading Instagram at four times the normal rate), and sets out detailed questions and records Meta should produce to show the suspension was an innocent automated error.

Opinion · Tech Policy · Social Media · Content Moderation