Meta launched a free program on Monday that it&#8217;s calling America’s Workforce Academy, a first-of-its-kind $115 million initiative designed to fast-track Americans into high-demand jobs without requiring a college degree.
Meta&#8217;s pitch is simple: train for free, get paid while you learn, and walk into a guaranteed job on the other side. Meta said that its new school is not a federal program or another handout but a private company spending its own money because it needs the workers for the next wave of a technological revolution. 
&#8220;The AI revolution is bringing change but also historic opportunities. Skilled workers electrified rural America one pole at a time,” said Meta’s President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick. “They manned the factories that built the arsenal that won World War II. Now a new generation will pour the foundations and lay the fiber that secures American strength in this new age.”
The program will launch as a pilot in four states: Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, and Texas. America’s Workforce Academy seeks to output welders, electricians, plumbers, and fiber technicians, the workers who will physically build the data centers and infrastructure powering the artificial intelligence boom.
Mike Rowe, the host of the Discovery Channel&#8217;s &#8220;Dirty Jobs&#8221; and CEO of a foundation that awards $10 million a year in scholarships to aspiring tradesmen, praised Meta’s new program. 
“Workers are actually paid to learn,&#8221; Rowe said. &#8220;There is zero cost to them, no college debt and a fast certification, with a guaranteed job on the other end. This is an important step in the right direction, and one that I hope other companies will be inspired to take.&#8221; 
Meta said it is partnering with the National Urban League, Associated Builders and Contractors, and CBRE, along with a roster of regional groups including the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, and local economic development organizations across each of the pilot regions.
The idea for the academy came after Meta saw huge demand for a similar initiative. LevelUp, Meta’s fiber-installation training program, received 35,000 applications in the seven days after it launched.
As college tuition continues to soar, interest in trade schools has steadily increased. Earning a four-year degree in America costs an average <a href="https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/bachelor-degree-cost/">$153,080</a>, with in-state public schools averaging $108,584 and private nonprofit $234,512. 
Total student loan debt in the United States is now over <a href="https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics">$1.8 trillion</a>, and many of the students carrying that debt also worry that the rise of artificial intelligence could eventually make their jobs obsolete. Gen Z&#8217;s outlook on AI is largely negative, with <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/708224/gen-adoption-steady-skepticism-climbs.aspx">42%</a> reporting they feel anxious about the technology&#8217;s rapid advancement. 
Meta, while not dismissing the possibility of workforce disruption, is betting that AI will also create a new generation of high-paying skilled trades jobs that cannot be outsourced to algorithms. The company argues that building the infrastructure behind the AI revolution will require millions of workers whose labor remains firmly rooted in the physical world and educated by its new America’s Workforce Academy.

US-INTERNET-TECHNOLOGY-FACEBOOK

Meta Launches A Free Alternative To College In Four Red States

College

Jobs

Daily Life In Caen

Meta Smart Glasses Platform Contains Face-Recognition Code, Report Says

Facebook

mark zucker

Mark Zuckerberg

The co-CEOs building what could become the next major tech disruptor say Americans have already surrendered their privacy, and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise. 
On Tuesday, Warby Parker co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa discussed their company&#8217;s entry into the rapidly escalating race for artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses, positioning Warby Parker against Meta in what many in Silicon Valley believe could become the post-smartphone era.
Asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin if the smart glasses would &#8220;persistently listen&#8221; to or watch users, Blumenthal <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/05/26/future-of-a-eye-warby-parker-co-ceos-on-the-companys-new-ai-glasses.html">replied</a>, “Our phones are already listening to us, so we’ve already given that up. Now, for us, you&#8217;re going to need a prompt. But I think we probably have to have honest discussions about what we’ve already decided in society.”
Unlike Warby Parker, which openly acknowledged that consumers have already surrendered privacy to always-on technology, Meta has stopped short of saying its devices are constantly listening. The company has instead compared its smart glasses to voice assistants like Siri, maintaining that they only activate and begin listening after a user prompt. 
Warby Parker’s upcoming smart glasses are powered by Google’s Gemini AI platform and developed in partnership with Samsung. The company says the devices are being built with visible privacy safeguards, including cameras that are turned off by default, and an LED indicator light that becomes “incredibly visible” whenever recording is activated.
Executives argue the tradeoff is worth it because of the productivity gains AI-powered eyewear could bring to everyday life.
Gilboa believes the glasses will allow people to “keep their heads up” by allowing them to take calls, send emails and texts, and browse the internet all without taking out a phone or logging onto a computer. 
Blumenthal drew a distinction between Google’s business model and Meta’s, arguing that Google is designed to help users quickly find information, while competitors aim to keep consumers trapped inside their platforms for as long as possible.
“One of the primary reasons we are so excited to partner with Google is if you think about Google’s business model, it is designed to help you find information and then get you off Google properties,” Blumenthal said. “Others in the market are designed to keep you in their ecosystem. For us, it’s about making the world more useful.”
“You can also imagine super vision as well,” he added. “That’s how we think about these products, how we give ourselves superpowers.”
Warby Parker’s AI-powered smart glasses are expected to launch in the fall of 2026. 
Warby Parker first jumped into the industry <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/28/how-warby-parker-became-sustainable-business-dtc-profitability.html">in 2010</a> when it was founded by four Wharton MBA students, each of whom invested $30,000 of their own savings to launch the company. Since then, the eyewear startup has expanded into contact lenses, opened in-store eye care services, and generated nearly $872 million in revenue last year.
Later this year, Apple <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2026/04/12/apple-smart-glasses-new-leak-reveals-a-major-design-twist-to-beat-meta/">is also expected</a> to unveil its first AI-powered smart glasses, which are expected to launch in 2027.

Inside The Google I/O Developers Conference

Big Tech Isn’t Even Pretending That It’s Not Listening Anymore

Artificial Intelligence

Google Gemini

Technology

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
It was a normal Saturday night in suburban Pennsylvania. Ashley Kavcak, a mom of four, was sitting on the couch mindlessly scrolling Instagram like she did all the time. But on this night, everything changed in an instant when a notification popped up saying her account had been disabled. 
The reason made her stomach drop. According to pop up, she had been banned for violating “Community Standards on child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity.”
&#8220;It made me want to throw up,&#8221; she told The Daily Wire in an interview. &#8220;I started immediately thinking, what did I do? Like oh my gosh, what could I have possibly liked or done that would make them think I&#8217;m something so horrible?&#8221;
Ashley had maintained a private Instagram account for 14 years, carefully curating who could see photos of her children because she, like so many moms, was creeped out by anonymous internet weirdos. She had roughly 200 followers mostly made up of family and close friends. 
She never found out what triggered the ban because Instagram doesn&#8217;t tell you.
There was an option to appeal the decision, but in her case that appeal came back denied in six minutes. &#8220;At this point I don&#8217;t think there are any humans working for Meta,&#8221; Ashley said.

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Ashley&#8217;s case is part of a disturbing pattern affecting thousands of Instagram users nationwide. It all blew up around May 2025 when Meta reportedly rolled out new AI moderation models, which immediately triggered clusters of Instagram accounts around the world being disabled overnight. Journalists began documenting how images of cars, family photos, and art were all being improperly flagged as child sexual exploitation.
CBS Philadelphia <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/facebook-instagram-accounts-wrongfully-suspended-for-child-exploitation/">reported</a> that nearly 50,000 Facebook and Instagram users have signed an online petition claiming wrongful bans, with many involving false accusations of child exploitation. NBC Connecticut <a href="https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/investigations/nbc-ct-responds/glastonbury-brothers-claim-accounts-wrongfully-shut-down-meta/3654056/">documented</a> 77 complaints across NBC stations in six months, with 17 specifically for &#8220;child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity.&#8221;
In June 2025, a law firm in St. Paul, Minnesota, began seeking plaintiffs for a class action lawsuit against Meta for those who believe they were wrongfully banned. The question at the heart of these cases: What happens when automated systems make life-altering accusations with no visible human oversight?
For Ashley, the accusation carried particular irony. She had kept her account private from the beginning, specifically to protect her children from online dangers. She was selective about whom she accepted as followers. In recent years, she started asking her children&#8217;s permission before posting their photos.
&#8220;I was worried about predators,&#8221; she says. &#8220;Now, according to AI, I am the predator.&#8221;
When the ban notification appeared, Ashley couldn&#8217;t identify what might have triggered it. Her last post was from January 17 and included photos of her family walking on a snowy trail wearing winter coats and hats. She had recently messaged her teenage daughter about going to Hobby Lobby, which made her wonder if that innocent conversation had somehow been flagged.
&#8220;She has a teen account. I am a moderator for her account and am listed as her parent,&#8221; Ashley explained. &#8220;There shouldn&#8217;t be a reason I was flagged for that … but now I’m questioning everything.”
Instagram&#8217;s notification was frustratingly vague. &#8220;They say click here for more information, and it tells you this could be this or it could be that,&#8221; she said. The possibilities ranged from posting inappropriate content to arranging to meet a minor, none of which she had done.
The mistake sent her down the Reddit rabbit hole of researching what she could possibly do to get her account back. What she found was less than encouraging. According to other users who went through the same thing, the ban is tied to her IP address. So trying to sign up and restart with a different email address wouldn’t work. 
&#8220;My email, my phone, everything has a mark on it,&#8221; she says. Users report having to buy new phones and use different WiFi networks just to access Instagram again. &#8220;The length that people have to go just to get Instagram back, it&#8217;s not even worth it,&#8221; she said.
The whole experience brought to mind the relationship people have with social media and their dependence on it always being there. With the ban, Ashley lost access to nearly 2,000 photos spanning 14 years, many of which she no longer has saved anywhere else. &#8220;There&#8217;s definitely years and years of stuff just lost forever,&#8221; she said. 
Beyond the photos, she lost her primary means of staying connected with far-away family and friends, people like an out-of-state cousin who loved seeing pictures of the kids and high school friends who kept up with her family through her posts. &#8220;These people that I once talked to probably think I fell off the face of the earth,&#8221; Ashley said. &#8220;Or maybe they think I blocked or deleted them.&#8221;
She missed a friend&#8217;s pregnancy announcement. She had to text another friend to ask about a mutual friend’s surgery, which is all information that would have appeared in her feed. &#8220;Social media is where people do their updates. That&#8217;s where you share your life,&#8221; Ashley said. &#8220;You don&#8217;t even think about it.&#8221;
The experience revealed how much of modern life is built on these platforms. &#8220;You don&#8217;t realize how dependent you are on it until it&#8217;s gone,&#8221; she added.
The accusation itself also left lasting damage. Ashley immediately worried about the implications: &#8220;Do they report me? Am I in trouble with the public? Can I even volunteer at my kids&#8217; school anymore? Like am I on some kind of list now?&#8221;
Redditors said she probably wasn&#8217;t on a government watchlist, but she still felt weird about it. She found herself adding disclaimers when explaining to people what happened. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t want anybody to think that of me,&#8221; she says. &#8220;What if somebody thinks this is true?&#8221;
The false accusation of exploiting children after spending years protecting her kids from online dangers remains deeply painful. &#8220;That&#8217;s one of those things that I&#8217;m like, well, this is ironic,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I was private to block things like this from happening.&#8221;
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Ashley&#8217;s experience is the impossibility of reaching a human at Meta for help.
&#8220;There are no humans,&#8221; she said. “You can&#8217;t bypass the robots to get in touch with a human.&#8221;
&#8220;I feel like this is a deeper conversation too about that aspect … there&#8217;s no customer service anymore,&#8221; she went on. &#8220;There are no people to plead your case to.&#8221;
Meta did not return The Daily Wire’s multiple requests for comment. 
Ashley has sent countless emails to support addresses with no luck at all. &#8220;I&#8217;m emailing nobody,&#8221; she said. &#8220;At this point they&#8217;re probably scanning my emails and thinking I&#8217;m a robot because I just keep sending the same thing over and over.&#8221;
Meta&#8217;s approach to content moderation has created a flagging system that appears to be malfunctioning on a massive scale. The company&#8217;s operating model of &#8220;remove first, ask questions later — or never&#8221; means AI is likely making decisions with minimal human oversight, and appeals are mostly processed by bots, according to reports.
“Ordinary users are being hit with these bans completely out of nowhere — no prior warnings, no real reasoning, no chance to appeal effectively,” one Redditor <a href="https://sfist.com/2025/06/16/instagram-users-complain-of-mass-suspensions-of-accounts-likely-by-ai/">observed</a>. “And while losing photos, messages, and memories sucks — and it does — the larger issue is that Meta is slapping these life-altering accusations onto people’s digital identities without context or due process.&#8221;
The European Commission last year initiated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/24/instagram-facebook-breach-eu-law-content-flagging">formal proceedings</a> against Meta for potential violations of the Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to provide clear reasons for removals and offer the chance for users to appeal. 
But for users like Ashley, slow-moving regulatory action feels like it won’t help much. She just wants her account back, her photos restored, and some acknowledgment that what happened to her was wrong.
&#8220;What they&#8217;re doing is really affecting people negatively,&#8221; she said when asked what she would tell Meta if someone was listening. &#8220;We lost something very personal to us and to be accused … it feels like an invasion.&#8221;
The broader questions remain unanswered: How many others have been wrongly accused? Are any humans reviewing the appeals? Or do they just not care? For Ashley, it’s been a painful education in how fragile our digital lives are and how little power we have against the algorithms ruling the world of social media.

GettyImages-2260904003

This Mom’s Last Post Was A Family Walk. Then Came The Accusation That Changed Everything.

Instagram

Social Media

Upstream

Meta has begun scrubbing ads offering legal help for damages related to social media addiction and the associated harmful behaviors.
According to a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/04/09/meta-social-media-addiction-ads">report</a> from Axios on Thursday, Meta has begun pulling ads — from both Facebook and Instagram — that provide users with information about getting legal advice or taking legal action against social media platforms.
Axios quoted an example of one of the ads that was pulled: &#8220;Anxiety. Depression. Withdrawal. Self-harm. These aren&#8217;t just teenage phases — they&#8217;re symptoms linked to social media addiction in children. Platforms knew this and kept targeting kids anyway.&#8221;
Meta has acknowledged that some ads are being removed from the social media platforms, saying that the law firms placing such ads should not be allowed to benefit from the use of Meta&#8217;s platforms while claiming at the same time that Meta was responsible for creating addicts and causing mental health problems.
&#8220;We&#8217;re actively defending ourselves against these lawsuits and are removing ads that attempt to recruit plaintiffs for them. We will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms while simultaneously claiming they are harmful,&#8221; a Meta spokesperson told the outlet.
The report comes just two weeks after a California jury found that both <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/verdict-reached-in-landmark-social-media-media-addiction-trial">Meta</a> and YouTube had contributed to a number of mental health problems — including addiction and related behavior — in a landmark case before the California Superior Court.
A Meta spokesperson protested the verdict, saying at the time, &#8220;We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.&#8221;
As The Daily Wire previously reported, social media platforms — including Meta and YouTube — have often touted online safety features in recent years, such as Instagram’s “Teen Accounts” and YouTube “Kids,” which are meant to create safer and more controlled experiences for children. Critics argue that kids — sometimes with willing parents or other adults helping them — are able to bypass those controls and gain access to the full platforms anyway.

Meta Shuts Down Ads From ‘Trial Lawyers’ Targeting Social Platform Over Addiction

Meta Doesn't Want Users To Know They May Be Able To Sue For Social Media Harm

Big Tech

Courts

Lawsuit

Supreme Court

U.S.

There is a not-so-secret war being waged for control of your kid&#8217;s mind.
Who owns your child&#8217;s mind? Social media companies? The government?
Or is it you?
A landmark lawsuit that just sent a gigantic shockwave through Silicon Valley. Meta (Facebook) and YouTube (Google) were found negligent in facilitating social media addiction.
Let’s break down the case that could upend Big Tech, reshape AI regulation, and force a national reckoning over parenting power and responsibility.
The legal case found both companies were negligent in facilitating social media addiction. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/technology/social-media-trial-verdict.html">The New York Times</a>:
<blockquote>The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. Citing features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations, K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google’s YouTube, claiming they led to anxiety and depression. &#8230; 
K.G.M., whose first name is Kaley, filed her lawsuit in 2023 against Meta, Snap, YouTube and TikTok. Kaley, who lives in Chico, Calif., said she had begun using social media at age 6 and claimed the sites caused personal injury, including body dysmorphia and thoughts of self harm. </blockquote>
Variety said that the verdict was rooted in an argument around cigarette addiction. Back in the 1990s, there were settlements with the big tobacco companies where it was found that the tobacco companies fraudulently marketed products they knew were addictive as non-addictive, and that drew millions of people into serious health risks like lung cancer.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2396-sub?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
That doesn&#8217;t seem like a crazy take. We were told originally that social media would be a gigantic benefit for all of us. It would open “new vistas.” We&#8217;d all experience “new worlds.” We&#8217;d have “so many friends.” (Yeah, they&#8217;d be Facebook friends, but they were still friends.) We&#8217;d never have to go outside again. We&#8217;d all live in the metaverse, etc.
All of that was untrue. All of these social media companies are clickbait machines. That is what they are designed to do, in Pavlovian style.
Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke, who wrote a book called “Dopamine Nation,” speaks about this. She writes:
<blockquote>We&#8217;re wired to connect. It&#8217;s kept us alive for millions of years in a world of scarcity and ever-present danger. Moving in tribes safeguards against predators optimizes scarce resources and facilitates pair bonding.
Our brains release dopamine when we make human connections, and that incentivizes us to do it again. Social connection has now become drugified by social media apps, making us vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. These apps can cause the release of large amounts of dopamine into our brains’ reward pathway all at once, like heroin. meth or alcohol. They do that by amplifying the feel-good properties that attract humans to each other in the first place.</blockquote>
It&#8217;s not just the social connection. It&#8217;s also because when you scroll on X, it&#8217;s literally designed to provide a brief dopamine rush. That&#8217;s why there&#8217;s that little sound effect. It&#8217;s almost a literal Pavlovian response. A Pavlovian response was established when you rang a bell in front of a dog and fed it a piece of meat at the same time. Eventually, when you rang the bell, the dog would start to salivate even if the meat wasn&#8217;t there because the brain had now been trained: Bell means meat, so bell causes salivation.
Social media companies do that too. This is why when you scroll, there&#8217;s a little sound effect. You&#8217;re going to get a dopamine hit, even if nothing new appears, just because you hear that little sound effect. 
Social media companies are arguing that they&#8217;re not the ones who are actually causing the addiction to really serious stuff. They say, “Sure, our algorithms are designed to make you click, but it&#8217;s the videos themselves that are responsible for the harm, not the design of the product.” 
In other words, if you were watching lots of cooking videos on social media and it fed you an infinite loop of cooking videos and not skinny influencers, you&#8217;d be totally fine. You&#8217;re the one who decides whether you are clicking on skinny influencers or whether you&#8217;re clicking on cooking videos. And what&#8217;s more, it turns out, these social media companies aren&#8217;t the ones who are actually making the content. The social media companies say, &#8220;We&#8217;re a platform, like a phone line.&#8221;
Yes, they make money by featuring viral content, but the consumer picks which content to actually watch. The person posting the content is actually responsible for the content, unless it&#8217;s an AI or a bot these days.
Until now, social media companies have been avoiding legal culpability by citing Section 230. Section 230 says that if you&#8217;re a platform and your website has a comment section, you&#8217;re not responsible for what&#8217;s in the comments.
If you&#8217;re YouTube, you&#8217;re not responsible for the content of the videos that are on YouTube because you&#8217;re just providing the platform on which others can post.
Section 230 says that all of these platforms ought not be held liable for content produced by others.
But that&#8217;s not on point.
The actual argument here is that these social media sites are, by their very nature, addictive, and that almost no matter what the content is, the medium is damaging to kids.
This raises a broader question for parents. Are you responsible for your children and their social media use?
The answer here should be yes.
My kids aren&#8217;t on social media because they are banned from using social media. Kids who are addicted to TV also don&#8217;t have great lives, but we don&#8217;t actually hold TV companies responsible for that fact. Nobody&#8217;s suing Apple because your kid is watching Apple TV all day.
That&#8217;s a point made yesterday by Meta&#8217;s president, Dina Powell McCormick, who said, “You know, as a mom, this is really important to me and very personal. I see firsthand just how hard the company is trying to ensure that there&#8217;s not harmful content, to ensure that we are empowering parents to the best of our ability. And it&#8217;s something that I watch being focused on every single day. We respectfully disagree with that decision, and we&#8217;re appealing.”
She&#8217;s not totally wrong here. The fact is that as a parent of four kids, going on five, I&#8217;m all over what my kids are consuming. I decide what movies they watch. I decide what TV shows they watch. They&#8217;re not allowed on social media. They do not have interactive capability on social media, anything like that.
This issue is kind of a sticky wicket, as social media companies are responsible for part of the problem because of the dopamine response. And yes, parents are also responsible for the problem.
Here&#8217;s the actual solution: not gigantic lawsuits. The answer is governmental legislation banning social media for kids under 18. Period.
That is what we should be doing. It&#8217;s what a lot of countries are doing right now — and they are correct to do so.
Users should have to register as over 18. Companies that don&#8217;t do it should be held legally accountable.
If we&#8217;re going to actually carry this analogy all the way through, if we&#8217;re going to treat social media like tobacco or alcohol, then the answer historically wasn&#8217;t to sue tobacco companies for kids smoking, it was to ban kids from smoking. The same is true for alcohol.
The reason I&#8217;m a little bit averse to lawsuits like these is because I think it will be extended to adults. I think what&#8217;s going to happen is that this will be used as a broader argument, not just against social media, where I’m relatively indifferent, but to actual useful technologies like AI, because this is a big societal question: Should we blame technology for our own failures as adults?
Kids are a different story. The reason that this particular lawsuit is emotionally appealing is because it&#8217;s about a kid who got addicted. And kids do get addicted. And honestly, I blame the parents as the primary source.
I don&#8217;t let my kids get addicted to things. It&#8217;s my job to prevent that. I don&#8217;t give my kids candy bars even though they want candy bars every single day, all the time. And if I decide to feed that to them, and they get Type 2 diabetes. I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s on the candy company. I think it&#8217;s on me.
My biggest problem here is that we start blaming technologies for our failures as adults.
We have to look to ourselves to solve some of these problems.

Meta And Youtube Found Liable In Social Media Addiction Lawsuit

Did Social Media Destroy The Kids?

Opinion

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For now, Facebook is still technically called Meta. But the “metaverse,” Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious virtual reality project, is in shambles. Tech outlets <a href="https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-isnt-shutting-down-its-vr-metaverse-after-all-165520696.html">reported</a> last week that the company would be sunsetting Horizon Worlds, its VR social media platform. Then CTO Andrew Bosworth clarified that Horizon Worlds would remain operational, even if users could expect little in the way of updates or new content. The parallel reality that Zuckerberg invited his clientele to dream of will linger quietly on — like the mostly forgotten game &#8220;The Sims,&#8221; that nerds of a certain age sometimes spin up for old time’s sake, except with real people pretending to be virtual instead of the other way around. Meta’s rebrand was perhaps a bit premature.
But then, it wasn’t so much the “Meta” part that grated. It was the “Verse”: the all-encompassing and boundlessly presumptuous claim about how life would be from now on. Pretensions to metaversality were part of the enthusiasm for “Web 3,” a supposedly epochal transition from a world of siloed apps and websites to a paradise of digital interconnectivity. It was one of those tech projects that consists of a doomsday scenario presented unblinkingly as a sales pitch. In &#8220;Snow Crash,&#8221; a 1992 cyberpunk fantasia, the novelist Neal Stephenson gave the name “metaverse” to a digital world that his characters would escape into when socioeconomic conditions conspired to make their embodied lives unbearable.
Zuckerberg, striding confidently through a sea of early adopters wearing insectoid VR helmet-goggles for a photo op, didn’t seem to notice how viscerally unappealing the whole thing was. He comes across as totally deaf to these sorts of concerns, although maybe acting that way is part of his job. It also has to be said how profoundly the mood back then was affected by COVID-19, which spiked people’s screen time and created the impression that everything was getting ported to the cloud.
<div id="attachment_1063987" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1063987" class="size-large wp-image-1063987" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-864x576.jpg" alt="Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook Inc., speaks in a virtual Horizon Home environment during the virtual Facebook Connect event, where the company announced its rebranding as Meta, in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. A major theme at the annual conference will be the company's ambitions for the so-called metaverse, a new digital space that it believes will supplant smartphone apps as the primary form of online interaction. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
Lots of things were, but it was silly not to expect an imminent counter-revolution once people grew disgusted with the effects of too much scrolling. In the first round of mass layoffs that followed his pandemic hiring spree, Zuckerberg regretfully <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/">acknowledged</a> that he had seen the rush of users to the site and “predicted this would be a permanent acceleration.” Whoopsie. The four most foolhardy words in the English language are “if present trends continue.”
Present trends generally do not continue. In &#8220;<a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/shoshana-zuboff/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism/9781478947271/?lens=publicaffairs">The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</a>,&#8221; the social psychologist Shoshanna Zuboff used the word “inevitabilism” to describe how technologists labor to make their designs seem inevitable “when they are actually meticulously calculated and lavishly funded means to self-dealing commercial ends.” What Zuboff called “the prediction imperative” puts tech companies in “the reality business,” where profit models depend on passing off corporate aspirations as unalterable, world-historical developments that must and will take place. Then the only question becomes whether you’ll get on board or, in the words of Ebenezer Scrooge from the 1951 adaptation of Dickens’s &#8220;A Christmas Carol,&#8221; “be crushed under with the weak and the infirm.” This is why product launches so often look and sound like something out of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, and why emissaries from the c-suite tend to talk like Thanos from &#8220;Avengers: Endgame&#8221;: &#8220;I.Am.Inevitable.&#8221;
What I want to propose is that inevitabilism is neither unique to tech nor especially modern. It’s just the standard advertising strategy for aspirants to global power. In 1817, anticipating the arrival in London of a colossal pharaonic statue from Egypt, Percy Shelley and Horace Smith embarked on a friendly competition to write a poem on the theme of monarchic pride. Shelley won with “Ozymandias,” a sonnet on the ruins of a dead king’s towering monument whose “vast and trunkless legs of stone” stand on a pedestal inscribed with the words “‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. / Look on my works ye mighty, and despair!’ / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The real Ozymandias was Ramesses II, god-king of Egypt’s mighty New Kingdom. The Greek version of his name, which Shelley used for his title, came from the royal epithet he adopted at his coronation: Usermaatre Setepenre. It means roughly “Strong Justice and Chosen one of Ra,” the Sun God. Shelley neither invented nor exaggerated Ozymandias’ claims to ultimate power. The statue’s inscription in the poem is a rough paraphrase of a real one quoted by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus: “King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works.”
Ozymandias, Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Ashurbanipal&#8230;they came and they went. It used to be standard practice for imperial monarchs to boast of their sacred, eternal, and universal dominion. The fiction is appealing because it offers things people crave: permanence, stability, order, and certainty about the future. It’s tragic because, as Shelley observed, none of these are things that even very good men can guarantee. The sands of time’s desert are littered with trunkless legs. Nothing beside remains.
Understand these things, and you understand the politics of the Old Testament. The constant refrain of the Hebrew Prophets was that people look for eternity in the wrong places. “Put not your trust in princes”: again and again, the Jews of ancient Israel were invited to observe the wreckage of dynasties whose total dominion was once depicted — plausibly, at the time — as inevitable.
As it winds down its VR program, Meta will be diverting its resources and attention toward Artificial Intelligence. AI technology has so far proven vastly more useful and workable than the metaverse. It seems unlikely that we’ll look back on it as a passing fancy. At the same time, the predictions about the world AI will make — its powers to transform the universe, or come to life, or usurp God — have all the flavor of inevitabilism.
The same people who went all-in on the metaverse have moved on with undiminished confidence to telling us that AI will change everything, everywhere, all at once, that the whole thing is a fait accompli, that it’s pointless to speak of exercising restraint. “Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair.” I submit that we will continue to fall for this routine, chasing like hamsters after the next forever, just as long as we expect a company or a king to secure the future of the universe. If we want eternity, we will have to look elsewhere.
* * *
Spencer A. Klavan is co-host, with his father Andrew Klavan, of the “Klavans on the Culture” podcast. He is associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books and author, most recently, of &#8220;Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith.&#8221;
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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The Metaverse Was Never Inevitable

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This week, Meta announced it was shutting down Horizon Worlds, the company&#8217;s virtual reality social network, on June 15. Going forward, the platform will only be available as a mobile app and will no longer support VR headsets.
&#8220;We are separating the two platforms so each can grow with greater focus, and the Horizon Worlds platform will become a mobile-only experience,&#8221; the company said in the announcement.
Skepticism greeted Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s vision from the start. When he declared in 2021 that Facebook would transform into the Metaverse — an online world where avatars would live, work, and play — even enthusiastic early adopters had doubts.
Zuckerberg formally announced the concept that year and renamed his company Meta to match, calling it &#8220;the next frontier&#8221; of tech.
&#8220;Our hope is that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers,&#8221; Zuckerberg <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/founders-letter/">said</a> in 2021.
Critics, meanwhile, called it unsettling and strange. Now, with the platform hemorrhaging billions and parts of it shutting down, those critics appear to have been right.
Horizon Worlds was once positioned as the centerpiece of Meta&#8217;s VR ambitions. The retreat comes just weeks after the company laid off more than 1,000 employees from Reality Labs, the division responsible for developing its metaverse products.
After news of the shutdown spread, Meta appeared to walk back its announcement, clarifying that it would continue to support some existing VR apps within Horizon Worlds, but would not be adding any new ones.
A February <a href="https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/2026-vr-state-of-the-union-horizon-mobile-focus/">blog post</a> insisted that the company &#8220;remains the biggest investor in the VR industry&#8221; and had &#8220;a robust roadmap of future VR headsets in the works.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/18/meta-horizon-worlds-metaverse-vr.html">CNBC</a>, Reality Labs has reported billions in losses each quarter since its launch, with the most recent figure — $6.02 billion — reported for Q4 in January.
The outlet also noted that Meta has shifted its focus from VR worlds to artificial intelligence. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/technology/mark-zuckerbergs-metaverse-vr-horizon-worlds.html">The New York Times</a>, Zuckerberg mentioned AI 23 times at a recent developer conference, and brought up the metaverse only twice.

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The Insane Left Wing Law That Is Causing Another Mass Exodus. What Happens Next?

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Former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg said the popularity of the “tradwife” lifestyle could be “detrimental to women, and further asserts that these “very, very, very, sexist” gender roles need to be revised.
Sandberg claimed that the rise of the tradwife trend has caused more harm than good. &#8220;The message that is going out is that in order to be a good wife or a good mother, you need to do it full time,&#8221; the former Meta exec <a href="https://people.com/sheryl-sandberg-the-tradwife-trend-is-not-a-fresh-idea-11922052?taid=69b0a187f9dd4700017de416&amp;utm_campaign=peoplemagazine&amp;utm_content=new&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com">told</a> People. &#8220;And the truth is that that is a decision almost no women can afford to make.&#8221;
&#8220;If you look at the percentages of women who need to work outside of the home to support their families, it&#8217;s the great majority of women,” Sandberg went on. “And so these messages that &#8216;this is how you have a successful marriage, that this is how you have six children,&#8217; I think, are very detrimental to women.&#8221;
The 56-year-old tech exec is best known for serving as Meta&#8217;s chief operating officer from 2008 to 2022. She is also the founder of LeanIn.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to “offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals.&#8221;
She went on to clarify, &#8220;I don&#8217;t think they are meant that way &#8230; there are so many messages that tell women what their place is that limit their ambition…and this is potentially, inadvertently, one of them.&#8221;
&#8220;If you have the resources and you want to be a tradwife, that&#8217;s great,&#8221; Sandberg told the outlet. &#8220;That&#8217;s for you to decide.&#8221;
She went on to repeat the popular leftist talking point that traditional gender roles were the real villain of the story. 
&#8220;We need to be realistic and we need to not use new ideas to reinforce what are old, outdated and very, very, very sexist notions of what roles are,&#8221; Sandberg said, adding that she thinks terms like “tradwife” make women who choose to work feel guilty.
&#8220;Let&#8217;s be clear: You are not harming your marriage and you are not harming your children by working and by being ambitious,&#8221; she insisted.
One of the most infamous examples of the tradwife trend going viral online is social media influencer Hannah Neeleman, better known by her social handle and business name, Ballerina Farm. She just made headlines again for announcing she was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nine-kids-thats-fine-but-theres-one-thing-the-debate-is-missing">pregnant with her ninth child</a>.
Neeleman has received criticism from the Left for being “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mom-of-8-ballerina-farm-founder-defends-her-life-choices-marriage-after-scathing-expose">a hammer blow for feminism</a>,” but she’s also earned a decent number of critics on the conservative side. They argue that because her husband’s family is very wealthy, she’s not exemplifying the sacrificial life of a stay-at-home mother.

Sheryl Sandberg

Former Meta Exec Claims Tradwife Ideal Is ‘Detrimental,’ Says Women Must Be ‘Realistic’

Former Meta Exec Says Tradwife Ideal Can Be ‘Very Detrimental’ To Women

Culture

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Scammers in Southeast Asia couldn&#8217;t hide behind their online profiles last week when the Royal Thai Police arrested 21 people in Bangkok as part of an international crackdown on scam centers targeting Americans.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, teamed up with the FBI, the Department of Justice&#8217;s Scam Center Strike Force, and Thai authorities to disrupt the networks. The company disabled 150,000 accounts tied to the scam operations.
In videos shared with The Daily Wire, armed Thai officers are seen going door to door, questioning individuals before placing suspects in handcuffs and taking them into custody. The arrests showcase the expanding effort by law enforcement to dismantle global cybercrime operations, a priority highlighted in a recent executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
<div style="max-width: 728px; margin: 0 auto;"><iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 20px auto 5px; border: 0;" src="https://player.mux.com/00tkSucJYTGX5uN027rvsgy5XMBz7DzZK8?metadata-video-content-type=embed_video&amp;metadata-video-id=29919c7e-1e20-467a-b39e-4c65aecc7bd5&amp;metadata-video-stream-type=on-demand&amp;metadata-video-title=2026-03-11%3A%20Social%20Media%20Scammers%20Arrested&amp;poster=https%3A%2F%2Fdailywireplus-v2.imgix.net%2Fimages%2Fembedded-videos%2F0da278b2-3534-4789-aa46-9fcc7a19fa0b.png&amp;autoplay=false&amp;accent-color=%23DB3D3B&amp;primary-color=%23ffffff&amp;secondary-color=%23000000" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
<div style="max-width: 728px; margin: 0 auto;"><iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 20px auto 5px; border: 0;" src="https://player.mux.com/gKU9A021OJ8pDv2Yw027OFb2WHtKyXnCln?metadata-video-content-type=embed_video&amp;metadata-video-id=b25bf3aa-1f85-4071-8cfe-ee237d9dc962&amp;metadata-video-stream-type=on-demand&amp;metadata-video-title=2026-03-11%3A%20Social%20Media%20Scammers%20Arrested%20%232&amp;poster=https%3A%2F%2Fdailywireplus-v2.imgix.net%2Fimages%2Fembedded-videos%2F9982ada5-a318-4eb4-83a9-14d240c70f45.png&amp;autoplay=false&amp;accent-color=%23DB3D3B&amp;primary-color=%23ffffff&amp;secondary-color=%23000000" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
On March 6, Trump signed an executive order on &#8220;Combating Cybercrime and Fraud,&#8221; directing federal agencies to prioritize prosecutions of cyber fraud and strengthen coordination to prevent, disrupt, investigate, and dismantle scam-center networks.
&#8220;This operation is a testament to how sharing information and coordinating our efforts can make real progress in disrupting this criminal activity at its source,&#8221; said Chris Sonderby, Meta&#8217;s vice president and deputy general counsel. &#8220;Our work to combat scams is never done, and we will continue to invest in technology and partnerships to stay ahead.&#8221;
The recent operation in Asia follows a December cybercrime sting in which Meta joined the FBI, Homeland Security, the U.S. Secret Service, and other agencies to share information on scam networks. That effort resulted in the removal of 59,000 accounts from Meta platforms and six arrest warrants.
Chinese criminal groups run many scam farms operating across Southeast Asia. The region has become a hub for Chinese-linked social media scammers who have stolen tens of billions of dollars from Americans in just the past few years.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent body that provides recommendations to Congress, wrote in a 2025 <a href="https://www.uscc.gov/research/chinas-exploitation-scam-centers-southeast-asia">report</a> that “the spread of China-linked scam compounds in Southeast Asia is fueling corruption and violence, promoting human trafficking, [and] undermining the ability of governments in the region to control what happens in their territory.”
Massive scam farms have set up shop in countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia, the Associated Press <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/why-southeast-asias-online-scam-industry-is-so-hard-to-shut-down">reported</a>. The foreign operations often target Americans with fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes, fake work-from-home jobs, and “task scams,” which promise high commissions but require victims to pay upfront fees.
According to the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/08/1140187">United Nations</a>, around 120,000 people are being forced to work for online scam farms in Myanmar, and another 100,000 people are being used as forced labor for the scam industry in Cambodia. Workers are often forced to send scam messages for 12 to 16 hours a day, according to the Associated Press.
The development of artificial intelligence has also aided social media scammers and their ability to target more Americans, <a href="https://www.uscc.gov/research/protecting-americans-china-linked-scam-centers-update-emerging-trends">according</a> to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The commission warned that AI enables scammers to “increase the sophistication of scams,” which can “make it difficult for even the most discerning potential victims to distinguish fact from fraud.”
In addition to using global law enforcement partnerships to battle online crime, a Meta spokesman told The Daily Wire that the company has added extra security measures for its users to fight the elusive scammers. This month, Meta plans to launch an advanced AI-powered scam detection tool for Messenger, allowing users to submit suspicious messages for review.
Meta is also testing a feature that will alert users of potentially suspicious friend requests, such as those from accounts with no mutual connections. On WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, users will receive alerts if an attempt to link their account to another device seems suspicious, a tactic scammers sometimes implement to hijack accounts.
&#8220;These operations cause real harm,&#8221; Meta said in a statement. &#8220;They upend lives, destroy trust, and are deliberately designed to avoid detection and disruption. The work to protect people against scammers is never done, and requires ongoing collaboration with partners across the tech industry and law enforcement to ensure a safer experience for everyone online.&#8221;

Thai Police arrest social media scammers

WATCH: How Facebook Teamed Up With The Trump Admin To Bust Scammers In Thailand

WATCH: Trump DOJ Teams Up With Meta, Thai Police To Bust Scammers Stealing From Americans

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Donald Trump

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Three of the world&#8217;s largest social media platforms are heading to court on Tuesday as they defend themselves in a bellwether social media addiction case.
The California Superior Court in Los Angeles County is set to hear the case, which alleges that Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have contributed to the growing problem of social media addiction and the mental health issues that stem from it. TikTok and Snapchat were also sued in the case, but settled with the plaintiff before the trial began. 
Jury selection for the trial begins on Tuesday, with opening arguments scheduled for next week. The case is part of a coordinated effort across the country that includes hundreds of similar cases where litigants accuse social media giants of fueling addiction.
In the case before the California Superior Court, a 19-year-old woman, referred to as K.G.M., argues that social media platforms have knowingly designed their platforms to get children and young users addicted. Studies have shown that social media features such as autoplay and infinite scroll induce a dopamine hit, which can lead to users spending hours on platforms each day.
K.G.M.&#8217;s social media addiction <a href="https://www.carriermanagement.com/news/2025/10/21/280613.htm">resulted</a> in crippling depression, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts, according to the lawsuit. K.G.M.&#8217;s case is just the first of many that are expected to trial this year, targeting Snapchat, Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, which is owned by Google. Snapchat settled with K.G.M., but it remains a defendant in numerous other social media cases that are set to go before state and federal courts.
YouTube told The Daily Wire that the allegations it faces in the cases “are simply not true.”
“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” said YouTube spokesman José Castañeda. “In collaboration with youth, mental health and parenting experts, we built services and policies to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences, and parents with robust controls. The allegations in these complaints are simply not true.”
The Daily Wire also reached out to Snapchat, TikTok, and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Snapchat told The Daily Wire that it was &#8220;pleased&#8221; to have settled the K.G.M. case in &#8220;an amicable manner.&#8221;
The K.G.M trial will likely put Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the witness stand, where he will have to answer questions in front of a jury. Meta’s lawyers <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/meta-tiktok-youtube-stand-trial-youth-addiction-claims-2026-01-26/">told</a> Reuters that the social media giant will argue before the court that its platform did not lead to K.G.M’s mental health issues. YouTube said it will argue that its platform is different from those of the other defendants and shouldn&#8217;t be considered in the same case as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
The California Superior Court trial could shape public opinion on social media platforms moving forward as the companies face more trials, including one in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which is set to begin on June 12. The lawsuit before the federal court was filed by school districts, which argue that social media addiction fueled by social media companies “not only harms individual children and their loved ones but also causes substantial and financially burdensome interference with school district, county, and municipal operations.”
In recent years, Meta has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ig-introduces-teen-accounts-with-built-in-privacy-settings-to-better-support-parents">rolled out</a> online safety features for children using Instagram. The platform&#8217;s &#8220;Teen Accounts&#8221; keep children&#8217;s accounts private, meaning other Instagram users cannot see posts from or contact a Teen Account unless the teenager accepts their follow requests. Instagram also censors content on Teen Accounts, so that children are not shown content that features fighting or cosmetic procedures.
TikTok, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/support/faq_detail?id=7543604789335071238&amp;category=web_account">created</a> &#8220;a separate TikTok experience specifically designed&#8221; for kids under 13 years old. The &#8220;TikTok Under 13 Experience&#8221; curates content that is more appropriate for young children, makes all accounts private, and limits screen time to one hour. YouTube also has a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/intl/ALL_us/kids/safer-experience/">kids version</a> of the platform that is &#8220;designed to be a safer and simpler place for kids to explore their interests through online video.&#8221; YouTube requires videos uploaded on YouTube Kids to be &#8220;family-friendly.&#8221;
The effects of social media on children has become a hot topic in recent years, and the issue gained more attention after the book, &#8220;The Anxious Generation,&#8221; by Jonathan Haidt was published in 2024. In the book, Haidt, a social psychologist, argues that anxiety and depression skyrocketed in the past 15 years, coinciding with what he calls the &#8220;great rewiring of childhood,&#8221; which is the flip from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood.
The social media addiction case in California comes as some countries move to ban social media for children. Last month, Australia became the first nation in the world to ban social media for kids under 16. Malaysia has introduced a similar social media ban, and Utah passed a law in 2024 requiring social media platforms to verify a users&#8217; age and obtain parental consent, but parts of the law were temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
This article was updated after TikTok settled with K.G.M. shortly before the trial started.

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Bellwether Social Media Addiction Trial Puts Instagram, Facebook, And YouTube In The Crosshairs

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