Big Tech is through harming our children. This is our time to fight back |
Opinion
Big Tech is through harming our children. This is our time to fight back
Meta and YouTube have been ordered to pay millions as juries reject idea that platforms can build what they want.
By Norman Woods Fox News
Published May 31, 2026 7:00am EDT
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For years, America treated the internet like a free speech "Wild West," assuming the online world should operate with almost no guardrails. Because of this, our nation has operated under two dangerous assumptions about Big Tech: that platforms should be free to publish virtually anything without accountability, and that tech companies should be allowed to design their platforms however they want because "users can always leave."
Courts, parents and state legislatures are now rejecting both ideas in real time.
We are facing the consequences of applying a totally hands-off philosophy to the digital world. As Jonathan Haidt documents in his book, "The Anxious Generation," rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, loneliness and suicide among teens, especially girls, skyrocketed after smartphones and social media became dominant around 2012.
Teen girls’ rates of major depressive episodes nearly doubled in the following decade, while emergency room visits for self-harm surged. Parents have been carefully monitoring their children’s physical world, but not their digital activity.
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