>No, the incentive to hide harm is being given as a reason that studies into harm would be suppressed, not as evidence of harm in and of itself. This is a direct response to your original remark that "Part of me thinks that if the case against social media was stronger, it would not be being litigated on substack."

That seems like a fair argument. I don't think it means that it grants opinions the weight of truth. I think it would make it fair to identify and criticise suppression of research and advocate for a mechanism by which such research can be conducted. An approach that I would support in this area was a tax or levy on companies with large numbers of users that could be ear-marked for funding independent research regarding the welfare of their user base and on society as a whole.

>Short term gains always take precedence.

That seems a far worthier problem to address.

>If you dig through history there are hundreds of examples of companies knowingly harming their users

I don't deny that these things exist, I simply believe that it is not inevitable.

> That seems a far worthier problem to address.

If we can't fix the underlying problem immediately, treating the symptoms seems reasonable in the meantime.