Having lived through those panics, fought against them, and then raised the alarm on Lootboxes and FarmVille the day they came out - these are not the same things.

This isn’t a moral panic.

Mortal Kombat did not result in changed behavior in its users. As I recall, The best study on video games only showed that there was some change in behavior for a short time after playing a game, and then children reverted to their baseline.

On the other hand, social media has not survived that scrutiny, with multiple studies show a causal link between anorexia, depression, anxiety, addictive design and social media.

People defended cigarettes too back in the day, and it took years for people to stop smoking cigarettes in public.

Tobacco was not a moral panic.