The way that Reddit "researcher" had Claude bang out a GitHub repo in a couple days and single-handedly established the narrative throughout the internet is scary.

When it was released I read a few of the reports in this repo and they didn't even support the claims made. Claude was admitting it couldn't find the evidence.

It's terrifying how easily this misinfo operation established itself as fact on websites where users view themselves as being more informed than average on these topics, like Hacker News.

> There is no evidence it is actually coming from Meta

My personal view that social media should be age gated is caused by Meta. But broadly, polling shows a commanding majority (60+ percent) of Americans believe in restrictions for under 14s.

In the interest of removing TBOTE Project from the discussion, I found this press release from the office of Buffy Wicks, saying Google and Facebook[0] support AB 1043: https://wicks.asmdc.org/press-releases/20250909-google-meta-...

Ironically I had to go into Google's AI mode and ask it three times not to use any TBOTE Project sources before it would give me the actual original source on this. But the article has a bunch of quotes from big tech lobbyists in support of California's age surveillance bills. Whether or not it was originally their idea is still up in the air, but given that the California, Colorado, and New York bills were largely identical, it's not crazy to say "maybe these were all Big Tech's idea".

I also have this Bloomberg article from 2025 (a year ago) claiming Meta funds the Digital Childhood Alliance[1], which has been pushing for "App Store Accountability Acts" that would mandate app stores do all the age verification (conveniently for Facebook).

Or maybe it was ALEC. :P

[0] It is always ethical to deadname corporations.

[1] https://archive.is/7vqL6

Barriers to entry. If I want to make a small forum, these laws make that potentially much more difficult. Now users who may have used my forum may spend more time on facebook instead.

Multiply that times tens of thousands of new sites not being created, tens of thousands of existing sites no longer existing or being accessible due to new laws, this occurring over multiple surfaces (content moderation, age verification, etc) and the positive impact for meta is meaningful.

If there are less sites, meta wins.

Not that many years ago, Facebook tried to broker a deal to provide free internet to India if all of their web traffic and communications would happen within the Facebook ecosystem.

It's long been the dream of more than a few American companies to be the gatekeepers of the web.

I've read a take somewhere that seemed to make sense. They don't want to get stuck with the liabilities of the content that gets posted on their platforms. So by forcing the age verification onto the users, forcing users to identify and track themselves, they can have a "clean" route to someone who posts illicit content on their platforms.

It just sucks that that's all in sacrifice of our privacy.

Meta’s bottom line is driven entirely by their ability to uniquely and persistently identify users for the sake of advertising.

Anything that makes it harder for a user to escape their dragnet is a win.

Rug pull Ladder pull

It’s just that

“Move fast, break things, regulate impossible to repair.”

The tigher, more believable theory is that Meta wants Operating Systems to be responsible for delivering an age or an "over 18 attestation" to apps/websites so it's not Meta's problem.

The idea from the case in the link is that their competitors would be more regulated then them but in general, if regulation is a requirement and they’ve already implemented the regulation then it’s hard for a competitor to emerge.

They realized all the data on user behaviour is useless after trying to leverage on it with LLMs and now they go after seemingly new riches

I keep reading this but I don't understand how a company might want to push censorship on users.

We're being astroturf-ed guy.

The comment you're responding to. The comments responding to you. All shaped by influence campaigns from the beginning.

Meta, X, google, data based big tech, the billionaires, and the government were in on the plan from the start. We were always the ones kept in the dark as to the ultimate intent. Even the anti-censorship and anti-surveillance posts and content that we saw, were being paid for by the same puppet masters. Professional influence campaigns controlled by these same groups shaped the internet discussion of both sides.

And it seems a lot of us still haven't figured that out yet.

We got played. We'll continue to be played if we don't recognize that fact and act to prevent it in the future.

Because I can assure you, censorship and surveillance is not the endgame. And their endgame is very likely not to our benefit.

I wouldn't say captured. Zuckerberg has been cutting deals with the new administration so often people were seeing him at the Pentagon. It's a partnership