How to Get Played by Meta While Thinking You’re Protecting Kids
Dismantling Congressman John James’s App Store Accountability Act (a Masterclass in Corporate Manipulation)
I just watched this video of Congressman John James pushing the “App Store Accountability Act.” Every argument he (and his witness) make has a fatal flaw.
Check it out…
So now, I’m going to expose each one…
CLAIM #1: “I’ve said for years, Facebook is the Philip Morris of our time, yet they are just one example of the cesspool that is the modern internet.”
You’re absolutely right, Congressman.
Facebook IS the Philip Morris of our time. They knowingly poison children for profit. Their internal research proved it.
So here’s my question:
When Philip Morris was poisoning Americans, did Congress pass a law regulating convenience stores?
No… they regulated PHILIP MORRIS.
They made the tobacco companies put warning labels on THEIR products. They banned THEM from marketing to children. They held THEM accountable for the harm THEY created.
But your bill doesn’t do that.
Your bill regulates Apple and Google (i.e. the convenience stores). While Facebook keeps serving algorithmic poison directly to children’s brains, Apple gets stuck with compliance paperwork.
If Facebook is Philip Morris, why are you regulating 7-Eleven?
CLAIM #2: “A national poll commissioned by Digital Childhood Alliance found that 88% of parents want app stores to require parental approval before minors can download a new app. 88%. Can you imagine any other issue that 88% of Americans agree on?”
Congressman, let me tell you about the organization that commissioned that poll you just cited.
The Digital Childhood Alliance is the same group whose executive director, Casey Stefanski, sat before the Louisiana Senate Finance Committee and refused to disclose which tech companies fund her organization.
Senator Jay Morris asked her directly: “Are you funded by tech companies?”
She claimed she “didn’t feel comfortable” answering. When pressed for a yes-or-no answer, she finally admitted they receive tech company funding but refused to name the companies.
Bloomberg later reported that Meta (Facebook’s parent company) was bankrolling this “grassroots” movement.
So when you cite that 88% statistic… you’re citing a poll commissioned by a Meta-funded astroturf organization designed to push legislation that protects Meta from liability.
You’re quoting Facebook’s propaganda as if it’s independent research. The question isn’t whether parents want control (of course they do). The question is: why does Meta want you to regulate Apple instead of them?
CLAIM #3: “Just as brick and mortar stores are held responsible for selling age restricted materials like tobacco or alcohol to minors, the App Store Accountability Act will hold digital app stores accountable for providing adult or addictive material to minors as well.”
This analogy is completely backwards, and I can prove it.
When we regulate alcohol sales to minors, we do TWO things:
We require the STORE to verify age at point of sale
We require the MANUFACTURER to ensure their product isn’t marketed to children
Your bill only does #1
Idaho, Utah, and others got this right when they passed pornography age verification laws. We didn’t regulate internet service providers. We didn’t regulate app stores. We didn’t regulate payment processors.
We went straight to the source: the pornography sites themselves.
Pornhub had to verify ages BEFORE serving explicit content. The law hit so hard that Pornhub geoblocked Idaho entirely rather than comply.
That’s what real accountability looks like. Now let’s apply that same logic to social media:
Alcohol stores verify age → App stores verify age.
Beer companies can’t market to kids → Social media companies CAN still serve harmful algorithmic content to children.
Your bill creates the illusion of protection while letting Instagram’s algorithm keep pushing eating disorder content to 13-year-old girls. The tobacco store has to check ID, but Philip Morris can still advertise cigarettes in teen magazines.
CLAIM #4: “Kids cannot consent. I say again, kids cannot consent, and any company that exposes them to adult or addictive material should and will be held accountable.”
I agree 100%.
Kids cannot consent.
So why does your bill let the companies serving the harmful content off the hook?
Meta’s own internal research (exposed through Frances Haugen’s whistleblower documents) showed that Instagram made body image issues worse for one in three teen girls. They documented how their algorithms pushed vulnerable users toward content about eating disorders and suicide.
Instagram created the harmful content. Instagram designed the addictive algorithms. Instagram serves the material that’s destroying children’s mental health.
But your bill makes Apple verify ages while Instagram faces zero new restrictions on what they serve AFTER the download.
Here’s the problem:
You say companies that expose kids to harmful material should be held accountable but Meta exposes kids to harmful material (proven by their own research), and what do you do? The bill you were handed pins it on Apple (not Meta).
That’s not accountability.
CLAIM #5: “App stores are a gateway to the internet for social media, for our children.”
Now this… this reveals the entire flaw in your approach.
You’re treating app stores like a GATE when they’re actually just a DOOR.
Once a child walks through that door (downloads Instagram, Facebook, et al), your bill does NOTHING to protect them from what happens inside the house (algorithmic content).
Even worse: Meta can serve harmful content through web browsers without touching your app store “gate” at all.
A 13-year-old can access Instagram through Safari or Chrome, use Instagram on a friend’s phone, or access social media apps through any of the thousand workarounds teenagers perfected years ago.
Your “gate” has a hundred unlocked back doors.
Meanwhile, Idaho’s pornography law actually works because it regulates the content source, not the distribution method.
Pornhub can’t serve explicit content to minors regardless of whether they access it through an app, web browser, friend’s phone, or any other method. We locked the HOUSE (i.e. age verification), not the DOOR (app store bills).
CLAIM #6: “They have the data already. They already have all of the access to this information. And not only that, they already are developing the tools currently.”
You know who ELSE already has the data and tools to verify ages…?
FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM.
When someone creates an Instagram account, they enter their birthdate. Meta collects massive amounts of personal data: location, interests, relationships, psychological vulnerabilities. They use this to serve targeted content designed to maximize engagement.
But somehow we should worry about Apple knowing a birthdate? Here’s what your “witness” isn’t telling you:
Meta WANTS app stores handling verification because it shifts all liability away from Meta.
If Apple verifies the age and approves the download, Meta can say: “Hey, the parent approved it. Not our problem what content our algorithm serves after that.” Meta creates the harm. Apple handles the paperwork. Meta faces zero accountability.
This is exactly what Meta paid the Digital Childhood Alliance to accomplish.
CLAIM #7: “They’re the ones calling themselves a store, not us. So if they want to be a store, we should hold them at the same accountability as any other store in any other market.”
Fine…
Let’s actually apply store accountability consistently:
When a convenience store sells alcohol to a minor:
The STORE gets fined for not checking ID
The ALCOHOL MANUFACTURER also faces consequences for their product’s harm
When a pharmacy dispenses medication improperly:
The PHARMACY gets sanctioned
The DRUG MANUFACTURER is also held accountable for product safety
Your bill only targets the first part.
Apple verifies ages (like the convenience store checking ID). But Instagram faces no new requirements to ensure their “product” (algorithmic content) isn’t harmful to children. Real store accountability means regulating BOTH the distributor AND the manufacturer.
Your bill only regulates the distributor while giving the manufacturer a liability shield.
Weird.
CLAIM #8: “Most importantly, they know the age of their user better than any other company in the world.”
This is the most dishonest claim in the entire testimony.
Because Meta knows users’ ages better than anyone.
They collect it during account creation. They track behavior to infer age even when users lie. They target ads based on precise age demographics. But your witness wants you to believe Apple knows age better than Meta?
Instagram requires users to enter birthdates. Facebook has decade-long user histories. Meta’s advertising platform lets you target “13-year-old girls interested in fitness” with surgical precision.
They know EXACTLY how old their users are.
In fact, Meta’s own documents (exposed in lawsuits) show they deliberately targeted children as young as 13 with “school blast” notifications designed to embed Instagram into school communities.
They knew the ages. They knew the schools. They knew exactly what they were doing.
So why does your bill let them pretend they don’t know?
CLAIM #9: “Apple itself has said that they can actually do all of this in a privacy conscious way.”
Apple CAN verify ages in a privacy-conscious way.
But that’s not the question.
The question is: why should Apple bear responsibility for Meta’s harmful content?
You’re forcing Apple to build expensive verification infrastructure so Meta can keep serving algorithmic poison to kids with a liability shield. Let me give you the alternative:
Make Meta verify ages BEFORE serving content, just like Idaho made Pornhub verify ages before serving explicit material.
Then, Meta bears the compliance cost, faces liability for age verification failures, can’t hide behind “but the parent approved the download,” and best of all… parents maintain actual control because the platform serving harmful content is now accountable.
But your bill protects Meta’s profits while burdening their competitors.
That’s not an accident.
That’s exactly what Meta paid for when they funded the Digital Childhood Alliance.
THE PATTERN YOU’RE MISSING, CONGRESSMAN
Every argument you made has the same fatal flaw:
You correctly identify Meta/Facebook as the harm source, then propose legislation that regulates everyone EXCEPT Meta.
Now, read that again.
It’s like watching someone say:
“This arsonist keeps burning down houses”
“We need accountability”
“So I’m passing a law requiring fire departments to inspect matches”
All while the arsonist keeps lighting fires.
You cited 83 letters from “parents and groups” supporting your bill.
Did you check which of those groups receive Meta funding? Did you verify that the Digital Childhood Alliance poll wasn’t designed by Meta’s lobbying team? Did you ask why Tim Cook personally called governors to oppose these measures while Meta deployed 12 lobbyists in Louisiana alone?
Did you wonder why Meta spent $24 million on lobbying in 2024 (more than Lockheed Martin and Boeing) while publicly claiming they aren’t the “driving force” behind your legislation?
WHAT REAL ACCOUNTABILITY LOOKS LIKE
If you actually want to protect children from social media harm:
Make Meta, TikTok, and Instagram verify ages BEFORE serving content. Place liability on platforms for harmful algorithmic content served to verified minors. Require platforms to disclose what content their algorithms promote to children.
Idaho’s pornography law works because it regulates content creators, not distributors. Pornhub had to comply or geoblock the entire state.
That’s real accountability.
Thing is, parents already have the power to:
✅ Refuse to give children smartphones…
✅ Deny social media access…
✅ Monitor device usage…
✅ Set boundaries and enforce them…
Your bill doesn’t “empower parents.”
It creates government-mandated paperwork that parents will click through without reading (just like they do with Terms of Service). When Meta backs legislation that burdens its competitors, that’s corporate warfare (not child protection). And when 88% polling comes from Meta-funded groups, that’s what we call… propaganda.
Congressman, you opened by calling Facebook “the Philip Morris of our time.”
You were right.
But then you proposed legislation that regulates convenience stores while Philip Morris keeps selling cigarettes to children.
Meta is playing you. The Digital Childhood Alliance is playing you. And while you hold hearings about “accountability,” Meta’s algorithm is destroying another generation of teenage girls.
Want to actually protect kids?
Make the companies creating the harm fix the problem they created.
Not the app stores. Not the payment processors. Not the internet service providers. The platforms serving algorithmic poison to children should bear the burden of protecting children from that poison.
Anything less isn’t accountability.
But it IS exactly what Meta paid for.
Would the Congressman like to reconsider whose interests his bill actually serves?
The Philip Morris analogy is perfect. When you regulate the store instead of the source, you're basically letting the actual harm generator write themselves a liability waiver. Meta spending more on lobbying than defense contractors tells you everything about what they're protecting here.
Thank you, senator, for exposing the truth about this policy that will be a gateway to digital ID for EVERY American who uses the app stores!