Instagram and Facebook are "Drugs": The End of Infinite Scrolling? Why 2026 is Fatal for Big Tech
The era of unlimited scrolling is coming to an end. 2026 brings landmark lawsuits that compare platforms like Facebook and Instagram to the tobacco industry. Leaked internal documents show that tech giants knowingly built their platforms like addictive drugs.
The End of the Infinite Scroll Era: Why 2026 is Fatal for Big Tech
ANALYSIS. Forget about content regulation. In Los Angeles and Santa Fe, trials have just begun that are rewriting the history of the internet. For the first time, plaintiffs are not attacking what you see on social networks, but how they function. And they hold evidence reminiscent of the famous tobacco trials of the 1990s.
A Year of Reckoning for Tech Giants
2026 will not be recorded in history as the year of artificial intelligence, but as the year of reckoning. Tech giants like Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and Alphabet (YouTube) have lost their proverbial bulletproof vests. For decades, they hid behind a law (known as Section 230) that guaranteed them immunity for content created by third parties.
However, this era has definitively ended. Lawyers in these breakthrough US trials have found a new, fatal strategy: they are not suing platforms for content, but for product defects. They argue that key app features—such as infinite scroll, video autoplay, and the "like" system—are design flaws intentionally engineered to induce biological addiction in children.
Key points of the ongoing case:
Instagram is a Drug: What Internal Documents Revealed
What makes these trials truly deadly for Big Tech companies are their own words. During the discovery phase, internal messages were leaked to the public that global media and Google News cannot ignore. These documents reveal the cynicism hidden behind polished PR.
Confessions of Drug Dealers: A Meta UX specialist wrote openly in one of the leaked emails: Folks, Instagram is a drug. We are essentially dealers. We are causing reward deficiency syndrome.
Secret Projects and Ignored Warnings
The investigation has brought to light several disturbing facts that were meant to remain hidden:
- Project Mercury: A secret 2020 Meta study clearly showed that just a one-week detox from Facebook significantly reduces depression and anxiety in users. Company management buried this study because its results directly threatened their business model.
- Operation MetaPhile: Investigators in New Mexico created profiles of fictitious fourteen-year-old children. Within moments, they were contacted by sexual predators. Meta's algorithms not only failed to block these predatory accounts but even actively advised them on how to increase their reach.
Mark Zuckerberg in a Corner
The biggest drama is currently unfolding around the role of Meta's CEO himself. Documents prove that Mark Zuckerberg personally decided that parents would not have the option to turn off AI chatbots for their children. He did so despite his own safety teams' strong warnings about the risk of inappropriate conversations. Product growth was given absolute priority over user safety.
If the jury in Los Angeles concludes that Zuckerberg and his team acted with so-called conscious negligence, the floodgates will open for thousands of other lawsuits, and damages could climb into the billions of dollars.
The World is Changing: Australia and the EU are Not Waiting
While legal battles rage in the United States, the rest of the world has already moved toward action and regulation.
- Australia: In December 2025, it introduced a strict ban on social media for children under 16. Violations carry fines in the tens of millions of dollars.
- European Union: Brussels is pushing for the Safety-by-Design principle, which could broadly ban addictive features like autoplay for all minor users.
What Does This Mean for the Future?
If Big Tech companies lose these lawsuits, it won't just be about financial loss. The survival of their entire business model is at stake. That model is built from the ground up on maximizing the time a user spends in the app.
If courts legally mandate the removal of addictive features, time spent in apps will drop dramatically—and with it, advertising revenue will collapse.
We are witnessing the end of the digital Wild West. The question today is no longer whether social networks are harmful, but how high a price society will still allow to be paid for their existence.
I am the founder of the portal Kryptomagazin.cz. At the time, there was virtually nothing about cryptocurrencies on the Czech scene, so I decided to change that. I like the idea of decentralization, a bit of cypherpunk philosophy, and crypto-anarchy. The crypto industry is my world — I move and work in it every day, so I can no longer call it a hobby or pastime. I will always be happy to welcome you to your crypto magazine :)