It took decades to bring meaningful government regulation for Big Tobacco and experts say it could take an equally long time to regulate Big Tech
when we—allow crime among elites and the powerful it doesn't just go away. It comes back, stronger and more abusive. Which is why we can't let Facebook, the Sacklers, or Trump, get away with saying the past is past. We need to be looking at criminal charges. @loupas : Amplification is the crux of the issue. People, propaganda shops masquerading as news orgs, megalomaniacs, insane ex-Presidents and their acolytes can all post their screeds with impunity. They are not, however, entitled to AMPLIFICATION and that is what platforms must rein in. Mike Quigley / @repmikequigley : Disinformation shouldn't only concern one party—it's an issue that impacts us all. The recent testimony from Frances Haugen shows that when it comes to handling disinformation, Facebook has been careless and must be held accountable. https://twitter.com/... Jameel Jaffer / @jameeljaffer : The amplification=nicotine analogy is bad for social media companies but maybe also bad for newspapers, book publishers, opera houses, film distributors, among others. Not sure the line here is as clear as some people seem to think it is. https://twitter.com/... Erich Steyaert / @dublinerich : Interesting comparison between tobacco and tech industries here. While I would be careful with the comparison, which may flatter and even embolden tobacco companies, there are similarities in youth marketing strategies. Increased tech regs to protect children welcome + needed! https://twitter.com/... Dead Lasso / @devan_ : Also I don't think there was probably a tobacco equivalent of “Will you commit to ending ‘finsta?’” Like we are starting from a major deficit. https://twitter.com/... @tegantrex : Stripping platforms of Sec 230 protection is gonna do more than wipe sex off the internet. It's gonna strangle and silence activism, which has used social media to give voice to issues people would otherwise ignore. https://twitter.com/... Lou Paskalis / @loupas : Great piece by @ceciliakang in today's @nytimes: “Some lawmakers have urged reworking a law that shields tech companies from lawsuits, changing it so that the firms could be held responsible if their software AMPLIFIES harmful speech.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi / @congressmanraja : Facebook has long been an issue. It's far past time for them to change their ways. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Journalists often conflate regulation and fatal punishment. Consider Big Tobacco. Today I can still buy a pack of Marlboro's at 7-11, Altria's market cap is up 50% since 2011 & cigarettes kill 500K Americans annually. Regulation by itself isn't a panacea. https://www.nytimes.com/... Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : 7/ The fact of the matter is, Big Tech is not a political priority (Facebook knows this). And Facebook is way better off than tobacco in one key way: it's liability shield from the speech on its apps: https://www.nytimes.com/... Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : 4/ Back to Big Tobacco analogy: whistleblowers revealed internal research on product harms. Tobacco also marketed its products to young kids in pursuit of growth and luring new customers. Tobacco had an enormous lobby to protect their biz. https://www.nytimes.com/... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : Here's Republican antitrust enforcer @CSWilsonFTC quoted in the New York Times arguing against using antitrust on big tech. And she voted against Trump's antitrust suit to break up Facebook. Hey conservatives, get Silicon Valley out of your house. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Benj Edwards / @benjedwards : @Techmeme @ceciliakang The govt wont last that long if it's not regulated, so this is much more urgent than tobacco Alexandra Geese / @alexandrageese : The documents finally put all the facts on the table to allow us to adopt a stronger #DigitalServicesAct . See my demands at @POLITICOEurope to invite @FrancesHaugen to testify at @Europarl_EN https://www.politico.eu/... #facebookwhistleblower #FacebookFiles Nicholas Vinocur / @nicholasvinocur : Frances Haugen's revelations on Facebook are feeding into EU plans to regulate online content via the Digital Services Act, and some lawmakers are calling on her to testify. But the invitation hasn't gone out yet, for some reason. By @clothildegouj https://www.politico.eu/... @the_iap : EU won't be her only stop. “EU lawmakers want a Facebook whistleblower to come and testify before the bloc's parliament about revelations of toxic practices on the platform as they hammer out the fine print on new rules to regulate online content.” https://www.politico.eu/... @guyeats239 : @Techmeme @ceciliakang I wish they would just rip the damn Band-Aid off on so many things 🤦🏻♂ ️ Daniel Lippman / @dlippman : “It took more than 50 years from the first published research about the dangers of cigarettes, and more than a decade after a whistle-blower shared internal documents ... before there was meaningful government regulation.” https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimes : Is Facebook having a Big Tobacco moment? If so, what lies ahead is likely to be a yearslong, complicated path toward new rules and regulations, with no guaranteed result. https://www.nytimes.com/... Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : New: “It was a lightbulb” - the whistleblower's findings to the Tobacco industry. But Facebook's “Big Tobacco Moment” portends a long and contentious battle to regulate social media via @NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/... Daniel Lippman / @dlippman : Sen. Richard Blumenthal to the NYT: “It was a light bulb, and all the memories came back of the strategy papers done by tobacco companies on reaching middle schoolers. It was like you could just rearrange the words and substitute it with ‘tobacco.’” https://www.nytimes.com/... Tony Romm / @tonyromm : One thing we don't discuss enough is how Congress has changed — such that these big truth bombs, which might have moved the needle in generations past, generally cannot overcome the vicious partisanship at the Capitol. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands mid-arc: Frances Haugen's disclosures have handed lawmakers their clearest narrative yet — governments worldwide are already moving against big tech at a pace no industry has faced before — yet the same week's reporting shows the EU's flagship rules bogged down in the European Parliament, facing dilution and delay.
The Times' core claim is that the tobacco analogy is structural, not rhetorical: experts expect a decades-long fight, and the corpus explains why — tech giants don't fit existing antitrust models because they bundle new businesses and free services, while a well-funded network of lawyers and academics has helped shape even the suits meant to constrain them.
First-order effects
- Facebook is now under simultaneous pressure from EU lawmakers seeking whistleblower testimony on content rules and from US critics like Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi demanding the company change its ways — scrutiny aimed at its amplification systems, not just its ads.
- Lawmakers pushing to rework Section 240-style liability around software amplification would make platform ranking algorithms themselves the regulated object, a target existing frameworks never contemplated.
Second-order effects
- With lobbying failing to reshape Brussels' rulemaking, big US tech firms shift resources from influence to compliance — the posture visible in their handling of the Digital Markets Act — accepting rules they couldn't block.
- A drawn-out legislative fight favors incumbents with compliance budgets: each year of delay lets Facebook and peers absorb scrutiny while startups face the eventual rule burden without equivalent legal teams.
Third-order effects
- If the tobacco pattern holds, meaningful constraint arrives through accumulated litigation, whistleblower-driven evidence, and incremental statutes rather than any single law — meaning today's stalled EU texts and proposed Section 230 rewrites are early rounds of a multi-decade process.
- Over that span, regulation likely converges on what commentators call the crux: platforms are entitled hosts but not entitled amplifiers, institutionalizing accountability for recommendation and distribution systems across the industry.
The trend: Big Tech is entering the slow-burn regulatory phase Big Tobacco endured, where whistleblower evidence and stalled-but-persistent legislation accumulate into constraints over decades rather than sessions.