February 22, 2026
Won’t someone think of the adults?
Zuckerberg's "Fix" for Child Safety Could End Anonymous Internet Access for All
Parents, Zuck & the Death of Anonymous Internet: Commenters Erupt Over ‘Child Safety’ Plan
TLDR: Zuckerberg’s child-addiction trial is being read as a backdoor push to make everyone prove who they are to use the internet. Commenters are split between blasting overprotective parents and surveillance creep, cheering on anything that hurts Meta, and proposing phone-based kid modes that don’t kill anonymity for adults.
Mark Zuckerberg’s child-safety courtroom drama just lit up the comment section more than any 35-foot wall of Instagram posts ever could. The case claims Instagram is basically digital cigarettes for kids, and Zuck’s answer sounds a lot like “show your ID to use the internet.” Commenters? Absolutely losing it.
One camp is furious that kids’ problems are being used to justify turning the whole web into a police checkpoint. 0xbadcafebee torches “overprotective parents,” blaming the same mindset that fueled the war on drugs and mass incarceration, spitting that parents should actually parent instead of demanding surveillance for everyone. Another user blasts the idea that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are “the internet,” arguing that anything that hurts Meta could actually help bring back true anonymity and privacy.
Others try to play tech therapist. throwaway87543 pitches a middle ground: let phones quietly tell sites “this is a kid’s device” without exposing real ages or identities, shifting control to parents instead of governments and corporations. Meanwhile charcircuit shrugs off the panic, saying an “adult check” on phones doesn’t automatically kill anonymous speech. And in the peanut gallery, gweinberg roasts the whole debate for acting like the internet only exists on phones, giving old-school laptop users a rare W. It’s part privacy horror movie, part parent-shaming festival, and part “anything that hurts Meta is good” meme.
Key Points
- •Mark Zuckerberg testified for over five hours in Los Angeles Superior Court in a case alleging Meta intentionally designed Instagram to addict children.
- •The plaintiff KGM claims Instagram use from age nine led to addiction-like behavior and serious mental health issues, and more than 1,600 similar cases are pending nationally.
- •TikTok and Snapchat have settled related claims, while Meta and Google’s YouTube remain defendants in ongoing litigation.
- •The case relies on the contested premise that social media is clinically addictive, which the article says is scientifically disputed but used to justify treating the issue as a public health emergency.
- •Plaintiffs are attempting to bypass Section 230 by arguing that Instagram’s design features constitute a defective product, a theory that could significantly reshape internet platform liability if accepted.