It's all caused by a Meta lobbying initiative across multiple countries as documented in https://tboteproject.com/ (sadly, the website is down right now), but you can find references e.g. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/the-tbote-project/
> It's all caused by a Meta lobbying initiative...
Is it really, though? As commenters on JWZ's blog pointed out (once you get around his HN link blocker, hah), the project contains very questionable LLM work.
Archive of first link: https://web.archive.org/web/20260429210901/https://tboteproj...
NB: don't link jwz.org directly from HN. It plays poorly from both ends.
Trying to put this all on Meta with a look at their 2025 lobbying spend is missing the point. The “think of the children” panic about the internet pre-dates this by years. Remember the debate around the TikTok ban? The states instituting laws about porn age checks pre-dates all of this too. I think trying to blame Meta is convenient because it’s easy to think there is just one villain coordinating everything, but the debate about children and the internet has been a spreading moral panic for years.
It's not only Meta though. People need to stop assuming Meta controls everything via its CIAbook. You see several actors behind that; which one contributes the most is an interesting detail, but ultimately it can be simplified to them planning Evil against The People.
> ...jwz.org...
Holy fuck, man, visiting that with a HN referer serves up a rather NSFW rude image, and evidently sets a cookie to make sure it happens next time too.
replacement link: https://web.archive.org/web/20260401175031/https://www.jwz.o...