An evidence file, not an opinion
These apps are not free.
You pay with your attention.
Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are engineered — by their own internal admission — to capture your attention, provoke your emotions, and sell the result to advertisers. This site collects what the documents, courts, and peer-reviewed studies actually say. Then it shows you the way out.
The short version
How the machine works
Harvest
Every click, pause, scroll, message, and photo is recorded — plus data bought from thousands of other apps and websites.
Profile
The data builds a psychological model of you: what you fear, what you envy, when you're lonely, when you're most impulsive.
Provoke
The feed serves whatever keeps you scrolling — outrage, envy, anxiety — because every extra minute is ad inventory for sale.
This isn't a metaphor. In 2012 Facebook secretly manipulated 689,003 users' feeds to prove it could transfer emotions at scale. An internal 2021 presentation admitted: "Our algorithms exploit the human brain's attraction to divisiveness." Read how the machine works →
The case files
Four case files. One playbook.
The emotional contagion experiment. The 5× angry-reaction weight. 64% of extremist-group joins driven by its own recommendations. Cambridge Analytica, a $5 billion FTC fine, and a UN-documented role in genocide.
Read the Facebook file"We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls" — their words, not ours. A coroner's landmark ruling. Buried internal research. A ~$942 million judgment, and 29 states taking Meta to trial in 2026.
Read the Instagram fileTikTok
Internally calculated "addiction" at 35 minutes. Safety tools it privately called "a good talking point." Suicide content reaching 13-year-old test accounts in as little as 2.6 minutes.
Read the TikTok fileThe Bots
Automated traffic passed humans in 2024. 3.5 billion fake accounts removed in a single year. And 2–4% fake voices are enough to flip what a crowd believes it thinks. The case against the "open discussion."
Read the bots file2026: the reckoning
The evidence is now in courtrooms
For years the harms were "alleged." That era is ending. Courts and regulators on two continents have started ruling on the documents themselves.
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March 2026
First addiction verdict: Meta and YouTube found negligent
A Los Angeles jury found both companies knew their platforms endangered minors and failed to warn — awarding $6 million to a single plaintiff, the first of ~1,000 coordinated cases.[5]
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April 2026
Massachusetts high court: addictive design is not protected speech
The state's highest court ruled Section 230 does not shield Meta from claims that infinite scroll, autoplay, and variable rewards unlawfully induce compulsive use in minors.[6]
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July 2026
EU formally charges Meta over addictive design
The European Commission's preliminary finding: infinite scroll, autoplay, and push notifications breach the Digital Services Act. Potential fine: ~$12 billion.[7]
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August 2026
Meta ordered to pay ~$942 million in New Mexico
After a jury found Meta liable for child-safety failures, a judge added $567 million and five years of court-supervised reforms. And on August 18, Meta faces 29 state attorneys general at trial over addictive design.[8]
The good news
The machine has a single point of failure: you
These companies don't own a single thing you need. Their entire business runs on your attention — which means the moment you withhold it, the whole apparatus stops working on you. Here's the path, three steps, at whatever pace suits you:
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Weigh the evidence
Start with how the machine works, then open the case files: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and the bots. Every claim traces to a document, a courtroom, or a study. Decide for yourself.
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See what you get back
Randomized trials keep finding the same things: less depression and loneliness, better sleep, and about an hour a day returned — with the first effects showing up within a week. Read what leaving gives you.
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Take action
Starve the algorithm in five minutes, add friction in ten, or delete your accounts today — with better alternatives lined up for everything the apps used to do.