The Grill Room TikTok’s Big Tobacco Era
Mar 27, 2026
Rob Bonta, California Attorney General who has led lawsuits against major platforms, and Raúl Torrez, New Mexico Attorney General and former prosecutor focused on internet crimes, discuss parallels between Big Tech and Big Tobacco. They explore internal documents, platform design that may addict kids, undercover investigations into predation, legal strategies like state-level protections, and worries about federal preemption.
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Platforms Designed Addiction Like Big Tobacco
- Rob Bonta compares social platforms to Big Tobacco because internal documents show executives knew features like infinite scroll and likes harmed kids yet approved them.
- Those features were explicitly designed to maximize frequency and duration of use and were greenlit despite internal awareness of mental-health harms to girls.
Undercover Account Received Solicitations Then Monetization Tips
- Raúl Torrez describes undercover testing where a fake underage profile was inundated with sexual solicitations across Meta platforms.
- The platform then suggested monetization to that profile as its following exploded, illustrating profit incentives over safety.
Sting Arrests Show Platforms Fuel Real-World Predation
- Torrez ran larger sting operations where men traveled to a motel expecting minors and were arrested, proving the platforms enabled real-world predation.
- He says such operations could be repeated weekly around the country given the frequency of solicitations.