No one is safe from harmful internet content anymore, especially not on algorithm-driven social media sites. It’s no secret that the internet is stuffed with smut, pornography, and other graphic media, but the algorithms that prize engagement over the quality of the content takes the danger to a whole new level.

Anthony Bradley, a scholar at the Acton Institute who writes often on fatherhood, masculinity, and religion, warns about the dangers of social media in his latest Substack post. He urges fathers to intervene on behalf of their sons and train them to literally war against these algorithms feeding them total garbage. Bradley writes,

While girls are generally recommended content about makeup, music, or social topics, boys are funneled toward hypermasculine and pornographic material. Social media algorithms are designed to escalate engagement, and for teenage boys, this often means serving increasingly extreme content to hold their attention. According to Ofcom, even if only a minority of boys are exposed to harmful content, once it appears in their feeds, escaping it becomes nearly impossible.

Boys no longer have to search out pornography. The algorithm searches it out for them. It arrives in their feed whether they have a history with it or not, whether they ask for it or not, and whether they want it or not.

Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram are all inundated with explicit content, and it’s all because these social media giants now place engagement and profits more than they do the health of their users. Whatever generates more time spent on social media is what gets pushed on vulnerable and developing minds. Bradley goes on to note that despite Big Tech paying lip service to the safety of their users, their actions continually demonstrate their real commitment: Making money.

AI chatbots are also algorithms of seduction. With personalized bots now on the market, people can get sucked into devoting massive time and attention to interacting with an entity that isn’t even real. Now, more and more women are having “relationships” with AI boyfriends. Julia Steinerg writes in The Free Press,

The wild popularity of romance books like Fifty Shades of Grey and, more recently, A Court of Thorns and Roses—which cater to an overwhelmingly female audience — highlights how many women privately seek romantic fulfillment through literature. An AI boyfriend is one step removed from that. As Katherine Dee, a writer who researches internet culture, explained to me, women tend to have “literary relationships” with AI characters, whereas men tend to have “pornographic ones.”

At this point, it seems almost like Big Tech’s textbook business model is completely obvious: Find a human vulnerability to hijack, create a product that superficially meets the need, and design the product in such a way that it’s almost impossible to quit it once you get started. The more astute the algorithm, the more vulnerable we become to getting sucked into its ever-cycling orbit.

Bradley ends his own article with a call for fathers to train their sons to start battling against the algorithms that are designed to hijack their attention, desires, and time. It’s no longer enough to steer people away from the wrong stuff. Now, the “stuff” is channeled right to us, and we have to take up arms to resist it and remain whole and healthy.