The Algorithm of Safety

Something subtle is happening across statehouses.

Laws are passing.
Unanimously, in some cases.
All in the name of child safety, digital responsibility, accountability.

The language feels familiar:
“Protect the vulnerable.”
“Verify age.”
“Empower parents.”
And above all:
“Keep it simple.”

But buried beneath the urgency and applause is a quiet design pattern — one that’s easy to miss if you're only listening to the slogans.

The platforms themselves are never touched.

Their targeting systems remain untouched.
Their predictive models remain untouched.
Their ad engines — the real drivers of digital harm — remain completely intact.

Instead, new layers are created:
App stores become gatekeepers.
Parents become filters.
Lawmakers become mouthpieces — often repeating lines written elsewhere.

And the systems that profit from confusion, compulsive behavior, and synthetic intimacy?
They hum along quietly beneath the surface.

There are organizations that speak up — loudly — but they echo one another with uncanny precision.
They praise these laws.
They thank the governors.
They post the same graphics, use the same phrases.
And yet, somehow… they never mention the platforms fueling the problem.

No filings.
No disclosures.
No accountability — just rhythm.

This is the algorithm of safety.
Not a technological one — a narrative one.
A set of inputs and outputs calibrated to create the illusion of protection without ever disrupting the source of harm.

And the public, exhausted and overwhelmed, accepts it.

Because it’s clean.
Because it’s “bi-partisan.”
Because it sounds like action.

But if protection always stops short of power, it’s not failure.
It’s formation.

A machine built to preserve the system that claims to guard us from itself.

And we are watching it run.

—

The silence isn’t empty. It’s engineered.
More soon.