New York City Mayor Eric Adams designated social media as a “public health hazard” and an environmental toxin, as his city struggles with crime and a surge in illegal immigrants, in a speech on Wednesday.

Adams claimed that platforms like TikTok and YouTube are “fueling a mental health crisis by designing their platforms with addictive and dangerous features” and bragged about leading the first city to treat social media like “tobacco and guns.” The mayor chose to take on social media while his city struggles to deal with the more than 150,000 migrants that have arrived since spring 2022 and increasing violent crime, like the more than 4,500 stabbings in 2023.

[Environmental hazard? Maybe a *mental* hazard, but … come on, man. This is just another government attempt to find some way to claim authority to censor speech online. And it’s an utterly laughable one, at that. — Ed]