Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Money often costs too much.” That truth has never been more painfully relevant than it is today, with the rise of cyber-enabled fraud targeting children. Scams targeting Americans have reached crisis levels—and I can’t help but wonder: when will the cost of money be too much? When will harm in the name of profit be too much?
In 2024, the FBI reported that Americans lost $16.6 billion to cyber fraud—an all-time high. Globally, losses exceeded $1 trillion. Behind every dollar stolen is a human story—of betrayal, manipulation, grief, and sometimes irreparable loss. This is what money costs.
According to FBI data, social media platforms now account for the highest monetary losses from cybercrime. While seniors lose the most per incident, teenagers and young adults are the most targeted—largely due to the sheer amount of time they spend on connected devices and online. Criminals go where the people are, and social media is where the people are.
Elon Musk, the wealthiest man alive, has a net worth of $373.8 billion. One of his companies, Starlink, reported $8.2 billion in profits in 2024. After the Thai government cut internet access to scam compounds in Myanmar, operations swiftly resumed by purchasing Starlink. Inside those compounds, victims are trafficked, tortured, and forced to carry out online crimes. While Starlink is technically just providing internet service—paid for by customers—knowing it enables fraud factories to operate gives me a visceral reaction. Shouldn’t they shut off service to those compounds? In this case the argument is it is a business providing a service to a customer. Legally Starlink does not have any responsibility in what the service is being used for. Starlink is not the same as social media.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, holds a net worth of $184.6 billion. Meta earned $164 billion in 2024 and is the leading platform used for cyber-enabled fraud and sextortion. While Meta’s profits have tripled over the past seven years, cyber fraud has surged by over 700%. Meta, argues they are like a freight company, not responsible for the contents of the cargo they transport. They fight any additional regulations due to this.
Critics who side with Meta argue that the government shouldn’t regulate private companies. Others claim any regulation would violate the First Amendment. I disagree. This is typically where my constitutionalist friends push back, reminding me that the Founding Fathers built our country on the principle of limited government. While I do not believe that our Founders could have any idea of what social media would become or the harms it would cause, I ask the question how is regulating social media any different than the age-based protections in other areas— voting, driving, joining the military, working, the age of consent. We restrict minors’ access to alcohol, tobacco, firearms, gambling, and explicit content.
So why are children left exposed on social media to many of these same dangers that already have age restrictions? This is the price of free speech or that is what they want us to believe.
Social media isn’t a neutral tool like a freight company, or even Starlink. These platforms are engineered to attract and addict children. While doing this unregulated, minors are exposed to fraud, explicit content, grooming, exploitation, and harassment, and social media is profiting from their engagement. Here money costs the most, the loss of a life.
The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that social media poses mental health risks comparable to tobacco. His concern lies in platforms’ addictive design and lack of safeguards. Like Big Tobacco, social media giants profit from addiction while knowingly putting young people at risk. He suggested warning labels be added to social media.
Recognizing this growing threat, lawmakers introduced the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). The KOSA would require social media companies to remove addictive features for minors, limit location tracking, restrict unknown contacts, allow greater parental controls, and cap screen time. The goal was simple: require a duty of care to protect kids online.
Big Tech response is following a now-familiar playbook: deny harm, deny responsibility, avoid accountability, and spend millions lobbying against reform. In 2024 alone, Big Tech spent a record $51 million lobbying. The result? KOSA was shelved due to concerns over the implications the bill has on free speech.
The First Amendment protects free speech—but not all speech. Fraud, obscenity, defamation, incitement, and child pornography fall outside its protection. The regulations proposed by KOSA target already unprotected speech. Moreover, children do not have the same constitutional rights as adults as shown in the long list of age-based protections. Why not social media?
The failure lies with our elected officials, just as it did with Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, and the 2008 financial crisis among others. Social media follows the regulations provided however outdated and uses the same lobbying powers as these other powerful industries did to avoid regulations.
The failure to regulate tobacco still kills over 480,000 Americans every year and costs more than $600 billion in healthcare and lost productivity. Failure to regulate pharmaceutical companies put us in the current opioid crisis—where we are now more likely to die from an unintentional overdose than in a car crash. Failure to regulate financial institutions triggered a deep recession.
We are currently living through the failure to regulate social media. The cost of money is hard to quantify in terms of profits to our elected officials, but not for the many families mourning a child who took their own life. The cost of money is the rise in cyber-enabled fraud like Sextortion, the rise of the mental health crisis and the rise in teen suicides, fueled by social media use.
Kids’ lives shouldn’t be a price we are willing to pay— Push your elected officials for change. Our children deserve more than to be collateral damage of profits.

Not my kid: Take Action —Talk to your kids about the dangers on social media. ❦

About the Author

Brad Thorne is a Financial Crimes Detective with the Boise Police Department, where he has served for over 25 years. Throughout his career, he has held a variety of roles, including Patrol Officer, Crime Scene Investigator, and Criminal Investigator. For the past 18 years, he has specialized in investigating financial crimes, including cyber enabled fraud. Detective Thorne serves as an instructor for both new detectives and the Financial Crimes Unit at the Boise Police Department’s Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) Academy. He holds a master’s certificate from the Idaho POST and has earned an advanced certification in Cryptocurrency Investigations.
Thorne is also a Task Force Officer with the United States Secret Service’s Mountain West Cyber Fraud Task Force (MWCFTF). In this role, he investigates cyber-related fraud and has developed significant expertise in cases involving Transnational Organized Crime (TOC). His work has led to collaborations with federal, state, and international law enforcement partners. Thorne is actively engaged in community outreach, providing presentations on scam awareness, participating in media interviews, and is a published author. Thorne is a member of several organizations focused on fraud education and prevention, including the Idaho Scam Jam Alliance, Idaho Financial Investigator Network, Organized Retail Crime Association of Idaho, Global Anti-Scam Alliance, Sextortion Task Force, and the CA Crypto-Coalition.

He continues to advocate for victims through his casework and public education efforts.

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