Hi, I'm Naila Boodoo and welcome to Axios Recap, where we dig into one big story. It's Tuesday,

October 12th, and we're focused on big tech.

Senators at the Facebook hearing last week used an analogy we've all heard before. Big Tech is having a big tobacco moment. How do they compare? Well, the first lawsuits against tobacco companies were in the 1950s, and it took decades for meaningful reform for a product that still causes more than 400,000 deaths each year.

Are the harmful effects of social media sites like Facebook and Instagram that clear cut?

In a moment, Enafried on the challenges to regulating big tech.

And we're joined now by Axios' chief technology correspondent, Ina Freed,

with more on that analogy

of how big tech really compares to big tobacco.

Hey, Ina.

Hi, Naila.

Let's first start with, is this a fair comparison?

Why are people making this?

I think it's a somewhat fair comparison.

I think it's not totally apt.

It's fair in the sense that, you know, you're talking

about a product that's widely used that also has some harms that are reasonably well understood,

but that the companies have researched and known but tried to hide. I think that's the strongest

piece of the comparison, but there's also some

key differences. What are those? I think one of the things that's super important to keep in mind

is when you talk about tobacco, you were talking about companies that were largely producing

the same thing. They were all making different, similar cigarettes. And then they didn't change a whole lot over time either.

So it was a pretty static target to go after. And even still, it took decades to go from

...