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Public Health & Cognitive Defence

Cognitive Impact Database

A peer-reviewed accounting of how the platforms owned by tracked entities measurably alter human cognition, attention, and mental health. Every claim is backed by published research.

11
Platforms Profiled
6
Mechanisms of Harm
4
Ownership Links
Platform Impact Profiles
Each platform profile documents the cognitive and mental-health effects established in peer-reviewed research, alongside the entity that owns or controls it.
AI System
ChatGPT
42 · Moderate
Conversational AI as cognitive prosthesis.
2 documented harms · OpenAI
Crypto / Stablecoin
Tether (USDT)
25 · Documented
Largest stablecoin; financial gambling rails.
1 documented harm · Tether
Professional Network
LinkedIn
37 · Documented
Professional identity and hiring network.
2 documented harms · LinkedIn
Social Network
Facebook
55 · Moderate
The original engagement-maximising social network.
4 documented harms · Meta Platforms
Instagram
44 · Moderate
Image-first social comparison engine.
3 documented harms · Meta Platforms
Snapchat
33 · Documented
Ephemeral messaging and streaks for adolescents.
2 documented harms · Snap Inc.
X (formerly Twitter)
36 · Documented
High-velocity public discourse platform.
2 documented harms · X Corp
Surveillance Infrastructure
Palantir Foundry / Gotham
29 · Documented
Pentagon-grade analytical surveillance.
1 documented harm · Palantir Technologies
Video Platform
Rumble
40 · Moderate
Alt-tech video platform.
1 documented harm · Rumble
TikTok
69 · High
Short-form video, algorithmically auto-served.
4 documented harms · ByteDance
YouTube
53 · Moderate
Recommendation-driven long-form video.
2 documented harms · Alphabet
Cognitive Harm Footprint Leaderboard
A transparent 0–100 score per platform combining documented harm count, severity weighting (suicide/addiction/radicalisation rank highest), reach, and the presence of engineered mechanisms. Public methodology write-up is in progress; in the meantime each platform page shows its own component scores.
Consumer platforms — per-user engagement harms
#PlatformOwnerScoreBandBreakdown
1 TikTok ByteDance 69 High 4 harms · sev 22 · reach 22
2 Facebook Meta Platforms 55 Moderate 4 harms · sev 20 · reach 10
3 YouTube Alphabet 53 Moderate 2 harms · sev 16 · reach 22
4 Instagram Meta Platforms 44 Moderate 3 harms · sev 14 · reach 10
5 ChatGPT OpenAI 42 Moderate 2 harms · sev 9 · reach 18
6 Rumble Rumble 40 Moderate 1 harms · sev 8 · reach 22
7 LinkedIn LinkedIn 37 Documented 2 harms · sev 10 · reach 12
8 X (formerly Twitter) X Corp 36 Documented 2 harms · sev 11 · reach 10
9 Snapchat Snap Inc. 33 Documented 2 harms · sev 8 · reach 10
10 Tether (USDT) Tether 25 Documented 1 harms · sev 5 · reach 10
Surveillance infrastructure — population-level harms (distinct harm pathway: chilling effect, involuntary exposure, behavioural modification under observation)
#PlatformOwnerScoreBandBreakdown
1 Palantir Foundry / Gotham Palantir Technologies 29 Documented 1 harms · sev 7 · reach 12
Note: surveillance-infrastructure scores are not directly comparable to consumer-platform scores. The harm here is borne by populations subject to the system, not by users of it. Reach in this row reflects who can be observed, not who voluntarily engages.
Mechanisms of Harm
The specific UI/UX design patterns that drive these outcomes. These are deliberate engineering choices that erode user agency by design.
🚫
Frictionless Design
Removing every pause, prompt or step that might let the user think.
3 documented effects
∞
Infinite Scroll
A virtual slot machine: variable reward, no stopping cue.
4 documented effects
▶
Auto-Play
Removing the choice to start the next piece of content.
3 documented effects
⚙
Algorithmic Recommendation
The feed chooses what the user thinks about next.
2 documented effects
🔔
Engineered Notifications
Manufactured interruptions that retrain attention.
2 documented effects
🔥
Streaks & Engagement Locks
Loss-aversion turned against the user.
2 documented effects
Accountability Map
Documented ownership links between Closed-Loop individuals and the platforms whose harms are catalogued here. Each link follows from public records to peer-reviewed harm.
EntityPlatformRoleWhat the public losesLoop
Alex Karp Palantir Foundry / Gotham CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies Operates the infrastructure for Pentagon cognitive-warfare initiatives designed to make populations legible, predictable and governable. View Loop →
Howard Lutnick Tether (USDT) Family-trust counterparty (Dynasty Trust A loan); Twenty One Capital partner Profits from a stablecoin underpinning crypto trading documented to produce gambling-pattern cognitive distortions; conflicts intensify the cognitive harm. View Loop →
Peter Thiel Palantir Foundry / Gotham Co-founder, chairman and largest shareholder of Palantir Owns the company providing operational backbone for cognitive-warfare doctrine and mass surveillance. View Loop →
Peter Thiel Rumble Investor via Narya Capital and personally Funds a platform documented to host conspiracy and extremist content at high density, degrading the information environment for civic decisions. View Loop →
Syndrome Cluster Pages
Each cognitive domain has its own evidence story — peer-reviewed studies, replications, contradicting findings, and a compounding-effects panel listing every platform whose published research touches it. Click a tile to read the full chain.
Adolescent Mental Health
Documented changes to anxiety, depression, self-harm, and identity formation in users aged 10–19, where platform exposure is the studied variable.
18 studies 16 peer-reviewed 5 hypothesis-flagged
Attention & Focus
Measured impact of platform-driven interruption, fragmentation, and reward-on-variable-schedule design on sustained attention, working memory, and task-switching cost.
6 studies 5 peer-reviewed
AI-Induced Psychosis (hypothesis)
A hypothesis-level cluster of clinical reports describing dissociative, paranoid, or grandiose ideation following heavy chatbot use. Not a recognised diagnosis — every entry is caveat-flagged.
8 studies 7 peer-reviewed 5 hypothesis-flagged
Sleep Disruption
Effects of late-night use, blue-light exposure, and infinite-scroll engagement loops on sleep onset latency, total sleep time, and sleep architecture.
3 studies 2 peer-reviewed
Compulsive Use & Behavioural Addiction
Studies measuring loss-of-control, withdrawal, and tolerance markers attributable to platform-engineered variable-reward systems.
4 studies 4 peer-reviewed
Social Comparison & Body Image
Measured effects of curated, filtered, algorithmically-amplified peer content on self-evaluation, body satisfaction, and disordered eating risk.
5 studies 4 peer-reviewed
Studies Evidence Ledger
A DOI-first ledger of the peer-reviewed studies and replication attempts behind the harms above. Hypothesis-level diagnostic labels (e.g. "AI-induced psychosis") are flagged with the standard caveat — they are working clinical hypotheses, not recognised diagnoses.
57 studies on file 50 peer-reviewed primary 24 replication attempts (4 failed) 10 hypothesis-level labels (caveat-enforced)
secondaryexecutive_function2025
The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers
Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Single-paper claim · pending independent replication
primaryexecutive_function2025
Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning: Evidence from high school mathematics
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
1 replication attempt on file
primaryai_psychosis2025
Delusional Experiences Emerging From AI Chatbot Interactions or “AI Psychosis”
JMIR Mental Health
ai_induced_psychosis (hypothesis-level label; not a recognised clinical diagnosis) — Authors describe 'AI psychosis' explicitly as an emerging clinical phenomenon under investigation, not an established diagnosis. The viewpoint synthesizes scattered case reports and clinical commentary; it does not establish causation. Cited evidence includes Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports of individual cases and peer-reviewed commentary by Østergaard. Authors note that chatbot dynamics may reinforce mania-like symptoms (elevated mood, grandiosity, impulsivity) in addition to delusions, expanding the proposed phenomenology beyond psychosis narrowly defined. The label remains a working construct; not in DSM-5-TR or ICD-11.
Single-paper claim · pending independent replication
primaryai_psychosis2025
Generative Artificial Intelligence Chatbots and Delusions: From Guesswork to Emerging Cases
Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica
ai_induced_psychosis (hypothesis-level label; not a recognised clinical diagnosis) — Author explicitly frames this as transitional evidence: title is 'From Guesswork to Emerging Cases', acknowledging the original 2023 hypothesis was 'merely based on guesswork.' Author calls for 'empirical, systematic research' rather than asserting causation. Most underlying cases are media-documented or anecdotal correspondence, not clinically verified primary research. The 'ai_induced_psychosis' construct remains a working hypothesis; it is NOT a DSM-5-TR or ICD-11 diagnosis. Causation between chatbot use and delusional ideation remains undemonstrated by controlled study.
Single-paper claim · pending independent replication
primaryai_psychosis2025
I tweet, therefore I am: a systematic review on social media use and disorders of the social brain
BMC Psychiatry
digital_schizophrenia (hypothesis-level label; not a recognised clinical diagnosis) — Authors explicitly frame 'Delusion Amplification by Social Media' as a new conceptual model, not a clinical diagnosis. They write that increased social media usage 'may be associated with psychotic spectrum phenotypes, especially delusionality, by the decoupling of inter and intra-corporeal cues integral to shared reality testing' — framed as a proposed mechanism warranting empirical testing, not an established disorder. The review is observational-correlational; causation is not established. 'Digital schizophrenia' does not appear as an author term; the closest construct offered is sub-clinical psychotic-spectrum amplification via the proposed model.
Single-paper claim · pending independent replication
primaryexecutive_function2025
AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking
Societies
Single-paper claim · pending independent replication
Why this matters
When an owner says "my platform connects people," the public record now answers with the citations: the documented anxiety, the documented attention loss, the documented adolescent brain changes. This database does not invent claims; it curates the established scientific consensus and ties it to the people who profit from the design choices that produce it.