YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

This isn't hypocrisy, it's parenting.

Do you think the Pfizer CEO lets their kids have unlimited Viagra? Or the Anheuser-Busch CEO's kids have unlimited Bud Light? I don't think this is the gotcha it's painted as.

You didn’t pick particularly good examples. YouTube Kids [0] is an actual product owned and marketed by Google.

Pfizer and Anheiser-Busch don’t market their products to kids.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Kids

And the reason is that those products are (rightly) regulated. Would there be beer marketed to kids if it were legal? Would it be fine if it were the parents' sole responsibility to ensure their kids weren't drinking beer, including at school, at friends' homes where the parents may have different rules, etc., absent a general social consensus that kids shouldn't have beer?

This is anecdotal evidence for the emerging consensus that social media is bad for you and especially for kids. There's a legitimate question whether the people pushing these products know this and don't care or actively suppress evidence.

Tobacco companies famously did this and it caused a lot of harm. It's about that more than just a chance for a cheap shot "hypocrisy" accusation.

I think social media has clear positive and negative aspects. That makes it closer to food than cigarettes in my mind.

We can all immediately conjure up images where food or social media has brought something positive into our lives.

News.yc is something I visit almost every day and it has added value to my life, including introducing me to a few people I’ve met in real life and to interesting tech.

Equally, we can all pretty readily conjure up images where excess food or social media has harmed people.