James Talarico addresses supporters at an election night watch party on March 3, 2026, in Austin, Texas. Credit: Shunya Carroll

AUSTIN — Texas Rep. James Talarico, who’s running for U.S. Senate, used a SXSW appearance over the weekend to attack big tech and its algorithms for poisoning the minds of America’s youth, especially young men.

During a live taping of Vox Media’s Raging Moderates podcast, Talarico blamed social media giants for facilitating a male loneliness epidemic. He also championed Texas’ classroom cellphone ban — which he co-authored — as a possible policy solution while promoting policies such as Australia’s social media ban for those under 16. He also advocated holding social media executives accountable for intentionally promoting rage baiting.

“These algorithms make young men feel lonely and insecure, and then those same algorithms tell them that the solution is domination,” Talarico said. “It’s endless accumulation, it’s an endless hoarding of wealth and power. And that is a spiritual sickness.”

The Austin Democrat pointed to his time working with My Brother’s Keeper, a national initiative launched under President Barack Obama to address opportunity gaps of young men of color and help them reach full potential.

“What we saw is that across demographic groups, young men were struggling in our schools, particularly our high schools,” Talarico said. “They weren’t graduating at the rates that they should be — black, white, brown and young men of all colors were really struggling academically.”

A 2024 Stanford study found that women now outnumbered men by 7% among undergraduates. That same study found that young men are three times more likely to overdose, four times more likely to commit suicide and 14 times more likely to be incarcerated than their female peers.

In part, Talarico blames social media algorithms and the culture promoted by the platforms.

“No father teaches their son to find the weakest person in the room and bully them,” the former San Antonio public school teacher said. “So, if there are young men listening to this podcast, I would say that we have a choice every Saturday morning. We can either troll people on the internet, or we can go mow our neighbor’s lawn.”​

If elected in November, Talarico pledged to hold tech giants accountable for their perceived role in the country’s youth mental health crisis.

“The biggest tell in my mind is that the billionaires who run these algorithms don’t let their own kids use the product,” Talarico said. “Why on earth would we subject our kids — the kids of America — to these predatory algorithms when the billionaires themselves don’t even allow their own kids on the platforms?”

Talarico will face either Attorney General Ken Paxton or incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the general election, depending on who emerges from a heated GOP primary that will be decided May 26.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...