Mikhail Grabovski, former Maple Leafs forward, facing assault charge in Markham, Ont.

Last summer, I found myself on the market for new friends. I had just moved back home to Toronto after spending four years away for school. Many of the people I was closest to had scattered around the world for new jobs or degrees. It’s not in my nature to admit this sort of thing, but I was lonely. Meta’s rapidly increasing mind-reading powers meant that, even before I really knew this about myself, Instagram had figured it out. I saw an ad for a platform that pitched itself as a way to make friends. I must have lingered on it for half a second too long. The ads multiplied. In them,...