Nicotine: a conservative vice in vogue. Too little, too late for the Facebook fact-checkers. Why Canadians are to blame for Trudeau. California wildfires. And more.
My lasting image is Zuckerberg, pinned to the wall in a 2024 Senate hearing: “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” Zuckerberg said as parents held up photos of their children who have died following sexual exploitation or harassment via social media. “No one should go through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invest so much and we are going to continue doing industry-wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.” Yep. And, with his latest announcement he's basically saying Zuck You to all of us. Free speech is free up to a point and then there's a price to pay. Which is why regulation makes sense.
is it really a “free speech” win if we still have the government implicitly telling meta how to run it’s business? It may be a “free speech” win for foljs that post on Facebook, but then again that 1st amendment protection is not applicable to a private citizen’s interactions with Facebook.
This is government censorship of a most naked kind. Trump leaned on Zuckerberg to stop editing his services and, rather than telling Trump to go fuck himself like a newspaper of old might have he done, he caved. If you think Trump will not continue to pressure Zuckerberg to slant things his way on the Meta sites as Biden did, you are being short-sighted.
Ditching DEI might be a "vibe shift" to you, but to a young White guy getting out of college with a CS degree and looking for his first job, it means the difference between flipping burgers for McDonalds or working on McDonalds drone delivery systems. This stuff is very, very real when you're seeking jobs and promotions; it's not "vibes."
I like TFP but I am glad I also subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson's Substack to fill in the gaps. For example re: Sajwani.
"Sajwani attended Trump’s first inauguration, and a company tied to chair and current board member of DAMAC Farooq Arjomand paid $600,000 to the key witness for the House Republicans seeking to dig up dirt on President Biden. That man was Alexander Smirnov, who in December 2024 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI when he claimed Biden had taken bribes from the Ukrainian company Burisma."
Am I the only one truly scared about the complete removal of any responsibility in overseeing the flaming garbage heap that social media has become? All I see is that Zuckerberg doesn't want to be accused of mishandling oversight, it's become too unwieldy in this modern world of flagrant lying, and he's just saying "If Musk gets rewarded for his shit show on X, why can't I do the same?" This is not a positive step, in my opinion; it should be a major red flag in the free world that we have completely given up on attempts to uphold honesty and integrity.
When the 'overseeing' was done by a bunch of barely-out-of-college ultra progessives who censored things like The Barrington Declaration, the Hunter Biden laptop, etc. then, no, I am not scared about their complete removal from the system.
You're not the only one. Zuckerberg is simply shirking his responsibility as a publisher. He ought to watch the movie The Post. One of the tragedies of our time is that the most important media -- social media -- is in the hands of tech nerds.
Who's going to read them? You can get these unbridled rage-fests (opinions, all) on a SM thread, and none of those commenters are interested in drilling down to the community notes or any platform that pulls people back to reality.
ideally this would work, but if you look at SM you will realize how much misinformation is out there, and how harmful it's becoming. You likely already know that some significant portion of youth get their "news" from TikTok. None of this is vetted. Some of it is real. Some of it is AI generated. So now we have platforms with absolutely no oversight. It's not really equivalent to Wikipedia, which is already suffering from revisionist histories manicured by those with both an agenda and time on their hands.
I don't think of this as "government controlling censorship" -- I thought it would become universally important to the fabric of society that some modicum of fact-checking be exercised across all information-trading platforms.
Today´s youth also have parents and go to school, so hopefully they are not just at the mercy of TikTok for their education. (They seem more interested in making insipid videos on Tik Tok than anything else.) What is more frightening is the government censuring social media and compelling the legacy media to also carry their water.
“Full-throated” — Is this an adjective we can agree to retire? I am reading it EVERYWHERE. It’s a fist so far down that a bulimic gets a good vomit on; it’s a cat hacking up a tennis ball sized hairball; it’s a descriptor for a porn movie. It’s cringey beyond words.
I love your take on "Better late than never". Zuck seems to have found some light either by force or by lack of fear. Some are beginning to listen - others not so much. Here is my take on it https://substack.com/@peterseedbread/p-154291547
Please avoid paywall links.
My lasting image is Zuckerberg, pinned to the wall in a 2024 Senate hearing: “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” Zuckerberg said as parents held up photos of their children who have died following sexual exploitation or harassment via social media. “No one should go through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invest so much and we are going to continue doing industry-wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.” Yep. And, with his latest announcement he's basically saying Zuck You to all of us. Free speech is free up to a point and then there's a price to pay. Which is why regulation makes sense.
Is Bezos sucking up to Trump by paying $40m for a documentary about Melania? Yeah, that’s a real head-scratcher.
is it really a “free speech” win if we still have the government implicitly telling meta how to run it’s business? It may be a “free speech” win for foljs that post on Facebook, but then again that 1st amendment protection is not applicable to a private citizen’s interactions with Facebook.
Apologies. It took me twenty minutes to get over the million dollar wristwatch and read the rest of the issue. Still not over it.
This is government censorship of a most naked kind. Trump leaned on Zuckerberg to stop editing his services and, rather than telling Trump to go fuck himself like a newspaper of old might have he done, he caved. If you think Trump will not continue to pressure Zuckerberg to slant things his way on the Meta sites as Biden did, you are being short-sighted.
Why is Zuckerberg's editing of Facebook censorship, but Bari Weiss's editing of The Free Press is just plain old editing?
Because it was done at the behest of the federal government with the purpose of suppressing information for voters.
Ditching DEI might be a "vibe shift" to you, but to a young White guy getting out of college with a CS degree and looking for his first job, it means the difference between flipping burgers for McDonalds or working on McDonalds drone delivery systems. This stuff is very, very real when you're seeking jobs and promotions; it's not "vibes."
I like TFP but I am glad I also subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson's Substack to fill in the gaps. For example re: Sajwani.
"Sajwani attended Trump’s first inauguration, and a company tied to chair and current board member of DAMAC Farooq Arjomand paid $600,000 to the key witness for the House Republicans seeking to dig up dirt on President Biden. That man was Alexander Smirnov, who in December 2024 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI when he claimed Biden had taken bribes from the Ukrainian company Burisma."
California wild fires: Trumps fault!
Well done, River.
Am I the only one truly scared about the complete removal of any responsibility in overseeing the flaming garbage heap that social media has become? All I see is that Zuckerberg doesn't want to be accused of mishandling oversight, it's become too unwieldy in this modern world of flagrant lying, and he's just saying "If Musk gets rewarded for his shit show on X, why can't I do the same?" This is not a positive step, in my opinion; it should be a major red flag in the free world that we have completely given up on attempts to uphold honesty and integrity.
When the 'overseeing' was done by a bunch of barely-out-of-college ultra progessives who censored things like The Barrington Declaration, the Hunter Biden laptop, etc. then, no, I am not scared about their complete removal from the system.
You're not the only one. Zuckerberg is simply shirking his responsibility as a publisher. He ought to watch the movie The Post. One of the tragedies of our time is that the most important media -- social media -- is in the hands of tech nerds.
Doesn’t community notes set things straight?
Who's going to read them? You can get these unbridled rage-fests (opinions, all) on a SM thread, and none of those commenters are interested in drilling down to the community notes or any platform that pulls people back to reality.
It is far deeper level of scared if the government controls social media censorship.
Here’s a novel idea -stay off social media. Works like a charm for me.
ideally this would work, but if you look at SM you will realize how much misinformation is out there, and how harmful it's becoming. You likely already know that some significant portion of youth get their "news" from TikTok. None of this is vetted. Some of it is real. Some of it is AI generated. So now we have platforms with absolutely no oversight. It's not really equivalent to Wikipedia, which is already suffering from revisionist histories manicured by those with both an agenda and time on their hands.
I don't think of this as "government controlling censorship" -- I thought it would become universally important to the fabric of society that some modicum of fact-checking be exercised across all information-trading platforms.
What is truly harmful is today's youth's inability to use critical thinking skills.
Today´s youth also have parents and go to school, so hopefully they are not just at the mercy of TikTok for their education. (They seem more interested in making insipid videos on Tik Tok than anything else.) What is more frightening is the government censuring social media and compelling the legacy media to also carry their water.
The expectation is that we the people uphold it. Not government.
“Full-throated” — Is this an adjective we can agree to retire? I am reading it EVERYWHERE. It’s a fist so far down that a bulimic gets a good vomit on; it’s a cat hacking up a tennis ball sized hairball; it’s a descriptor for a porn movie. It’s cringey beyond words.
Maybe it’s overused but it worked for Keats’ nightingale:
Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
I’ll allow it that one exception
Donald Trump may be the first adult Zuckerberg has had any dealings with!
Yes. And he cowered and did what he was told.
Cowering is what he did under Biden, now he is upholding free speech.
I love your take on "Better late than never". Zuck seems to have found some light either by force or by lack of fear. Some are beginning to listen - others not so much. Here is my take on it https://substack.com/@peterseedbread/p-154291547
I enjoyed the tone of this day's news delivery so much. Not too heavy. Serious, but light. Nice.