Not that anyone asked me but I support a two pronged approach that involves revamping the entire immigration system while sending aid to countries suffering mass emigration. (Seriously, how do I get asked to participate in one of these polls?)

I don’t know if they’re trying to hide their racism but I’ve observed many people say they’re just focused on the illegal immigrants. I think a lot of people actually respect the value of immigrants in this country and want them to come here via the appropriate channels.

If we minimize the astounding number of people coming here illegally because their country is shit and/or because our system for processing them is shit, it should be logistically easier to track and capture people coming in for nefarious reasons.

What we should all be more concerned about is our inability to escape political theater and propaganda. We are being lied to and manipulated to hate and to attack one another for the benefit of corporations and politicians. In and of itself, this isn’t new. But it’s ability in the 21st century to spread and mutate instantaneously is something we have to make ourselves more conscious of.

Sorry, not sorry. Life has existed before social media and before TikTok.

I hope this is a lesson that no one should invest so much of their time or emotional energy into something owned and operated by someone else. This includes but is not limited to Google products, Apple iCloud, Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, etc. These things will all go away one day. Prepare yourself.

Of course this sucks. If ByteDance cared as much about its users as they claimed, they would have obliged with US demands. They instead chose to shut their system down rather than not collect data and manipulate users.

I hope everyone has learned they are not the only platform doing this. We should all be very concerned with how our data and viewing habits are used to manipulate us in overt and subconscious ways. We have to put pressure on congress to implement stricter privacy laws in the US. Although, I don’t know how you win an argument against Meta and X. Perhaps we should be voting for legislators who have the best interests of The People in mind? Right, that wouldn’t be American.

Everything sucks. These platforms are driven only by the best interest of stock holders. It used to be different. The early years of social media were fun and personal and organic. Then they shoved algorithms down our throats and everyone rejoiced.

People need to take their choices more seriously. We need to put our money where our mouth is and support platforms and makers and creators that align with our values. Vote with your wallet. And when you’re not paying for something, make yourself aware of the terms and conditions. Personally, I will never use a service that asks for my phone number.

We’ve allowed algorithm-driven corporate-controlled social media to become far too powerful. It’s had an immeasurably negative impact on humanity. And we keep voting for people who want to give more power to the corporations who control our sense of reality.

With that said, I’d venture to guess this ban will be short lived. The rational makes complete sense (as SCOTUS has agreed) but politics will have more to say.

You’re absolutely right. Any president (or former president) claiming to have accomplished something when either someone else did it or because it’s a wholly fabricated lie or something never materialized at all is a danger to democracy.

We need stronger standards for our press (and our DOJ / courts) to hold elected officials accountable. It’s also on the people to be more intelligent and not believe everything they read (especially with the loss of fact checking). The lies and misinformation that have become prevalent in nearly all reporting by all media outlets over the past ~8 years is a threat to our democracy and seeds for the unraveling of the nation.

Being that the efforts to reduce nicotine from tobacco began under the Obama administration and have stalled for a variety of reasons, I would say that it’s not fair for any president to claim success with this matter. This is the FDA doing its job. We should give them the 100% of the credit. And that credit given should reflect on the fact that it has taken far too long for them to reach this conclusion. Government moves too slow. Politics gets in the way of making our lives better. We really have o do a better job of paying attention and rejecting conservative (small “c”) ideologies.