Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Elon Musk has the whole world at twitter over his bitcoin bid to buy Twitter. It’s a bitcoin bid because his interest in Twitter seems every bit as impulsive and careless as his interest in that cryptocurrency turned out to be. Menacing Bitcoin Recall that, in February last year, Musk tweeted that Tesla had bought… Read more.
A grifter is as a grifter does. And so Donald J. Trump, the former, twice-impeached president of the United States, is doing this: Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday filed proposed class-action lawsuits targeting Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter and its CEO Jack Dorsey, as well as YouTube and its parent company’s… Read more.
Celebrities vow to quit social media As clickbait goes, celebrities posting tweets pledging to quit social media takes the cake. Pam Anderson is the latest to take the pledge. But in seeking more fame, she just looks lame. Of course, social media platforms are rife with social malignancies, physical dangers, and moral hazards. Thus, if celebrities made public service… Read more.
Calls to boycott Facebook are becoming pandemic among businesses worldwide. Numerous businesses are pausing their advertising campaigns on Facebook (FB) – and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook – to boycott the company’s policies around what content it moderates and how. The campaign, called ‘Stop Hate for Profit,’ and organized by the NAACP, Color for… Read more.
Twitter: the case for banning political ads Last week, Jack Dorsey announced that Twitter would ban all political ads. The media lionized him. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, said political ads, including manipulated videos and the viral spread of misleading information, presented challenges to civic discourse, ‘all at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.’ He… Read more.
It’s plain for all to see that a ‘President Trump’ would lead America down an Orwellian rabbit hole, into a post-fact world where leaders in every facet of life propagate lies as truth and engage in dystopian doublespeak. (“‘October Surprise’: New York Times Publishes (one year of) Trump’s Tax Returns,’” The iPINIONS Journal, October 3, 2016)… Read more.
Frankly, the only thing I found shocking or disappointing about this viral tweet is that it provoked so much genuine outrage. After all, here is how I presaged this years ago in “Twitter Rant: Take 2,” November 27, 2012. ___________________ What is surprising, however, is that erstwhile pillars of Western civilization are taking to Twitter like… Read more.
I’m on record decrying much of social media as little more than a virtual bordello of fame whores. A selfie is not just about adoring one’s own reflection like Narcissus; it’s also about taking a picture of that reflection to publish for all the world to see. But am I the only one who rues… Read more.
For years I’ve been lamenting the trend of purportedly intelligent people attempting to debate topics based on knowledge that extends little beyond trending tweets. I remember well in the late 1990s when, oddly enough, people wanted to appear both hip and intelligent. It seemed de rigueur back then to rave about the brilliance and insightfulness… Read more.
Given the ubiquity of porn and the liberties people take on social networks, the notion that some things are too private to share seems as old-fashioned as bloomers. But what is truly novel is that grownups are competing with teenagers to offend all notions of public decency and discretion in this respect. Imagine what this portends… Read more.
