It's bad example season on the local airwaves. Some of you might prefer its other moniker, primary season.
Once primary season was a time to figure out who you liked to move forward into the general election. The problem with that is most candidates are claiming to be the biggest jerk because the biggest jackass seems to be what many Americans want to vote for today.
But not most. Ask the residents of Mar-a-Lago and surrounding district. They just elected a Democrat in a special election to fill a state house seat.
But I digress. I may mute the sound when one of these campaign ads comes on my tv or radio, but I do appreciate the opportunity to point out bad examples to the young folk when the opportunity arises. I want my grandkids to know what kind of person not to be and it's pretty easy when they're right there on tv hollerin "look at me! I'm a racist woman hater terrified of guys in dresses!"
But all this muting is hurting my thumb, so I'm already ready for bad example season to be over.
There are good things happening. Just this week, Meta (not the one between Gulnare and Canada) was found guilty by a jury of consciously making itself addicting to young people with Facebook and Youtube. Another jury, just the day before, determined the corporation was guilty of causing harm to children in New Mexico.
That's the same Meta that gave millions to the Trump campaign in the last election. You can guarantee when they appeal both of these verdicts they'll argue they should not be held responsible for monitoring what people watch or how much they watch it.
That might be an argument if they weren't voluntarily doing exactly that so they can maximize income by manipulating your feed and selling your scrolling habits to third parties. How do you think those ads for something you want magically show up?
The truth is they know everything you do with no effort at all. The basics of internet technology gives it to them, all Meta has to do is bundle the information and put a price on it.
Meta will appeal the judgements and you can bet the Justice Department will support those appeals. This administration has an understanding with billionaire child abusers. Ultimately, the case will get to the Supreme Court and all bets are off with the best court money can buy.
They're going to be busy, because there are several similar cases underway or on dockets against Facebook. What we really need is more legislators willing to put guardrails on what social media can retain and sell. It's definitely time to get privacy out of the marketplace.
Speaking of, it's become clear DOGE potentially shared millions of Americans' social security information on the open market while Elon Musk called the shots. Only sharing one is a felony.
It's time for a certain South African citizen to answer for profiting from the private information of American citizens. Just thought I'd bring it up since it's bad example season.