Me. Leftish, Gen-X, Vaguely Southern, Sober, Chaotic Good, Player of infinite games, enjoying every sandwich. vlvtelvis.bsky.social
Murfreesboro Tennessee
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RT @TaylorLorenz: Meta's $17 billion settlement with the states is all over the news, and almost every story misleads the public on what th…
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RT @TaylorLorenz: They’re trying to fully break encryption as well and criminalize encrypted messaging. Anyone who believes any of this is…
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J. Neal retweeted
This settlement — and the litigation that led to it — was effectively a backdoor effort by the government to mandate age verification. It succeeded.
Now Meta is pressuring TikTok and YouTube to voluntarily adopt the same requirements and restrictions found in its settlement.
It’s hard to know whether that pressure stems from genuine concern for kids or Meta’s own bottom line. Some of the restrictions it agreed to could put it at a competitive disadvantage unless its rivals follow suit.
Nevertheless, few people are talking about the free speech and privacy implications of the settlement — including for adults, who are on the fast track to having to verify their identity before accessing vast swaths of the internet, including this website.
It just so happens that earlier this week I hosted a @freespeechtalk debate on this very topic, where we also touched on the AG’s lawsuit against Meta:
Meta will enforce a two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook for children as part of a record $17.1B settlement with 29 states over social media addiction claims:
• The “Productive Pauses” for children include mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling
• “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
• Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year
• Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users
• Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm
• Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls
• Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens
• Both the implementation and effectiveness of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states
variety.com/2026/digital/new…
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RT @TaylorLorenz: 1908: the Lancet, one of the most respected scientific journals, calls for 18 age limit on reading in bed amidst a moral…
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RT @TaylorLorenz: It’s devastating how little people are talking about this
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J. Neal retweeted
We found a German village in the mountains of North Georgia lol
I feel right at home😍
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Tenn. Rep. Justin Jones burnt a photo of a Confederate flag as the state's legislature approved new congressional district maps. The redistricting effort was led by Tenn. Republicans, with the goal of making all 9 congressional seats favorable for the party.
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Imagine writers at 80s zines like Maximum Rock-n-roll, Flipside, Forced Exposure, or Bucketfull of Brains defending radio pay‑to‑play. That would have been absurd, because those publications defined themselves against exactly that sort of industry corruption. Today’s so‑called ‘indie’ rock culture, by contrast, rarely challenges the underlying systems at all. Its rebellion is mostly cosmetic: gross, nihilistic gestures rather than any real structural opposition. It’s a degraded form of counterculture: it wears the costume of resistance while living in a mutually beneficial relationship with the same institutions it pretends to resist.
I say this as a 65 year old semi retired indie rocker who is much more interested in plain old regular culture rather than counterculture. I just think it's really funny what has happened.
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It's an impulse control disorder akin to compulsive gambling or sex addiction. It's definitely not the same as chemical dependency.
“As for social media ‘addiction’ there literally is no such thing. No diagnosis for that. Social media is not remotely the same as alcohol, nicotine, or heroin. There is no such thing as ‘dopamine hits’ which is merely pseudo-science sounding garnish on a load of served-up crap” grimoiremanor.substack.com/p…
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J. Neal retweeted
Inconvenient truth:
Corporately owned hospitals, providers, admin costs and doctor salaries are a bigger part of the blame than health insurance companies which are usually operating at pretty slim margins around 1-3%
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J. Neal retweeted
strange. fabric doesn't normally fall like that across an arm.
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the UK's Online Safety Act has banned websites for being LGBT friendly, reddits on helping you stop smoking, a website that helps you with crafting patterns for beadwork, and a website dedicated to hamster care.
how is any of this protecting kids??
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Yes, these are the racists buying TN elections from out of state. These are not the values of most Tennesseans. Note to politicians, if you allow racists to fuel your campaign-it tells us all we need to know about you.
New post, from us: “Guy Banned from @CNN for Racism Bragged About Replacing 33% Of WILLIAMSON COUNTY’s @WCSedu School Board”
Ryan Girdusky’s problematic past before his comments to @mehdirhasan have some wondering what he was doing on air to begin with. tnholler.com/2024/10/guy-ban…
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People are about to find out just how much restraint AOC has shown over the past few years. I think she's done with that.
And which rally was that, @ADL?
The way this organization consistently bends over backwards to mollify Trump yet always finds a way to call out the only Palestinian in Congress by name sends its message loud and clear. And it isn’t one of integrity. Really sad to see.
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My heart!! 🥺
My friend said her son Marco has been growing his hair out for a special Halloween outfit. When they ask me what I do and who I do it for, it’s for the children.
Here’s also a good reminder to get out to vote and keep up the good trouble y’all!! ✊🏾📢🗳️💛
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Vanderbilt is going to party so hard tonight that an entire generation of future doctors will be slightly dumber
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Tennessee's Medicaid program, TennCare, just got hammered in a federal court ruling. Judge says, after years of litigation, class-action plaintiffs have "proven" TennCare violated the Medicaid Act, Americans With Disabilities Act and 14th Amendment. documentcloud.org/documents/…
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