On Friday, Donald Trump said he would ban TikTok in the United States. There’s a lot more going on here than meets the eye — including a flex to show power to other social networks. Would a shutdown order be legal? There are obvious First Amendment reasons to object to the shutdown of a social…
Good morning Mr. President. Let’s go. Sure. My job this morning is to administer this cognitive test. Shouldn’t take more than about 15 minutes. Most people do fine on this. So let’s get started, shall we? Great. I’m ready. Always ready. I see you’re wearing a mask. I hope that doesn’t mean you’re biased against…
Now that Donald Trump is presiding over a public health and economic catastrophe of historic proportions, it would seem that it should be easy for Joe Biden to win reelection. But of course, if Trump is the opponent, you can take nothing for granted. Trump’s modus operandi, as explained by former advisor Steve Bannon, is…
Beware percentages of increase and decrease. They don’t behave in an intuitive way — because of the “battle of the shifting base.” According to a tweet by our president, we’ve had “A Tenfold Decrease In Mortality” from COVID-19. While there’s a lot wrong with this tweet — here’s a fact check on why the statement…
Boycotts rarely work. But in the face of advertiser boycotts, Facebook just did a U-turn on its policy on labelling or blocking presidential posts. The cause and effect here is a lot more complex than it appears. As recently as the beginning of June, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the right decision on presidential posts,…
Who will win the the 2020 presidential election? Right now, with Donald Trump plummeting in polls, the best guess would be Joe Biden. But there is a scenario that could reverse that trend. I present this, not a prediction, but as provocative analysis, food for thought. Ask yourself this first: why is Trump falling behind?…
President Trump signed an executive order yesterday that would change the government’s stance on social networks. Let’s look at the portions that make sense, and the portions that are unhinged raving. I’ll start with this. Social networks need regulation. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are spreading disinformation and dividing America. Now that Twitter has added content…
President Trump actually suggested injecting disinfectant to cure coronavirus. On its face, this statement is so incendiary and dangerous that it demands dissection. What did he actually say, in what context, and what did he mean? The president says many batshit things which, on closer examination, appear to be just rambling of some kind which,…
The Trump Administration published a set of guidelines for restarting economic activity after the global pandemic. They’re so squishy that they’re meaningless. This set of guidelines follows a dizzying set of stances from the President, starting with Trump’s statement Tuesday that he had the absolute authority to order states to “reopen.” That flew in the…