US Opinion and Commentary

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Tweet Less, Talk More

Posted December 14th, 2016 at 11:23 am (UTC-4)
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World and political affairs, like close personal relationships, cannot be mediated through tweets, texts, or Facebook postings. During this year’s presidential debates, for example, candidates seemed more eager to utter bite-size quotes suitable for YouTube than engage with each other’s ideas in back-and-forth conversations.

The #NeverTrump Movement

Posted April 11th, 2016 at 12:14 pm (UTC-4)
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After Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump lost the Wisconsin primary to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, it seemed as though some of the air had come out of Trump’s balloon.

Sure, there have been weeks and weeks of criticism from mainstream GOP players, innumerable editorials calling for conservatives to do something, ANYTHING, to end Trump’s bid for the Republican presidential ticket. Journalists have been shamed for not taking his rise seriously— and for creating him by being his echo chamber. Calls have grown for reporters to conduct deeper truth-squadding.

But there appeared to be a new urgency in the form of Twitter feeds (#StopTrump, #NeverTrump) and, on Sunday, a faked cover by The Boston Globe, which imagined the world with Trump as president. Experts are furiously doing math, counting delegates and calculating the various possibilities the final 16 primaries may offer. And campaign operatives are going back to states where caucuses and primaries have already been held, trying to find delegates to sway or steal.

Next week’s New York primary — with 95 delegates at stake — will give us a clearer picture. In the meantime, the knives are out.

Terror on Twitter

Posted December 15th, 2015 at 3:25 pm (UTC-4)
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There’s a growing consensus in Washington that technology firms, especially social media companies, need to do more when it comes to fighting terrorism. During his Oval Office address on terrorism, President Barack Obama told Silicon Valley to make it harder for terrorists to evade detection using technology. Congress also joined in: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) quickly reintroduced a bill that would require social media firms to report “any terrorist activity” — vaguely defined — to the authorities. That Twitter is a favorite tool of Islamic State recruiters is not news. But after the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris, the call to fight ISIS on social media has become more urgent than ever.