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technology
'Major Blow to Freedom of Expression': US Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban
One ACLU campaigner blasted the justices for "giving the executive branch unprecedented power to silence speech it doesn't like."
Jan 17, 2025
The United States Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a federal law banning TikTok if its Chinese parent company does not sell the popular social media app by Sunday.
The justices ruled in TikTok v. Garland, an unsigned opinion, that "Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok's data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary."
"The problem appears real and the response to it not unconstitutional," the high court wrote. "Speaking with and in favor of a foreign adversary is one thing. Allowing a foreign adversary to spy on Americans is another."
President Joe Biden
signed legislation last April forcing ByteDance, which owns TikTok, to sell the app to a non-Chinese company within a year or face a nationwide ban. Proponents of the ban cited national security concerns, while digital rights and free speech defenders condemned the law.
Approximately 170 million Americans use TikTok, which is especially popular with younger people and small-to-medium-sized businesses, and contributes tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy annually.
The ACLU—which this week calledTikTok v. Garland "one of the most important First Amendment cases of our time"—condemned Friday's decision as "a major blow to freedom of expression online."
"The Supreme Court's ruling is incredibly disappointing, allowing the government to shut down an entire platform and the free speech rights of so many based on fear-mongering and speculation," ACLU National Security Project deputy director Patrick Toomey said in a statement.
"By refusing to block this ban, the Supreme Court is giving the executive branch unprecedented power to silence speech it doesn't like, increasing the danger that sweeping invocations of 'national security' will trump our constitutional rights," Toomey added.
The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said in response to Friday's ruling, "We are deeply disappointed that the court failed to require the strict First Amendment scrutiny required in a case like this, which would've led to the inescapable conclusion that the government's desire to prevent potential future harm had to be rejected as infringing millions of Americans' constitutionally protected free speech."
"We are disappointed to see the court sweep past the undisputed content-based justification for the law—to control what speech Americans see and share with each other—and rule only based on the shaky data privacy concerns," EFF added.
The Biden administration
said Friday that it would leave enforcement of any ban up to the incoming Trump administration.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Republican U.S President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to take office next week, is weighing an executive order to suspend enforcement of the ban for 60-90 days.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who earlier this week introduced a bill to delay ByteDance's sale deadline until October, said Friday: "I am deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the TikTok ban. I am not done fighting to pass my 270-day extension. We need more time."
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Zuckerberg Extols 'Masculine Energy' in Corporate America as Meta Kills DEI Programs
"Remember, Zuckerberg built Facebook not for social connection but to rate the hotness of his female college mates," noted one critic.
Jan 11, 2025
As numerous U.S. corporations bend to the right with the political winds swirling around Republican President-elect Donald Trump's imminent return to power, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is following up on his company's termination of its fact-checking program by ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and praising "masculine energy" in corporate America.
"I think a lot of the corporate world is, like, pretty culturally neutered," Zuckerberg said during an interview with the eponymous host of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast on Friday. Meta is the parent company of social platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Explaining that he has "three sisters, no brothers" and "three daughters, no sons," Zuckerberg continued: "So I'm, like, surrounded by girls and women, like, my whole life. And it's like...I don't know, there's something, the kind of masculine energy, I think, is good."
"And obviously, you know, society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was really like trying to get away from it," he said. "And I do think that... all these forms of energy are good. And I think having a culture that, like, celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive."
The tech industry is built on 'masculine energy', a bro--no girls allowed--culture. Remember Zuckerberg built Facebook not for social connection but to rate the hotness of his female college mates. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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— Amy Diehl, Ph.D. (@amydiehl.bsky.social) January 11, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Zuckerberg elaborated:
I do think that if you're a a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it's too masculine. Right? And it's like there isn't enough of the kind of the energy that you may naturally have. And it probably feels like there are all these things that are set up that are biased against you. And that's not good either, 'cause you want women to be able to succeed.
But I think these things can... go a little far. And I think it's one thing to say we want to be kind of, like, welcoming and make a good environment for everyone. And I think it's another to basically say that masculinity is bad. And I, I just think we kind of swung culturally to that part of the... spectrum where, you know, it's all like, okay, masculinity is toxic. We have to, like, get rid of it completely.
No... Both of these things are good, right? It's like, you want, like, feminine energy, you want masculine energy... I think that that's all good. But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung towards being this somewhat more neutered thing. And I didn't really feel that until I got involved in martial arts, which I think is still a more, much more masculine culture.
While some social media observers attributed Zuckerberg's shift to factors like "the power of gym bro masculinity," others noted the rightward shift in corporate America accompanying Trump's White House return and Republicans' control of both houses of Congress.
"Zuck is a Cuck": Meta's Billionaire Bends The Knee to MAGA Mark Zuckerberg joins a rogue's gallery of billionaires capitulating to Donald Trump's threats and promoting MAGA's agenda against truth, democracy, and diversity for the sake of self-preservation. thelefthook.substack.com/p/zuck-is-a-...
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— Wajahat Ali (@wajali.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the wave of companies ending or dialing back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The growing list includes McDonald's, Walmart, Boeing, Molson Coors, Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Amazon, and—as of Friday—Meta.
According to an internal memo from Meta vice president of human resources Janelle Gale viewed by several media outlets, Meta is immediately ending DEI programs in hiring, training, and supplier selection because the "legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing."
"The term 'DEI' has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others," Gale explained.
Meta's move follows Tuesday's announcement that the company is ending its third-party fact-checking program because it is "too politically biased" and replacing it with community notes à la X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk, who will co-chair the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency.
The announcement also said Meta "will be moving the trust and safety teams that write our content policies and review content out of California to Texas and other U.S. locations."
As part of its broad new "free expression" policy, Meta will also permit certain speech widely considered hateful by human rights defenders.
According to training materials
viewed byThe Intercept and other media outlets, Meta users will be able to say things like "immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit," "Black people are more violent than whites," "Italians are dickheads," women are "household objects" or "property," and transgender people are mentally ill. Calling trans people "trannies" or "it" is now also acceptable on Meta sites.
I got a warning for posting "you are an evil man" to Zuck but not for posting "you are a degenerate tranny." Real nice system they have at Meta.
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— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) January 10, 2025 at 7:50 PM
The New York Timesreported Friday that Meta has ordered its offices in Silicon Valley, New York, and Texas to remove the tampons which had been offered to transgender and nonbinary employees who use men's restrooms. The report also said that Meta has removed trans and nonbinary themes from its Messenger chat app.
Zuckerberg has also appointed UFC CEO Dana White, a friend and supporter of Trump, to Meta's board of directors,
explaining, "I've admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand."
These moves followed a November meeting between Trump and Zuckerberg at the former's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, after which Meta reportedly also gave $1 million to the president-elect's inauguration fund.
Zuckerberg's alignment with key elements of Trumpism represents a stark departure from just a few months ago, when, in a new book, Trump accused him of inimical "plotting" during the 2020 election and said he threatened to imprison the tech billionaire for life if he did so again in 2024.
Now, Zuckerberg's blasting outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden. He told Rogan Friday that during the coronavirus pandemic, Biden administration officials would "call up and, like, scream... and curse" at Meta leaders over Covid-19 misinformation.
Some internet users poked fun at Meta's new policies, with one popular meme satirically claiming that Zuckerberg "died of coronavirus and complications from syphilis."
Who needs dumb old facts anyways?
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— JonZoidberg ( @jonzoidberg.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 8:42 PM
But others took a more serious view of Zuckerberg's about-face, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asserting this week that "these changes reveal that Meta seems less interested in freedom of expression as a principle and more focused on appeasing the incoming U.S. administration."
"Meta has long been criticized by the global digital rights community, as well as by artists, sex worker advocacy groups, LGBTQ+ advocates, Palestine advocates, and political groups, among others," EFF added. "A corporation with a history of biased and harmful moderation like Meta [needs] a careful, well-thought-out, and sincere fix that will not undermine broader freedom of expression goals."
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Why the Typewriter Resurgence Matters for Democracy
From Taylor Swift to Tom Hanks, typewriters are cool again, signaling that we're all searching for ways to break free from the reactive and often toxic impulses of communication through our screens.
Jan 07, 2025
When Katharine Tito approached the vintage typewriter at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, skepticism was written across her face. Though she'd spotted typewriters in thrift stores, she'd never actually used one. As a graphic design student immersed in digital tools, the mechanical contraption before her seemed like a relic. But as she began typing people's messages to the President of the United States for my "I Wish to Say" project, something shifted. Her fingers found their rhythm on the keys, and her expression transformed.
"It's different from anything I've experienced," she told me. "Each keystroke feels weighty, permanent. You can't just delete and start over. You have to think about every word. Sometimes people would talk too fast, and I'd have to tell them, 'You've got to slow down because I can only go so quickly.'" As I watched students gather around her desk, drawn by the hypnotic clacking of keys, I witnessed a revelation I've seen countless times: the moment people discover the power of slowing down to truly engage with their thoughts and words.
This transformation isn't happening in isolation. On the eve of World Typing Day tomorrow, we're witnessing a typewriter renaissance. Taylor Swift captures the romance and allure of typewriters in her songs and videos. Retro typewriter fonts dominate Instagram. Tom Hanks is showcasing vintage typewriters from his personal collection at a New York exhibition, while customers flock to specialty shops like Philly Typewriter, craving something more real than pixels.
The 2024 presidential election laid bare what my typewriter has shown me all along—beneath the predictions of seismic political shifts, we remain a nation divided by the thinnest of margins.
This resurgence reflects a more profound cultural shift. In an era of rapid-fire texts and tweets, hot takes on social media, and barking demands at Siri and Alexa, people are yearning for more deliberate forms of communication and connection. I've seen this hunger grow over two decades of "I Wish to Say," as I set up my pop-up desk in libraries, schools, and town squares across America. From the presidency of George W. Bush through Joe Biden's term, I've invited people to dictate their hopes and fears, their dreams and demands. The experience transforms both me and the speaker. As words are deliberately pressed into paper, I watch people pause, reconsider their phrasing, and weigh the permanence of their message. The steady rhythm of metal striking paper—that distinctive clack-clack-ding—seems to create a space for reflection that our digital devices rarely allow.
This practice of what I call "radical listening"—deeply engaging with another person's words as you type them—offers a powerful antidote to our current political polarization. When someone participates in "I Wish to Say," I absorb everything: their words, their body language, the way they prepare themselves before beginning to dictate. The typewriter creates a unique space of trust—as they watch and hear their words being struck into paper, one letter at a time, they know they're truly being heard. Some have likened it to therapy, this experience of having someone listen with such complete attention.
I've seen its particular relevance on college campuses. One week after the 2024 election, I set up my typewriter at Scripps College in Southern California. The campus was tense, emotions raw. Student after student approached my desk, their concerns for the future were palpable. But something transformed as they watched their words appear on paper. One student reflected on the catharsis of the experience."I feel something," she said. "I can't quite tell you what it is, but I feel good."
What I've learned through thousands of these exchanges is acute: You never really know what someone thinks until you sit down and truly listen. In our era of instant reactions and digital silos, this kind of deep listening has become increasingly rare—and increasingly vital.
The typewriter renaissance isn't an isolated phenomenon—it's part of a broader return to real-world connections. Across the country, young people are seeking alternatives to the exhausting cycle of social media discourse and genuine bonding. Running groups are replacing swipe-right romance. Reading parties in public spaces are drawing crowds. Gen Z players are flocking to old-school chess, mahjong, and backgammon clubs, drawn to the thrill of face-to-face competition. Screen-free cafes are becoming sanctuaries of uninterrupted conversation and deep thought. These shifts speak to something we all know deep down: IRL moments beat scrolling every time.
Two decades of typing other people's words have revealed a fundamental truth about communication—and democracy. The 2024 presidential election laid bare what my typewriter has shown me all along—beneath the predictions of seismic political shifts, we remain a nation divided by the thinnest of margins. The historically narrow House majority and razor-thin popular vote aren't just statistics. They reflect a nation that desperately needs new ways to bridge its differences. The typewriter, with its demanding presence and unforgiving permanence, shows us a new way forward: Slow down before you speak, choose your words with care, and embrace the transformative power of truly listening to another person's perspective.
These lessons extend far beyond the typewriter itself. In our civic discourse, our professional lives, and our personal relationships, we're all searching for ways to break free from the reactive and often toxic impulses of communication through our screens. Sometimes the most radical act is simply to pause, to consider our words carefully, and to create space for genuine dialogue—one metaphorical keystroke at a time.
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