Is Kamala Harris running for president or prom queen? Superficiality is nothing new in American politics, and Donald Trump certainly knows how to use playground tactics—like tagging opponents with childish, yet effectively humiliating, nicknames. Trump is about much more than taunts, however. From immigration to foreign policy and everywhere in between, he’s staked out clear and controversial positions. The Harris campaign, on the other hand, is trying its best to turn her into a featureless political mannequin. With a little help from friends in media and tech, Harris’ record as President Joe Biden’s “border czar” and America’s “most liberal” senator (according to GovTrack in 2019) is being erased. Wikipedia editors removed Harris from a page listing “executive branch czars,” while GovTrack “retracted” its single-year rankings soon after Biden dropped out of the presidential race and cleared the way for Harris. Aided by the salesmanship of sympathetic journalists, the Harris campaign so far has been all about vibes, not substance. The latest issue of New York Magazine even proclaims “Kamalot,” with a cover blurb boasting, “the Democratic Party discovered its future was actually in the White House all along.” Biden’s bid for a second term wasn’t struggling just because the president is too feeble to campaign. The Biden-Harris record by itself was enough to put the Democrats at a disadvantage. Harris knows her only hope of winning in November is to run on anything but that. Immigration, foreign crises, inflation—Harris is faced with all the failures of the administration she shares with Biden, without having his decades of experience to draw upon. So instead of making issues her signature—other than abortion—she’s conducting her campaign like it’s a deleted scene from “Mean Girls.” Like cliquish teenagers bullying their classmates, the Harris team has taken to labeling their rivals “weird.” Campaign statements and social media posts brand Trump “old and quite weird” and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, “weird” and “creepy.” Neither Republican is any stranger to name-calling, to be sure. Trump delights in it, while Vance has lately been pilloried in the press for remarks he once made about “childless cat ladies who are miserable.” The 2024 election is turning into a high-school popularity contest—who’s sitting at the cool kids’ lunch table? Yet Vance, like Trump, is unmistakably an issues candidate, with a focus on the needs of the working class and the irresponsibility of America’s elites. And his resume is anything but weird: Vance served his country during wartime in the Marines and had a successful business career before becoming a bestselling author. He’s married and the father of three children. Some Democrats might find the fact that Vance is a Catholic convert to be weird, but voters probably won’t—Biden’s Catholic affiliation certainly didn’t do him any harm at the polls. Yet Republican and Democratic tickets this year could both stand to learn, or re-learn, a lesson from 2016. Donald Trump won the White House that year because he gave hope to Americans who’d been written off by the likes of Hillary Clinton, and all too many in the GOP, as “deplorables.” Trump’s base doesn’t just consist of prosperous businessmen and happily married conservative Christians—it includes people who’ve lost jobs to bad trade deals and excessive immigration and lost loved ones or limbs to wars the politicians never knew how to win. Divorced men skew highly Republican; unmarried women, with or without cats, are overwhelmingly Democratic. In other contexts, Democrats pride themselves on being the party of the weird and misfit, the economic underdog and cultural outcast, but Harris is positioning herself as the queen of the in-crowd. The problem with running a campaign like a pep rally is that millions of Americans, especially in some of the mostly tightly contested Rust Belt states, aren’t cool enough for school: They’re adults with adult hardships. They need more than marketing campaigns from the candidates, and if Kamala Harris wants to be president, she’s going to have to talk about immigration, tariffs, the sky-high costs of groceries, housing, and raising a family—things that Vance has been talking about since he wrote “Hillbilly Elegy” and that Trump understood instinctively when he ran against the Republican establishment and beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. The trouble for Harris is that her most enthusiastic supporters are the media’s mean girls, not parents or working-class stiffs, who probably seem “weird” to the kids at places like New York Magazine. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Kamala Harris’ ‘Mean Girls’ Election appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Election Iranterference: Tehran Working to Stop Trump -- By Any Means Necessary

After a week off, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show returned on Monday with Jon Stewart in the anchor seat to recap President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside and Vice President Kamala Harris taking his spot as the Democratic presidential nominee. During a segment with correspondent Josh Johnson, the duo claimed that race-based attacks are all Republicans have and even implied that the party wants to call Harris the N-word. Stewart asked Johnson, who was pretending to be a reporter who had been given insight into GOP strategy towards Harris, “Josh, you’ve been down in D.C. What is the latest, Josh?” Johnson began by claiming that “Kamala Harris is a confusing candidate for Republicans. They feel she's too young to be president, but too old to be a woman.”     He also claimed, “They feel she's too young to be president, but too old to be a woman. But they do have some very promising areas of attack. She's too short. She's bad at video games, all of 'em… Oh, oh, and she laughs funny. You know, the laugh of a drunk girl who lost her purse and then realized she was actually wearing her purse the whole time. America hates that kinda laugh. It's not that funny, Stacey!” Stewart followed up by wondering, “Where do you think the attacks are going to land?” Switching to race, Johnson predicted, “Well, as you mentioned earlier, I really think the winner is going to be: ‘she's black!’ Sorry for yelling. That's how it was said to me.” Johnson then proceeded to rattle off a list of supposed Republican attacks on Harris, “No, they have all kinds of attacks ready. I'm seeing, uh, black. Black. Uh, black woman. I got this one: American-African. Which sounds scary when you flip it like that… they were looking at me when they said this one: ‘Like you, but lady.’ Also got some more: black, blackity black, urban, doesn't crack. At least they know. Ooh, I can't even say this one! Oh, my lord. ‘From Kenya.’ I think that one is leftover from the last time someone was – you know.” When Johnson claims, “I can’t even say this one,” it is clear what he is talking about. No Republican is going to be campaigning on the idea Harris is unqualified to be president because she is black or is fighting the urge to call her the N-word. The comedy shows, however, will continue to lie to their liberal audiences to make them feel better. Here is a transcript for the July 29 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 7/29/2024 11:15 PM ET JON STEWART: For more on the Republican response to Kamala Harris, we go live to Washington, D.C., with senior political correspondent Josh Johnson. Josh, thank you so much! Thanks for joining us! Josh, you’ve been down in D.C. What is the latest, Josh? JOSH JOHNSON: This is a tough one for them, Jon. Kamala Harris is a confusing candidate for Republicans. They feel she's too young to be president, but too old to be a woman. But they do have some very promising areas of attack. She's too short. She's bad at video games, all of 'em. Grand Theft Auto, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Super Mario Party, Mario Party Superstars, Grand Theft Mario Party. Oh, oh, and she laughs funny. You know, the laugh of a drunk girl who lost her purse and then realized she was actually wearing her purse the whole time. America hates that kinda laugh. It's not that funny, Stacey! STEWART: Where do you think the attacks are going to land? JOHNSON: Well, as you mentioned earlier, I really think the winner is going to be: “she's black!” STEWART: Okay. JOHNSON: Sorry for yelling. That's how it was said to me. STEWART: Just yelled, "She's black"? JOHNSON: No, they have all kinds of attacks ready. I'm seeing, uh, black. Black. Uh, black woman. I got this one: American-African. Which sounds scary when you flip it like that. STEWART: Yup, I could see that. I could see that.  JOHNSON: Oh, oh, ooh, they were looking at me when they said this one: "Like you, but lady." Also got some more: black, blackity black, urban, doesn't crack. At least they know. Ooh, I can't even say this one! Oh, my lord. "From Kenya." I think that one is leftover from the last time someone was -- you know. STEWART: Black? JOHNSON: You said it, not me. STEWART: So black on every page? JOHNSON: It's most of the words. STEWART: It's tough. JOHNSON: Yeah. Black to you, Jon.

The Cackling Coven of ABC’s The View largely embraced the new campaign message of Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats of calling any and everything about Republicans “weird.” They praised how “effective” it supposedly was. But, as co-host Joy Behar warned, it opened them up to people putting them under the magnifying glass; which is what NewsBusters will do here, highlighting a lot of their truly weird comments and takes. “I think the problem is that the GOP needs to convince voters that Trump and Vance are regular guys and they're not. They are weird just like they've been called,” proclaimed staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners). She would go on to argue in favor of using the word “weird” because it was “innocuous” and “benign.”     Moderator Whoopi Goldberg boasted: “Well, Democrats seem to have landed on this word that they think sums up the Republican ticket.” “Now, getting to the weird thing that they've really turned on the right, the Harris campaign is really kind of taken that weird. Think about it. People on the right say a lot of weird things,” declared pretend independent Sara Haines. “So, that is why that is so effective, is there is so much weird on the other side. But that pretty much sums it up.” Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin falsely claimed she didn’t like “name-calling” but liked throwing around the word “weird” because, “I don’t see as below the belt.” Behar seemingly knew this blog was coming because she warned the rest of the cast: “I don’t think you should use the word ‘weird.’… [It] opens the door for the other side to say, ‘Well, you think we're weird? Look at you.’” What’s actually weird was Farah Griffin once announcing on the show that she wouldn’t have an issue with her husband having a drunken one-night stand as long as he didn’t fall in love: “I could forgive, like, a drunken hookup mistake. I could not forgive falling in love with someone else." She later doubled down on it, and then explained how to introduce another lover into a relationship.   Alyssa Farah Griffin says she'd be cool with her husband getting drunk and having sex with someone else and not telling her. "I could forgive, like, a drunken hookup mistake. I could not forgive falling in love with someone else." pic.twitter.com/2jemVtYSon — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 6, 2023   Haines also found it “weird” that Republicans didn’t think drag shows were an appropriate place for kids to be. What’s actually weird was Haines once insisting: “So, I've always found everyone belongs at a drag show.” Fake Republican Ana Navarro also weirdly argued that drag shows are fine for kids because drag queens had never killed anyone, which was also a falsehood. Goldberg was arguably the queen of weird on The View. She recently argued that even if President Biden had “pooped his pants” she’d still vote for him, adding that she too had “poopy days all the time.” There was also the time she falsely suggested the Holocaust wasn’t about race and doubled down on it by saying Jews were better at hiding than blacks; that was pretty weird.   Whoopi: "I don't care if [Biden] pooped his pants. I don't care if he can't put a sentence together. Show me he can't do the job, and then I'll say, okay, maybe it's time to go...I have poopy day all the time. All the time." pic.twitter.com/QlMHzH8LF9 — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 8, 2024   As for Hostin, there was the time she weirdly announced that she had inspected Ambassador Nikki Haley’s vagina: “I remember when Hillary Clinton was running, there was a lot of talk about ‘I don't vote for someone just because she has a vagina.’ Well, last I checked Nikki Haley has one too.” And she has repeatedly recounted how she once stole all of her then-boyfriend/now-husband’s phones and threw them onto a highway because he hung up on her once.   Mentally unstable Sunny Hostin retells the story of how she got revenge on her then-boyfriend/now-husband by going into his home, stealing all his phones, and throwing them on the highway to be run over. "If you don't have proper phone etiquette you don't need a phone." pic.twitter.com/hkCGUgCWSY — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 24, 2023   There was also the time the cast had a conversation about if having sex with a ghost counted as cheating and Behar said: “I've had sex with a few ghosts that have got pregnant.” Farah Griffin admitted: “Honestly, I need the positive reinforcement in my life being like ‘oh baby, oh baby’ outside the shower, even if it’s a ghost. I’ll take it.”   "If you have sex with a ghost, do you get pregnant?" - Sara Haines "Is it cheating?" - Alyssa Farah Griffin "You're not cheating if it's a ghost." - Sunny Hostin "I've had sex with a few ghosts that have got pregnant." - Joy Behar "I'm going to let it ride." Whoopi Goldberg pic.twitter.com/jMc92JzyOG — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 20, 2022   In the weird words of Captain America, “I can do this all day.” The transcript is below. Click "expand' to read: ABC’s The View July 30, 2024 11:04:08 a.m. Eastern (…) SUNNY HOSTIN: I think it's just going to get worse. I think that the bar is already low and we've heard the attacks. She didn't earn it. She is a DEI candidate. Some people are calling her crazy. They're calling her dumb. Which is -- WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Don't they do that to women all the time? HOSTIN: All the time and specially, unfortunately women of color. But you know, I think the problem is that the GOP needs to convince voters that Trump and Vance – GOLDBERG: And themselves. HOSTIN: - are regular guys and they're not. They are weird just like they've been called. [Applause] GOLDBERG: Well, Democrats seem to have landed on this word that they think sums up the Republican ticket. [Montage of Democrats calling Republican “weird”] [Cackling laughter from the co-hosts] GOLDBERG: So, I mean really the question is, what on God's green Earth makes them think that taunting people and women in particular -- what makes them think this is going to work for them? SARA HAINES: So, first of all – So before we get to the weird part, I want to talk a little about the laughter. Donald Trump's obsession with the laughter. There was an article in The Atlantic where it says this comes from Trump's upbringing. (…) HAINES: So, he used to say, his father drilled into him laughing is to make yourself vulnerable, it’s to let down your guard in some way. So, Donald Trump thinks laughter is weakness, which is why if you look around you'll have never seen him laugh. HOSTIN: Have you never seen him laugh? ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: I thought about this. I’ve never seen him laugh. He does a smile and he just pauses. I've never seen him laugh. GOLDBERG: He just shows teeth. He doesn’t even smile. HAINES: It’s why he would also like take a joke like at the White House Correspondent Dinner to a point of running for a presidency because that humor is too vulnerable for him. Now, getting to the weird thing that they've really turned on the right, the Harris campaign is really kind of taken that weird. Think about it. People on the right say a lot of weird things. Whether you think of monitoring girls' periods. That's weird. FARAH GRIFFIN: That's weird. HAINES: Banning books. Coming for drag shows. And by the way, if your kid is gay, they're already gay. Like nobody is turning them anything. (…) HAINES: So, that is why that is so effective, is there is so much weird on the other side. But that pretty much sums it up. JOY BEHAR: It doesn't mean the left has to use it. I don't agree with that. I don’t think you should use the word “weird.” Call him what he is, a convicted felon. HOSTIN: Yeah, that's better. I agree with that. [Applause] FARAH GRIFFIN: I think it's both because -- BEHAR: Opens the door for the other side to say, “Well, you think we're weird? Look at you.” It’s to much weird. The name-calling. Take the high road. Get off the weird thing. Just call him what he is. FARAH GRIFFIN: I don't like name-calling. You’re not going to see me do it unless I slip up and I’ll own it. But “weird” I don’t see as below the belt. HAINES: I don’t either. (…) HOSTIN: To Joy's point in terms of this weird thing, because I thought weird was pretty innocuous. So, that felt benign. (…)

A new report from two DEI-driven organizations claims that roughly 10% of the workforce in the commonwealth of Massachusetts has "limited-English proficiency."On Monday, MassINC, a nonprofit that works to promote "inclusive" economic opportunities in Massachusetts, and the UMass Donahue Institute, which wants to "advance equity and social justice" as part of the public and economic outreach for the University of Massachusetts President's Office, published a report calling for better "English for Speakers of Other Languages," or ESOL, services.'Massachusetts cannot continue to fund the world’s illegal and inadmissible migrants. We simply do not have the capability or the funds.'The report claimed that the need for ESOL is "urgent" since some 480,000 Massachusetts residents — roughly 10% of the state's workforce — lack important English-language skills. Such language issues prevent these "newcomers" from reaching "their full potential" and from contributing more substantively "to the commonwealth’s social and economic vitality," the report said. What's more, the report indicated that these numbers might now be passé since they rely on data from 2022. As Massachusetts is the only right-to-shelter state in the union, thousands of illegal immigrants have been transported there from the border in the last few years, causing the migrant population to swell.The immigration population has gotten so out of hand in Massachusetts that far-left Gov. Maura Healey has begun to offer illegal aliens free flights out of her state. "I want to be clear, particularly to people outside of Massachusetts who may have gotten word that this is a place to come, that we do not have room here in Massachusetts," Healey said on Tuesday.Despite the ever-increasing migrant numbers, the MassINC/UMass Donahue Institute report fretted that not enough has been done to accommodate them. "While Massachusetts has developed many creative models to deliver these services, state and federal ESOL spending has not kept pace with the growth of our foreign-born population."The authors of the report also lamented that the state has not catered enough to the needs of migrants, noting that many of them "have limited access to transportation and struggle to find time for classes between work and childcare." Still, the authors believe that increasing migrants' English proficiency by just one level could generate $3 billion in additional earnings, the New York Post said.Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance is less optimistic about the economic advantages of more ESOL programs and services, claiming that they attract more migrants who then further drain a system already stretched too thin. "The report proves what many of us have been fearing for a long time, this is not a sustainable way for the state to operate moving forward," Craney told Blaze News. "Massachusetts cannot continue to fund the world’s illegal and inadmissible migrants. We simply do not have the capability or the funds. Massachusetts is the most generous state for welfare benefits for illegal and inadmissible migrants, and Governor Maura Healey needs to eliminate these magnets that make our state a top destination."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A 16-year-old Brazilian skateboarder competing in the Olympics used her time in the spotlight to highlight her Christian faith.At the Tokyo 2020 Olympiad, skateboarder Rayssa Leal became one of the youngest athletes ever to win a medal in competition when she took home silver in street skateboarding. She was just 13 years old at the time.'For me it is important, I am Christian, I believe a lot in God.'On Sunday, Leal followed up her performance in Tokyo by winning the bronze medal in the same competition in Paris.At one point during the competition, Leal used sign language to communicate what is to her an important truth the entire world needs to hear: "Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life." You can view the video of Leal using sign language to share her Christian faith here.Leal's decision to use her field of play to make an explicit religious message seemingly contradicts Rule 50 of the International Olympic Committee's charter, which states, "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."That prohibition, however, could not stop Leal."I did it because I do it in every competition," she later said, according to a translation of her remarks. "For me it is important, I am Christian, I believe a lot in God. There I asked for strength and sent a message to everyone, that God really is the way, the truth, and the life."I did it in sign language because the microphone probably wouldn’t pick up my voice, so it was the way I found to communicate with everyone. I think that’s very important," she added.The world-famous athlete, who boasts more than 8 million followers on Instagram, even joked about receiving a warning from the IOC for apparently violating Rule 50."Boy, if I got a warning — I don't know yet because it hasn't reached me yet — that's it. If I get a warning, we'll find out later," she said, according to a Brazilian news outlet.To celebrate her bronze medal, Leal posted a picture on Instagram and quoted Joshua 1:9, which says, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Two boxers have caused an uproar after being allowed to compete against women at the Paris Olympics despite having previously failed gender eligibility tests. Both have won gold medals against women at different international boxing competitions.Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu‑ting of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) both were stripped of medals at the 2023 world championships in New Delhi after event organizers — the International Boxing Association — determined the fighters were ineligible.Khelif, 25, was disqualified and lost a gold medal while Lin, 28, lost a bronze. Reuters said IBA President Umar Kremlev at the time told Russian outlet TASS that the boxers had "XY chromosomes." Males have XY chromosomes; females have XX chromosomes.'It's shocking that they were actually allowed to get this far, what is going on?'The IBA has since told the Guardian that it made its decision "following a comprehensive review" and that the decision was "intended to uphold the fairness and integrity of the competition."However, the International Olympic Committee decided to drop the IBA as a governing body in June 2023 and put the IOC's Paris 2024 Boxing Unit in charge. The Paris Boxing Unit's rules have been described as more relaxed, but the IOC still noted in its internal system that the two boxers had prior disqualifications. The IOC said Khelif was "disqualified just hours before her gold medal showdown against Yang Liu at the 2023 world championships in New Delhi, India, after her elevated ­levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria," the Guardian reported. The internal system also acknowledged Lin was "stripped of her bronze medal after failing to meet eligibility requirements based on the results of a biochemical test."In response to controversy, Khelif reportedly blamed a "conspiracy" against Algeria as the reason for any accusations."People have conspired against Algeria so that its flag doesn't get raised, and it doesn't win the gold medal," Khelif said.The IOC has answered questions surrounding the issue, stating that "all athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition's eligibility and entry regulations.""The PBU endeavored to restrict amendments to minimize the impact on athletes' preparation and guaranteeing consistency between Olympic Games," the IOC added.'It is sick and deeply troubling that the IOC is allowing this kind of gender manipulation to take place.'The governing body also said that the PBU decided on the boxing rules based on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which were derived from the Rio 2016 rules.But as videos of Khelif fighting women in the ring began circulating online, viewers from around the world started chiming in with questions surrounding the eligibility of the boxers.Former world champion boxer Barry McGuigan asked: "It's shocking that they were actually allowed to get this far, what is going on?"NCAA swimming champion Kaitlynn Wheeler told Blaze News, "It is sick and deeply troubling that the IOC is allowing this kind of gender manipulation to take place."Wheeler, who works as a women's sports advocate and an ambassador for the Riley Gaines Center, added that the United States "and every other country should immediately boycott and refuse to allow their athletes' lives to be put in harms way."According to NBC News, "Khelif and Lin have both always competed as women, and there’s no indication that either identifies as transgender or intersex, the latter referring to those born with sex characteristics that don’t fit strictly into the male-female gender binary."Khelif is set for a round of 16 preliminary boxing match Thursday against Italian Angela Carini in the women's 66 kg category.Lin will fight Uzbekistan's Sitora Turdibekova in the 57 kg round of 16 on Friday.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France, has garnered much criticism for mocking Christianity — specifically Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper.” Although the creators are “trying to deny it,” Liz Wheeler knows without question that the performance intentionally “blasphemes the Last Supper with satanic imagery.” Yes, the OLYMPICS Did MOCK ‘The Last Supper’ | Ep 4 youtu.be “Jesus and his apostles in the Olympic depiction were replaced by an obese woman and by transgenders,” says Liz, “and if you look really closely, there's also a child in this sexualized scene, and if you look really, really, closely ... the man bending over the child is displaying his genitalia — to be exact, his testicles are hanging out and in full view.” “There was also imagery of the 'Horsemen of Death’ from the book of Revelation,” and “Snoop Dog, who performed at the opening ceremonies ... [wore] a necklace with a demon on it.” “This is spiritual warfare,” Liz assures. “This was never about tolerance or inclusion. These are demons who want to force you to worship Satan.” In the wake of the backlash, some have claimed that the performance is intended to depict “the Olympic gods,” but to that Liz says, “No, no, this is false,” reading a Tweet from @pedrogabwriter, who analyzed the entire performance and found the exact moments that disprove this assertion: “Check the 1:54:50 landmark. Look at how the camera pans and how the various actors pose and place themselves on frame. It is obviously a throwback to da Vinci’s representation of the Last Supper. ... The Dionysius [Olympic gods] motif only happens at the 2:38:39 landmark.” In response to the widespread negative reaction, the International Olympic Committee issued the following statement: — (@) “International Olympic Committee, you are lying,” says Liz. “You did not apologize because you're not sorry. We know it was intentional bigotry against Christians in the name of the communist religion of DEI.” Following the opening ceremony, there was a “total power outage [where] the city was blacked out,” and “then the first gold medal of the Paris games was won by American swimmer Katie Ledecky, who's devoutly Catholic.” Coincidence? “Maybe. Maybe not,” says Liz. To hear more of Liz’s analysis, watch the episode above. Want more from Liz Wheeler?To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

It’s an open question whether social media, which has created the most expansive public square in history, has been a good thing for humanity. On the one hand, it has allowed companies and organizations an easy way to get their messages out, and it has also made it easier than ever for like-minded people to connect and create social communities that span the globe. The benefit provided to society has definitely been tempered with some negative effects. Scams, hustles, screen addiction, partisan censorship, and other evils have at various times infested the medium. One problem in particular has potentially gotten worse as a result of social media: child exploitation.Over the last two years, a number of state governments opened investigations into social media companies in response to widespread reports of inappropriate content and even sexual propositions being pushed on children’s accounts.'Meta has been pushing sexualized content to all their users for some time.'One of the first recent investigations was conducted by the New Mexico attorney general’s office in late 2023. The investigation attempted to determine how Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) fed their content to kids.Using test profiles that purported to be children (including both teens and preteens), the state office found that their accounts were exposed to pornography and were sought out by online predators as well.According to reporting by the Verge, an account that was pretending to be a 13-year-old girl somehow managed to attract 6,700 followers on Instagram, most of whom were adult males. About three or four times per week, the account would receive messages that included “pictures and videos of genitalia, including exposed penises.”The outlet stated that the “dummy” account also reported many of the predator accounts to the offending platform, but Meta determined there were not any violations of its community standards.As a result of this investigation, the New Mexico attorney general sued Meta, saying “platforms Facebook and Instagram are a breeding ground for predators who target children for human trafficking, the distribution of sexual images, grooming, and solicitation.”“Teens and preteens can easily register for unrestricted accounts because of a lack of age verification. When they do, Meta directs harmful and inappropriate material at them,” the lawsuit also stated.A Meta spokesperson responded by suggesting, contrary to the evidence, that the company’s technology and tools were sufficient to find and expose predators on the platform.“We use sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators,” Meta said.Just days later, Kathleen Blunt of the Wall Street Journal released a report on her own months-long investigation into similar activities on Meta platforms. She shared her findings on Marketplace Tech and noted how quickly her test accounts were shown explicit content.Blunt said the speed at which Instagram’s algorithm began recommending sex content related to children as well as adults was “quite surprising.”Not only that, but she noted that the sexually explicit content was also monetized. Groups with obviously disturbing names like “Little girls” and “Beautiful boys” were reportedly recommended to Blunt’s dummy accounts by Facebook’s algorithms. There was even a group labelled “Incest” that the researchers found. When the researchers reported the group internally to Meta, the social media giant allegedly said the group didn’t go against community standards.According to Blunt, Meta claimed that it organized an internal task force to focus on these problems and manually remove “problematic” accounts on a large scale. It once again claimed, as it did in response to the New Mexico investigation, that it had been using technology to try to solve the problem by trying to determine how much a user has been looking at specific groups or engaging with child accounts. Meta also claimed it has also been removing hashtags relating to pedophilia.Meta’s struggles to control predators, however, have been complicated by an entirely different problem: parents who are profiting off sexual content featuring their own children. Troublingly, according to February 2024 report from the Wall Street Journal, Meta has been knowingly allowing parents to profit from this despicable practice. According to the report, certain “parent-managed minor accounts” allegedly sold materials to audiences of adult men that included photos of their children in revealing attire, exclusive chat sessions, and used clothing such as leotards and cheerleading outfits.The report went on to claim that Meta staff were aware that these parents had sexual conversations about their own children and even sometimes made them interact with sexual messages sent by subscribers.The New York Times conducted its own investigation into the parent-run accounts, noting that they can earn up to $3,000 for a single post. The report said that branded posts on Instagram get a boost from the platform’s algorithm, which only amplifies the accounts to more predators.The reports were so damning to the social media giant that Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan sent letters to TikTok, X, and Meta demanding to know whether the platforms monetize young girls’ accounts and whether they were aware of children circumventing the age requirements. Meta responded to the New York Times about the allegations, saying the company “prevent[s] accounts exhibiting potentially suspicious behavior from using our monetization tools, and we plan to limit such accounts from accessing subscription content.”Perhaps not surprisingly, not many people's fears were assuaged by these reassurances from Meta, and investigations into child predator behavior online continued. It didn’t take long for researchers to find out that, in spite of Meta’s promises, not much had changed. The Wall Street Journal conducted another investigation to test Meta’s response in a joint effort with Northeastern University professor Laura Edelson. The investigation once again set up new test accounts that pretended to be a child just 13 years old.Their research found that Instagram began pushing sexual content from adults to the young teenage accounts within the first three to four minutes. It took just another 20 minutes for the algorithm to populate the feed with promotions from explicit adult creators, some of whom sold nude photos.The outlet reported that similar tests on other platforms like Snapchat and TikTok did not yield the same results for an underage account.“Even the adult experience on TikTok appears to have much less explicit content than the teen experience on [Instagram],” Edelson reported.In response, Meta defended itself more strenuously than it had against previous accusations.“This was an artificial experiment that doesn’t match the reality of how teens use Instagram,” spokesman Andy Stone claimed.“As part of our long-running work on youth issues, we established an effort to further reduce the volume of sensitive content teens might see on Instagram, and have meaningfully reduced these numbers in the past few months,” he stated.Tech policy expert and child safety advocate Rick Lane told Blaze News that entities like Meta, Reddit, and Google have known about these dangers since their companies started, and they’re only getting worse.Government interventionIn March 2023, the government of Utah banned social media for those under 18 without parental permission, before the majority of these reports surfaced. The Utah Social Media Regulation act implemented the following restrictions: age verification on social media, a ban on ads for minors, and social media curfew that made the sites off limits for minors after 10:30 p.m. until 6:30 a.m.Under the legislation, social networks were also required to give parents access to their teens’ accounts, CNN reported.In March 2024, Florida followed suit when it banned social media for those under 14, making 14- and 15-year-olds acquire parental permission to use the platforms, as well. As the government responds to the ongoing threat, determining the appropriate government response can be a challenge. Many observers believe that it is time to impose absolute age limits on social media in the same way that government does for things like nicotine or alcohol.“There are always going to be bad actors and predators on these social media sites, but Meta has been pushing sexualized content to all their users for some time,” Return’s Peter Gietl explained.“Instagram seems to be devolving into soft-core porn for a lot of users. I would absolutely be in favor of a minimum age requirement, not only because of the sexualized content but also because of the extremely deleterious affect it has on the mental health of preteens and teenagers,” he added. BlazeTV contributor and mother Sara Gonzales staunchly said her children do not have access to social media. She called the dangers of these platforms “obvious” and said that the platforms “absolutely do not” do enough to prevent sexual content from making its way to children.“The real problem in this country is that parents so willingly hand their young, impressionable children access to such dangerous content for the sake of convenience,” she added.Lane, however, said that despite the reality of child sexual exploitation online, he doesn’t think banning children from social networks is the solution. At the same time, he called for sites to include age-appropriate features and safety mechanisms from their inception.So long as children are exploited or groomed online, there will not be an end to calls for action in regard to age limitations.It is time for a national discussion surrounding a cost/benefit analysis of children being on social media. Given the sheer number of problems it has caused and the reality of generations before them surviving just fine without it, it is hard to imagine any plausible benefit it has for our youth.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday that Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, had agreed to a record settlement over unauthorized capture of biometric data. "After vigorously pursuing justice for our citizens whose privacy rights were violated by Meta's use of facial recognition software, I'm proud to announce that we have reached the largest settlement ever obtained from an action brought by a single State," read a statement from Paxton. 'Any abuse of Texans' sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law.' Texas accused Meta of violating Texans' rights after it turned on a feature on Facebook that would tag identities to photographs on accounts in 2011. The capture of facial features without consent of the user was prohibited in Texas according to the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act that was signed in 2009. "Unbeknownst to most Texans, for more than a decade Meta ran facial recognition software on virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the facial geometry of the people depicted," read the statement from Paxton's office. Meta will pay the record settlement of $1.4 billion over five years.Paxton said it was the largest privacy settlement obtained by an attorney general from a company since a group of 40 states obtained a $390 million settlement from Google in 2022. "This historic settlement demonstrates our commitment to standing up to the world's biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating Texans' privacy rights," concluded Paxton. "Any abuse of Texans' sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!