Social media as crack?

Oakland’s been in the national news lately but it’s not because of our horrendous homelessness or crime or the scandals plaguing City Hall. Instead, it’s because the big Meta trial is underway at the Federal courthouse, on Clay Street. The legal issue is, are Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram addictive like drugs? Or are they just harmless amusements that millions of kids like?

Far be it from me to try to define addiction. When I was a kid, “addict”meant drug addict, as in heroin. We knew what that meant: the drug somehow physically altered the body’s biochemistry so that the user needed it constantly or else suffered from some kind of withdrawal. Eventually, we heard about alcohol addicts (alcoholics), and nicotine addicts, and then chocoholics, until nearly everything that I enjoy was said to be some kind of addiction. I love to read: am I addicted to reading? Are fans of the Forty Niners addicts? Are bird watchers addicts? Are we addicted to breathing? You can see the complications.

It will be interesting if Meta loses the lawsuit. But Meta has some logic on its side. Nobody forces anyone to access social media, which, like anything else, can be abused. On the other hand, the accusations against Meta, particularly the teenaged suicides allegedly causes by social media addiction, are serious and heartbreaking. Did Meta know they were creating something as addictive and harmful as fentanyl? If they did, should they be punished and, if so, how? What is the responsibility of parents? And another question: Can Mark Zuckerberg get a fair trial, in a day and age where millions of Americans apparently hate billionaires?

I have some experience of this personally. I like watching Facebook videos, which they call Reels. I can spend a couple hours mindlessly scrolling through them. Of course, Meta knows what I like, and so their algorithm gives me a steady supply. I enjoy Paul Lynde videos from his days on Hollywood Squares (he was the most “out” gay on TV, except maybe for Liberace). I also like videos where criminals try to escape from cops, only to be tased, tackled or taken down by a K9 dog. If I don’t care for a particular video, I can quickly scroll through and find something better. I’m not pretending that watching Reels is some kind of high-level intellectual pastime. But it’s fun, and doesn’t hurt anybody.

If Meta loses, the implications are enormous. The entire social media superstructure could be threatened, which is to say the Internet itself. A Meta loss would mean that anybody who feels harmed by anything on social media could sue the publisher and have a plausible chance of winning. This is obviously going to the Supreme Court regardless of the lower court’s ruling, and I can’t see this conservative SCOTUS ruling against a corporation. Instead, the majority likely will conclude that Meta has free speech rights (“corporations are people too, my friend,” as Mitt Romney sagely observed) and dismiss complaints against it.

At any rate, the social media horse is out of the barn. I’d love to be alive in, say, fifty years to see what it evolves into, and how we humans deal with it. This doesn’t even take into account artificial intelligence. I have no idea what kind of strange future is awaiting us. But one thing I do know is that there have been many, many technological advancements in human history that pundits predicted would be the end of life as we know it. Many mainstream Christians of the fifteenth century worried that Gutenberg’s printing press spelled the end of human thinking. Early last century, the American humorist, Ambrose Bierce, called the telephone—then just starting to become popular—”an invention of the devil.” With more than a century of experience, we might now ask, Was he right? Is it too soon to know? Is social media “an invention of the devil”? What does that even mean, anyway?

Well, we’ve adapted to the discovery of fire, and the wheel, and gunpowder, and we’re still here. All have threatened humanity. But humans are clever enough to survive most threats, and I suspect we’ll get through this social media conundrum just fine. Whether it’s good for young people to spend all their time staring into their phones is another question. I think, personally, it’s a drag, but maybe I’m just a Luddite.

Steve Heimoff

Those electric gloves

I probably watch too many cop videos, but I admit to having great satisfaction when I see a thug try to get away in a police chase, and then get tackled by a big, burly cop, or a K9 dog, or taken down by a taser. All too often in places like Oakland, thugs get away with crime and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. No disrespect to our cops, whose hands are tied by the courts, understaffing and by rogue police watchdog agencies, like the Oakland Police Commission. Which is why it’s so nice to see at least some of these criminals get busted.

There was one video where a scantily clad woman, who looked like she’d been working the streets as a prostitute, was repeatedly warned by the cops to stop resisting arrest and comply. She refused, multiple times, getting angrier and more violent with each passing moment. Finally, a cop says, “I’ve had enough,” and pepper sprays the lady in the face. Ouch! That had to hurt. But the lady continued to kick and scream and curse and spit, so the cops eventually placed her under arrest, and I sincerely hope she got jail time.

We might as well admit that there’s a revolt going on in America against civil authority. Too many deranged people think they can do anything they want, including attacking cops, and get away with it. Usually, as they’re resisting arrest, they’re babbling inanities like “You can’t touch me” or “You have to read me my Miranda rights” or “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Let’s clear up some misconceptions. First, yes, the cops can touch you. If you resist them violently, they’re entitled to forcefully take you down and handcuff you. And, no, cops don’t have to read anyone Miranda rights until they place the person under formal arrest. While they’re still investigating an ongoing situation, if they require you to stay in your car, or sit on the curb, or whatever, they don’t have to do a full Miranda. And, as for protestations of innocence, don’t waste the cops’ time with them. You’ll have your day in court.

What concerns me is this attitude that people don’t have to comply with police orders. That is a big mistake. It’s why resisting arrest and obstructing a police action can lead straight to jail. Despite this, too many criminals think they can fight their way out of an arrest; if they scream and kick enough, or cry for their momma, or threaten a lawsuit, maybe the cops will take pity on them and release them. But that’s not how this works.

This has become such a problem for law enforcement that private industry is coming to the rescue, in the form of these new electric gloves that cops wear to shock thugs into compliance. Of course, so-called “civil liberty” groups are against the gloves. They’re always against things that help cops, like Flock cameras. They pretend to care about “privacy” when in fact the gravest attack on privacy is to be the victim of a violent crime. One of the most disgusting trends of our times is alleging that American cops are no better than Nazi Gestapo brutes, which you hear from the Left all the time. That is so offensive.

I don’t expect the far left will ever support adequate policing. It’s not in their DNA. They have a firm belief that cops are evil, and that criminals are just misunderstood Americans who are entitled to steal or rob because they’ve been victims of institutional racism. That’s stupid and insidious, but it is a widespread belief, especially here in Oakland, which is why our city has the highest property crime rate of any major American city. Let that sink in. Oakland is a place where your personal property is not safe because a lot of envious people want it for themselves. But the moment our police try to do something to combat crime, they get accused of being racists, and horrible crime enablers like John Burris sue them.

What’s wrong with this picture? Everything. It’s so upside down. We ought to have leaders who protect us from criminals. Instead, our so-called leaders worry their little asses off about criminals being treated fairly. Our reaction ought to be to laugh at these dummies.

Steve Heimoff