Blog

TikTok Settles Lawsuit Accusing Social Media Giants Of Harming Florida Boy

TikTok has reached a settlement with a Florida teenager who blamed the platform and other social media companies for fueling his addiction, leading to depression, anxiety, and sleep loss, just ahead of a trial to determine the industry’s part in the youth mental health crisis.

The settlement, made public Tuesday, lays to rest claims against ByteDance’s TikTok related to the lawsuit filed by the boy.

Details of the settlement were not disclosed.

Trials against Meta’s Instagram and Snap’s Snapchat remain scheduled for July in California.

According to court filings, the plaintiff argues he began using social media at approximately age 8 and became addicted.

As Kimberley Hayek reports for The Epoch Times, the case is one of many taking aim at social media companies, accusing them of designing the platforms to addict young users.

Earlier this month, YouTube settled with the same plaintiff.

“YouTube’s decision to resolve this case before having to face a jury speaks for itself,” the plaintiff’s attorneys from Morgan & Morgan stated in that settlement.

“We will continue fighting on behalf of all those affected by social media addiction to bring these companies to justice and compel them to prioritize the safety of their young users over their bottom lines.”

In March, a jury in Los Angeles found Meta and Google liable for harms to a young woman, awarding damages after findings of negligence tied to addictive design features.

Jurors found the platforms contributed to addiction and mental health issues, leading to millions in compensatory and punitive damages. A judge upheld the verdict this month.

More than 3,300 addiction-related lawsuits remain pending in California state court, with thousands more pending in federal court. School districts and states have also pursued claims, with some settlements reached, such as a Kentucky district’s agreement with several platforms.

The TikTok settlement allows the company to avoid what would have been only the second individual trial of its kind in California over social media’s impact on minors.

Plaintiffs in these cases argue that features, such as endless scrolling, personalized algorithms, and notifications create a “vicious cycle” of engagement that does harm to young brains.

Tech companies argue they have implemented parental controls, age-appropriate tools, and other safeguards for young users. Google, for instance, has underscored its safety efforts in statements regarding the YouTube settlement.

“Our focus remains on building age-appropriate products and parental controls that deliver on that promise,” Google spokesman José Castañeda said in a statement. 

Keep reading

Ex CIA Director John Brennan Sues Trump Administration Over Russiagate Probe – Lawsuit Assigned to Anti-Trump Judge Jia Cobb

Former CIA Director John Brennan filed a lawsuit against President Trump, the Justice Department, and senior administration officials on Wednesday over the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into him.

Brennan filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming that he has been “vindictively singled out for investigation and prosecution.”

He is seeking a court order requiring the White House, Justice Department, ODNI, and the CIA to “preserve materials and communications potentially relevant to Director Brennan’s legal and constitutional challenges to any future criminal charges.”

The case has been assigned to far-left Biden-appointed Judge Jia Cobb. Cobb previously oversaw Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s lawsuit against the Trump Administration, blocked the Trump Administration from carrying out expedited deportations of illegal aliens under his “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” Executive Order, and blocked Trump’s National Guard deployment in Washington, DC.

“This Administration has adopted a policy of using criminal process and prosecution to punish the President’s perceived adversaries,” the 46-page filing begins. “It is against this backdrop that former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John O. Brennan (“Plaintiff” or “Director Brennan”), is being vindictively singled out for investigation and prosecution.”

It further points to the investigation of former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and an ongoing investigation into Minnesota officials, arguing that, likewise, “the evidence of vindictiveness in this matter is overwhelming.”

“President Trump has been condemning and calling for Director Brennan’s prosecution for years,” it reads. “Given these strong indicia of vindictiveness, Director Brennan expects that he will forcefully challenge any eventual indictment as the product of an unconstitutionally vindictive and selective prosecution.”

Keep reading

Time To Shed Light on Canadian Military Mission to Congo

Canadian media and politicians have all but ignored Congo’s recent World Court case against Rwanda. It’s unsurprising since Canada has enabled three decades of aggression, including by leading a bizarre, little known, UN mission to the region on behalf of Washington.

On Friday the Democratic Republic of Congo filed a case to the International Court of Justice against Rwanda for repeated invasions and support for armed groups on its territory since 1996. Congolese Justice Minister Guillaume Andali said his country is seeking redress for Rwanda’s breaches of conventions covering genocide prevention, racial discrimination, women’s rights and torture.

In 1996 Rwandan forces marched 1,500 km to topple the regime in Kinshasa and then re-invaded after the Congolese government it installed expelled Rwandan troops. This led to an eight-country war between 1998 and 2003, which left millions dead. Since that time Rwanda and its proxies have repeatedly invaded eastern Congo and continue to occupy the east of the country. Some six million remain displaced.

The Rwanda government in Kigali justified its 1996 intervention into the Congo as an effort to protect the Banyamulenge (Congolese Tutsi) living in eastern Congo from the Hutus who fled the country when the RPF took power after the 1994 genocide.

The US military increased its assistance to Rwanda in the months leading up to its fall 1996 invasion of Zaire. In The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996-2006 Filip Reyntjens explains: “The United States was aware of the intentions of Kagame to attack the refugee camps and probably assisted him in doing so. In addition, they deliberately lied about the number and fate of the refugees remaining in Zaire, in order to avoid the deployment of an international humanitarian force, which could have saved tens of thousands of human lives, but which was resented by Kigali and AFDL [a Rwandan backed rebel force led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila].”

In the just released Rwanda’s 30-Year Assault on Congo: The Crimes, the Criminals, and the Cover-Up (Baraka Books) Judi Rever documents Washington’s central role in a war to topple aging kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko, who lost his use after the end of the Cold War. According to a review, Rever documents how “the US provided satellite tracking data to locate Hutu refugees in the jungle. It deployed AC-130 gunships, P-3 Orion surveillance planes, and a national intelligence support team drawing on the CIA, the NSA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. It sent Special Forces from Fort Bragg to train Rwandan troops in counter-insurgency.”

Ottawa played an important, if somewhat bizarre, part in this sordid affair. In late 1996, Canada led a short-lived UN force into eastern Zaire, meant to bring food and protection to Hutu refugees. The official story is that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien organized a humanitarian mission into eastern Zaire after his wife saw images of exiled Rwandan refugees on CNN. In fact, Washington proposed that Ottawa, with many French speakers at its disposal, lead the UN mission. The US didn’t want pro-Joseph Mobutu Sese Seko France to gain control of the UN force.

Keep reading

EPA Delivers on Trump’s ‘Freedom to Fix’ Affordability Policy for Vehicle, Equipment Repairs

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Wednesday it is advancing the freedom to fix all vehicles and equipment to ensure that Americans do not have to pay higher costs for repairs.

“Within 30 days of issuing his Presidential Memorandum, President Trump wanted EPA to act. We have operated at Trump speed and provided relief to American operators within just two days,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a written statement. “The freedom to fix allows operators to fix broken machinery easier and faster. Today’s action builds on the great work the Trump Administration has accomplished to lower costs for hard-working Americans.”

The EPA is issuing guidance under the Clean Air Act (CAA) affirming that equipment manufacturers must provide access to the information and tools necessary for timely and affordable repairs, including Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) and other environmental control systems.

The agency’s move to ensure affordability follows as President Donald Trump signed a presidential memo to ensure that consumers and aftermarket-parts manufacturers can have regulatory certainty about whether aftermarket products can be used in repairs due to the CAA’s prohibition on tampering with emissions controls.

Manufacturers have worked to give consumers and independent repair shops the diagnostic tools and information they provide to franchised dealers. Despite this, Clean Air Act anti-tampering laws have created regulatory ambiguity about whether giving out certain tools and information would be considering enabling the tampering of emission control systems.

This has forced many truckers, famers, and others to take their vehicles and equipment to be done by manufacturers instead of being repaired at home or by a local repair shop.

The EPA’s guidance clarifies that light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers have a longstanding obligation to release the service information, training information, and tools to diagnose and repair vehicles, especially including faulty DEF systems.

The EPA also recognized the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) as an alternative certification authority for aftermarket vehicle parts. Now, American can use SEMA’s Certified Emission (SC-E) Program to show compliance with the CAA and verify that approved aftermarket parts do not negatively impact vehicle emissions.

“Today, the EPA has verified what SEMA for years has told regulators at the state and federal levels: that the automotive aftermarket industry has a precise mechanism to support emissions testing compliance with federal laws, and it’s called SEMA Certified-Emissions,” said SEMA CEO Mike Spagnola in a written statement.

Keep reading

California’s Self-Inflicted Squeeze

Energy Island

Long time readers may recall the many articles we wrote over many years highlighting the madness of California planners and policymakers. We were born and raised in the land of fruits and nuts and lived and worked there for over four decades.

About four years ago, we made our California exodus. At the time, we thought our coverage of the Golden State’s self-destruction would continue. We still have family and friends there who we visit from time to time. But, as we’ve found, without a front row seat to the big show we’re less inclined to gawk at the insanity. Articles on California have diminished to a slow trickle.

Today, however, following a recent conversation with a friend and California resident, we aim our sights at our former home state. Once again, California delivers a rich example of what happens when central planning outweighs economic reality. Here the specific example involves extreme intervention in oil and gas markets.

Policymakers in Sacramento, over many decades, have operated under the assumption that if petroleum production, refining capacity, and fuel consumption were made sufficiently difficult and expensive, the market would rapidly transition to their preferred alternatives. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been the principal vehicle for implementing this vision through increasingly stringent fuel regulations, emissions mandates, low-carbon fuel standards, permitting requirements, and compliance costs imposed upon refiners operating within the state.

Yet the result has not been the energy transition that was promised. Instead, California has become increasingly dependent on foreign suppliers for products it once produced itself. This trend is particularly problematic because California is effectively an energy island. Unlike much of the United States, California lacks extensive pipeline connections to the major refining centers along the Gulf Coast.

The state also requires unique fuel formulations that relatively few refineries outside California are equipped to produce. Consequently, California’s fuel market functions largely as a self-contained system. When local refining capacity disappears, replacement supplies cannot simply be redirected from Texas or Louisiana with the turn of a valve.

Keep reading

DOJ Launches New Crackdown on Birth Tourism After Supreme Court Blocks Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announces on Wednesday DOJ will prioritize prosecutions of birth tourism schemes involving visa fraud as foreign nationals continue exploiting U.S. citizenship loopholes despite yesterday’s 5-4 Supreme Court ruling striking down President Trump’s executive order.

On Tuesday, the Trump Department of Justice directed federal prosecutors across the country to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of birth tourism schemes.

The move, announced just hours after the high court struck down President Trump’s executive order protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship, shows the administration is not backing down. Instead, it is weaponizing existing criminal law against the fraudsters who exploit the loophole.

Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald issued a department-wide memo Tuesday directing every U.S. Attorney’s office to work closely with DHS on these cases.

Potential charges include visa fraud, money laundering, identity theft, and wire fraud for foreign nationals who come to the United States under “false pretenses” to give birth and secure automatic citizenship for their child.

“The Department of Justice will zealously protect the sanctity of United States citizenship by investigating and prosecuting those who fraudulently exploit our immigration system,” McDonald wrote.

The memo notes that many of these schemes begin with lies on visa applications about the true purpose and length of stay — conduct that has always been illegal. Past prosecutions focused heavily on visa fraud, but the directive makes clear prosecutors should pursue the full range of criminal statutes when the evidence supports it.

Keep reading

A Surveillance State On Wheels

Renting a car used to come with an element of fun. For a day or two you could be the pretend owner of a new car. It could be the sports car you have always secretly wanted, maybe in bright red. It could be a mighty utility vehicle you need instead of your 4-door sedan.

In any case, it’s just interesting to experience a new and different car over a limited period, if only to mix things up a bit.

I’ve always enjoyed this, until now.

I innocently rented a new model SUV and hopped in not thinking much more about it. It had a control panel on two big screens with very few physical knobs, which means essentially learning to operate software. Should have pulled over and examined the thing carefully, maybe even read the user manual but traditionally cars explained themselves. Everything was obvious.

Not any more.

The radio was stuck on a guy yammering about sports scores so I thought I would change the station. I’m trying to drive at the same time and looking at the screen with peripheral vision. That’s when the car caught me: it sensed distraction.

Up popped a notification alongside 5 extremely annoying alarm beeps, with a blaring warning: “Consider taking a break” with a coffee cup emoji. That’s strange. I’m not tired. I just started. Why should I take a break?

My car was correcting me. Not only that, it was diagnosing my biology. I was drifting and so clearly did not have enough caffeine in my system and needed more. So said my car.

Thus was my introduction to the new smart car, more monitor than helper, more surveillance than service, more sensate than safe.

I grabbed a tissue while searching for the off switch to the radio and up popped the same warning again. This was only a few minutes later. I wondered how long this would go on. I had two and a half hours to drive. This could be miserable.

It was in fact. My car monitored, hectored, and lectured me for my entire trip. It more closely tracked my venial sins than a Puritan preacher in 17th-century Plymouth Colony. At least in that world, privacy was possible. It is not possible in this new car. You are under the gun, tasked with impossible feats of digital management at which you are destined to fail.

The ever-pious, self satisfied, and immaculately conceived robo-scold seems gleeful to call out every infraction, even when a gust of wind causes a two-inch draft. FAIL!

This car is rooting against its driver, like a horse not entirely broken in and trying to buck you off. But it’s more threatening than that. It’s watching you constantly but you don’t know where its eyes are or why precisely it is making the judgments it is making.

While still fussing with the radio, a big message appeared on the screen, which I tried to read while driving. Another sin. As best I could make out, it said not to attempt this while driving because it is unsafe. And if I have read this message and understand the risk, and accept the terms of the software app, I should click approve, which I did, while driving.

Like clockwork, up appeared the demand that I stop and drink another cup of coffee. If I had complied with the doctor/car physician’s demands, I would have had a gallon of coffee and been taken to the hospital for a caffeine overdose.

The roadside signs all say not to text and drive or otherwise look at your smartphone. But this entire car is far more distracting than my phone would otherwise be. I’m only mentioning a few of these notifications so far.

Keep reading

Illegal Alien Monster Repeatedly Raped 10-Year-Old Child in Minnesota – Tim Walz Issued Pardon to Shield Him from Deportation

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) pardoned an illegal alien pedophile to shield him from deportation.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Laotian illegal alien pedophile Tou Lue Vang repeatedly raped a 10-year-old girl in Minnesota in 2004 and was issued a deportation order.

Vang even blamed the child and said it’s a “cultural thing to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12.”

However, Tim Walz pardoned Vang which shielded him from deportation and gave him a clear record.

Vang served ZERO prison time.

“Governor Tim Walz’s decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting,” said Acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting. Tou Lue Vang lost his legal status following his conviction for repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl. Following the conviction, he was placed in removal proceedings and issued a final order of removal by a judge. This pardon will take away this child rapist’s qualifying convictions that made him removable from the United States.”

Keep reading

Marco Rubio Helps Israel Pursue Goal of Civil War in Lebanon

After President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance committed the United States to a deconfliction cell with Iran in Switzerland – a mechanism enforcing a ceasefire in Lebanon as well as Iran – Israel and its powerful lobby moved instantly to sabotage it. And in a preview of the sorts of foreign policy fissures that will likely define the 2028 GOP primary, the lobby has deployed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the man to pursue Israel’s interests and pave the way for Israel’s further occupation of Lebanon.

The first article of the 60-day interim agreement signed by the U.S. and Iran conditions an end to the conflict on the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon” and on “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.” That second clause, more than any other, appears to be the one Israel is most reluctant to accept.

Despite Israeli withdrawal now required to end a war that now threatens to destabilize the entire global economy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said that Israel would occupy southern Lebanon indefinitely, stating that “we dominate southern Lebanon, from the summit of the Beaufort, and we will remain as long as required,” adding that “we do not intend to withdraw from it.” Defense Minister Israel Katz meanwhile said there was “no American demand for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon,” and that Israel would not withdraw even if there were one, later telling reporters that southern Lebanon was Israel’s “playground.”

That Iran has set out to secure the complete “territorial integrity” of Lebanon is unacceptable to Israel, which seeks to ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon and possibly further north, with the goal of seizing the land for the Greater Israel Project.

In order to sabotage a deconfliction track outlined in Switzerland and continue their endless project to secure more lebensraum, the Israelis have turned to the U.S. State Department and the Israel Lobby’s man in charge, Marco Rubio, whose spearheaded deconfliction framework was signed by the governments of Israel and Lebanon in Washington on Friday.

Intended to supplant the one announced by Vance – which the Times of Israel reported “infuriated Israel” – Rubio’s agreement strips out the guarantee of Lebanese territorial integrity that Iran insists is necessary to end the war and replaces it with an Israeli wishlist that includes permissions for continued Israeli occupation of a “security zone” and a plan to deputize Lebanese forces to accomplish the likely-impossible objective of “disarming” Hezbollah.

Such an agreement is unacceptable to Hezbollah, which has vowed to keep fighting until Israeli forces leave Lebanon. That is why Israel and Marco Rubio deliberately excluded the group from the deal, producing a “peace deal” between two warring parties to which only one of them agreed.

Indeed, although the deal was pitched by Marco Rubio as “a framework for lasting peace and security,” statements made by Israelis and Hezbollah in recent days reveal that narrative to be nothing more than propaganda designed exclusively for Western audiences. On Israel’s Channel 13 after the signing of the Rubio deal, an Israeli analyst remarked how “it seems we’re leading the state of Lebanon into civil war,” adding “maybe it’s not so bad for us, let the Lebanese government fight Hezbollah.” That was “the goal from the start,” replied his co-host. Lebanese lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, who is close to Hezbollah, agreed with the Israeli assessment, telling Al-Mayadeen on Friday that Lebanese ​authorities would not be able to enforce the agreement signed ‌in ‌Washington ​on ‌Friday ⁠unless, with ​U.S. backing, “they go ⁠to civil war.”

As John Mearsheimer foresaw in April, “what I think Netanyahu wants to do is to foment civil war in Lebanon, a war with the government on one side and Hezbollah on the other,” describing the strategy as a way of weakening them both. “The Israelis can’t disarm Hezbollah, so they want the Lebanese government to do it.”

In response to questions about the apparent divergence between the Lebanon frameworks pursued by JD Vance and Marco Rubio, the White House has denied that any divisions exist at all. Israel Katz has essentially said the same, admitting that even after Trump linked the Iran and Lebanon tracks and demanded that Israel stop “bringing down buildings in Beirut,” the IDF expanded ground operations north of the Litani River and enlarged its occupation of southern Lebanon, all of it, Katz said, “carried out with U.S. approval.”

Whether the intra-administration split is real or kayfabe, the status quo in Lebanon and its spoiling effect for a peace deal remain the same.

Harrison Berger is a correspondent at The American Conservative. He has contributed to Drop Site News, The Nation, and Responsible Statecraft. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He studied Political Science and Russian Studies at Union College (NY).

Keep reading

BBC refuses to report on The Rape Gang Inquiry because it has to make “complex choices”

Today, the story broke about a Muslim rape gang ringleader, who was convicted of 30 child rapes, who “cannot be deported” despite being stripped of his British citizenship – thanks to a rule in the Immigration Act 1971.  Instead, this child rapist will be let loose into the British community.

It’s not only legislation which is protecting the perpetrators and putting the community at risk. 

Today, Rupert Lowe, a Member of Parliament (“MP”) for Restore Britain, revealed evidence of the protection the BBC affords Muslim rape gangs.

The BBC has not reported on the findings of the independent Rape Gang Inquiry because, the BBC says, “complex choices” have to be made for editorial and practical reasons.

You can read the BBC’s excuses HERE.

The following is a tweet posted by Mr. Lowe, commenting on the BBC’s explanation.

The BBC has issued an official explanation on why it has failed to cover our rape gang inquiry.

“Complex choices” are made for editorial and practical reasons. These choices “should not be taken as indicative of bias.” Their words.

But the BBC were very quick to cover malicious complaints against our inquiry, in an attempt to smear our efforts. They were then forced to later apologise for how they covered the story.

So, either the inquiry is worth reporting on, or it’s not. They can’t pick and choose.

We’re told “complex choices” are made, meaning that efforts to uncover the industrial rape of young girls is not near the top of list.

Let’s take a look at a few stories on the main BBC news page, right now…

  • ‘Osaka pays ‘love and respect to Japan’ in Wimbledon kimono’
  • ‘Why £15 durians are being sold at half price – or given away for free’
  • ‘We had packed lunches every day for 10 years and retired at 40’

Are these stories more important than the rape gang inquiry? I think not.

You cannot hate the BBC enough. I expect no fair coverage from them; I’ve stopped expecting it. But the BBC is funded by the British people. Their continued suppression of our inquiry is a disgrace.

Keep reading