Tag: social media

THE HITS KEEP COMING: Graham Platner Has an ACTIVE Account on “Predator’s Paradise” Messaging App with a “Huge Child Exploitation Problem”

Yet another horrific revelation has unfolded regarding far-left Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, and it might be the most shocking yet.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, informed campaign staff a year ago that her husband had exchanged sexually explicit text messages with at least a dozen women.

The Platner campaign, though, ultimately dismissed the texts as a private matter and moved on.

Now, the news gets worse. The Daily Wire has revealed on Saturday that Platner is a registered user on Kik, an anonymous messaging app.

Platner’s Kik account uses the username “phustle0331,” which is similar to his Instagram handle, Phustle0331, and to the username of his Reddit account.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation describes Kik as a “predator’s paradise,” due to features that allow minors to join the app and speak with adults.

Approximately 70% of the app’s users are between the ages of 13 and 24. Even more disturbingly, the app does not require official age verification.

The Daily Wire shared evidence that Kik enables adult users to not only target innocent women but also children.

A true sexual predator’s paradise, indeed.

From The Daily Wire:

A Forbes investigation found that Kik had a “huge child exploitation problem,” while the BBC found that the app was at the center of over 1,100 child sexual abuse cases in the United Kingdom between 2013 and 2018.

But even among consenting adult users, Kik is no ordinary messenger. The platform has been described as “the app with the most severe sexual content.” Kik offers sexually explicit live chats with women, and is often found at the center of “sexploitation” cases, wherein predators coax someone to send nude photos, and then use the images for blackmail, the New York Times reported in 2016.

That report — released four months before Platner created his Kik account — chronicles a litany of heinous acts perpetrated by predators on the app, including a man who used the app to distribute child pornography, several who sent and solicited sexually explicit messages from minors, and one instance where a man attempted to kidnap a 14-year-old girl.

Kik was also where 13-year-old Nicole Madison Lowell chatted with two Virginia Tech students who kidnapped and killed her.

Interestingly, Platner joined Kik in 2016 when it had been under fire for being a hotbed for child pornography, kidnapping, and more wicked sexual activities.

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“It’s All So Tiresome”: UK’s Social Media Ban Trudges Ever Onward

The UK government’s “consultation” on social media harm is over, and – brace yourselves – it turns out they’re going to have to do something about it.

I know, I was shocked too.

The main talking point is that “social media is like cigarettes”. Everyone is saying that, it’s the meme of the day.

It’s a sentiment originally taken from a new report submitted to the consultation by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.

Titled “Growing up in an online world”, it contains this hilarious line in the foreword:

…there is, I think, an overwhelming consensus that excessive screen time can harm children and young people and we need to call this out unflinchingly rather than passively wait for someone else to prove causation”.

Which is a pretty neat summary of how our political system works in general, and certainly in this case: We don’t know if there’s even a problem yet, but by God we’re gonna do something about it.

That the something they end up doing makes them rich and powerful is just one of the curious coincidences tyrants can always rely on.

{Sidenote: This morning the BBC had “Overwhelimg consensus” in their headline on this story, but at some point the absurdity of that quote was realised, and the headline changed. Now there’s this disclaimer near the end: “There is no consensus among the wider scientific community that screen time overall is harmful to children.” Funny stuff.}

Elsewhere, the report wails about “a wave of radicalized children” who pose “a real risk to society”, and calls social media “an incredibly powerful and uncontrolled commercial detriment to health”.

In a similar vein, The Guardian is warning of a “tsunami of harm”, and has assembled an all-star cast of interested parties to talk up the scariness of social media meanness.

After meeting with “bereaved parents” earlier today, Keir Starmer has “vowed to take action”.

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Social Media Users LIGHT UP James Talarico After Hearing the Woke Four-Word Term He Uses to Describe Women

Texas Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico managed to go viral for all the wrong reasons on Friday after a SuperPAC uncovered some old clips of him using a weird term to describe women.

Any normal person knows that there are two sexes: male and female. In addition, the terms men and women are used to describe those with male and female body parts.

Talarico, though, is anything but normal. It turns out he has a bizarre four-word term to describe the female race: neighbors with a uterus.

The Lone Star Liberty PAC, which supports Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, released two clips of Talarico saying exactly this.

“Every one of our neighbors with a uterus became the property of the state,” Talarico says to a church audience in the first clip.

“Our neighbors with a uterus need to be able to control their own bodies,” he says in the second clip.

X users quickly lit up Talarico for not being able to use the term woman to describe the female

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John Cornyn Sends Internet into a Frenzy with This Cryptic Tweet Following Landslide Loss to Ken Paxton

Senator John Cornyn (RINO-TX) drove the internet crazy on Friday after posting a very cryptic tweet a few days following his massive loss to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Texas GOP Senate runoff election.

As The Gateway Pundit’s Jordan Conradson reported, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton smoked Cornyn in a landslide victory on Tuesday. The race was called within one hour of the polls closing.

Out of nowhere, Cornyn decided to tweet the famous fable of the scorpion and the frog. As TGP readers know, the frog decides to carry the scorpion across the river after the eight-legged arthropod promises not to sting it.

But the scorpion suddenly betrays the frog, stinging it in the middle of the river, and both die. When the dying frog asked the scorpion why it stung, the arthropod replied: “I couldn’t help myself. It’s my character.”

“An old, but apt fable,” Cornyn began in his tweet. “A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across.”

“The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river,” he continued. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion.”

“Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: ‘I am sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s my character.’ ”

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Minnesota Law Requires Platforms to Monitor and Age-Estimate All Users

Governor Tim Walz signed House File 4138 on Tuesday, turning Minnesota into the latest state to demand that social media platforms profile every user who logs on.

The law, which takes effect in July 2027, forces platforms with at least 10,000 account holders or $1 billion in annual revenue to estimate the age of all Minnesota users, obtain parental consent before anyone under 16 can hold an account, and disable a list of features the legislature has labeled “addictive.” It passed the state House 132-2 and the Senate 66-0.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The bipartisan consensus is remarkable given what the bill actually requires. Buried beneath the child protection language is a surveillance apparatus that applies to every user, not just minors.

When you create an account on a covered platform, the law demands you declare your month and year of birth. That’s just the beginning. Once you’ve spent 25 hours on the platform within six months, the company has 14 days to estimate your age using “reasonable efforts, taking into consideration available technology and the data in the possession of the covered social media platform.”

If the platform can’t reach 80% confidence that you’re 16 or older, you get classified as a child and locked into restricted mode.

Hit 50 hours, and the confidence threshold rises to 90%. Still not verified? The age estimation repeats every six months for the first seven years your account exists, or more often if the platform runs any demographic analytics on your profile.

That means platforms are legally required to continuously analyze how you behave, what content you engage with, and who you communicate with for the better part of a decade. The law creates an obligation to surveil that didn’t exist before.

The mechanisms available for “verifiable parental consent” come from the COPPA 1.0 framework which speaks volumes about the privacy costs this law is willing to impose.

Parents can sign a consent form, hand over credit card information, submit a copy of a government-issued ID alongside a face scan, or verify their identity through video conferencing.

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Supreme Court rejects Meta’s appeal in Vermont social media addiction case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a push to avoid a lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users, a decision that comes as social media companies increasingly face legal scrutiny.

Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. appealed after Vermont’s highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney general in 2023 to move forward. The company is facing similar lawsuits from states across the country, accusing it of knowingly designing addictive features.

Meta had argued that it can’t be sued in Vermont court because neither the company nor the app design has specific ties to the state. Vermont countered that the sites’ large number of teen users gives its courts jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico.

Vermont’s lawsuit was filed after an investigation by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in several states. Newspaper reports based on Meta’s own research also found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.

Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.

Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use.

Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms “that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids.”

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Germany Moves to Control Social Media: ‘Trusted’ News Sources To Be Algorithmically Boosted By Law

Germany is moving toward what critics are calling a sweeping new form of state influence over online speech, after plans surfaced to force social media platforms to prioritize content from government-approved outlets—raising serious concerns about censorship, narrative control, and the future of free expression in Europe.

According to documents obtained by Apollo News, regulators are preparing a system that would require platforms such as X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to give preferential treatment to content from so-called “reliable” media.

What makes the proposal particularly controversial is not just the intent, but the mechanism. For the first time, state-linked authorities would directly shape the algorithms that determine what information citizens see—effectively inserting government priorities into the digital public square.

At the center of the plan is the concept of “public value” media. In theory, these are outlets that provide socially beneficial information, but in practice, critics argue, they are media organizations vetted and approved by the same political system they are meant to scrutinize.

That distinction is crucial. The power to define what is “reliable” would rest with regulatory bodies tied to the state, not with citizens, readers, or independent market forces.

Once granted this status, approved outlets would receive algorithmic advantages. Their content would be pushed higher in feeds, made easier to discover, and given preferential visibility over competing voices.

The proposal does not stop there. Individual articles and videos could also be labeled as “public value,” creating a two-tier information system where some content is actively promoted while other viewpoints are quietly deprioritized.

Platforms would then be required to adjust their recommendation systems accordingly. In some cases, regulators are even discussing quotas to guarantee exposure for approved content, effectively turning private platforms into vehicles for state-guided messaging.

For many critics, this crosses a fundamental line. It transforms social media from an open marketplace of ideas into a managed information ecosystem shaped by political authorities.

Supporters of the initiative claim it is necessary to combat “disinformation” and preserve democratic discourse.

But that justification is precisely what alarms opponents. They argue that “fighting disinformation” has increasingly become a catch-all rationale for restricting dissent and controlling narratives.

“This is not about removing illegal content,” one observer noted. “This is about deciding which legal speech deserves to be seen—and which does not.”

Critics describe the system as a form of “soft censorship.” Instead of banning opposing views outright, it ensures they are drowned out by state-preferred content.
“It is reverse censorship,” analysts warn. “You don’t delete the message—you just make sure nobody sees it.”

The consequences for independent and alternative media could be severe. Outlets that challenge government policy or question mainstream narratives may find their reach quietly throttled, without any formal accusation or legal recourse.

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Texas Woman Arrested for Facebook Post About Town Water Quality

Jennifer Combs had never gotten so much as a speeding ticket. On May 8, police in Trinidad, Texas, arrested her on a state jail felony charge for writing a Facebook post about the town’s water supply.

The post said residents had been hospitalized due to bacteria in the water. The city says that claim was false. So they sent cops to her door.

The charge is felony false alarm or report under Texas Penal Code § 42.06, a statute designed for people who call in fake bomb threats or fabricate emergencies. Trinidad’s police chief and local officials decided it also applies to a woman who ran a community Facebook page and relayed what neighbors told her about getting sick.

Combs’ post, published on her “Southern Belle Watch” account, read in part: “We have received reports that some citizens have been hospitalized due to bacteria in the water. This is a serious public health concern that deserves immediate attention. If your water looks discolored, contains sediment, has a strong odor, or you have experienced related health issues, please send us a message. We are gathering information and reporting findings to the state.”

That post got her a night in the Navarro County Justice Center. She has since filed a federal lawsuit alleging the arrest was “an act of deliberate political retaliation.”

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

The water is brown. The city admits it.

Trinidad, a small city in Henderson County about an hour southeast of Dallas, has a water problem that nobody disputes.

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Merkel Urges EU to Keep Regulating Social Media Speech

Angela Merkel used her first major European platform since leaving office to tell the EU exactly what it wanted to hear: keep regulating speech online, and don’t worry too much about getting it wrong.

The former German chancellor, speaking Tuesday at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, urged the bloc to “continue regulating the social media” and artificial intelligence. “To believe that responsibility for spreading information is no longer necessary, that accountability – there should be no accountability for lies, then that would undermine democracy,” she told the chamber.

Lies. Who decides what counts as a lie? In the EU’s model, that question gets answered by the European Commission, by government-appointed regulators, by “trusted flaggers” that platforms are legally required to obey. Not by courts. Not through anything resembling due process.

Merkel knows this system well. Her government built the prototype. Germany’s NetzDG law, passed under her chancellorship in 2017, required platforms to delete “clearly illegal” content within 24 hours or face fines up to €50 million.

The people whose speech got censored under it included a satirical magazine, a political street artist, and an opposition party leader. NetzDG became an export product, copied by governments in Russia, Turkey, and across Southeast Asia, each adapting it to their own definition of “illegal.”

The EU took the concept continent-wide with the Digital Services Act, which requires major platforms to assess and reduce “systemic risks,” a category broad enough to cover “civic discourse,” “electoral processes,” and “public security.”

The Commission writes the rules, decides whether platforms comply, and levies fines of up to 6% of global revenue when they don’t. No independent prosecutor. X is currently challenging the first DSA fine ever imposed, a €120 million penalty from December 2025, arguing the process involved “grave procedural errors” and “systematic breaches of rights of defence and basic due process.”

More than 50 European NGOs have warned that the DSA’s vague terms could violate the EU Charter’s own free expression protections. The Commission’s response was to declare the law “content-agnostic” and move on.

Merkel acknowledged none of this. She told parliamentarians that “perhaps mistakes will be made, but we learn through mistakes.” That’s cold comfort when the mistakes involve censoring legal speech and silencing political opposition through systems with no judicial oversight and no meaningful appeal.

Her remarks came at the inaugural ceremony for the European Order of Merit, where she was honored alongside 19 other laureates, including Lech Wałęsa, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She framed regulation as essential to democracy. “We’ve had 75 years of European thought,” she said. “Peace, prosperity, and democracy.”

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South Carolina’s New Social Media Law Puts Every User Under Age Surveillance

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed H.B. 4591 on May 19, turning the Stop Harm from Addictive Social Media Act into a law that will reshape how every resident of the state uses major social media platforms.

The bill passed with almost no opposition, clearing the House 115-0 and the Senate 42-1. It takes effect January 1, 2027, and it brings with it a surveillance apparatus aimed at all users.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The law, sponsored by Rep. Brandon Guffey (R-York), requires covered platforms to repeatedly estimate and verify the age of every South Carolina account holder.

The stated goal is child protection. The way it claims to do that is continuous behavioral analysis of anyone who spends enough time on a platform, combined with escalating confidence thresholds and penalties of ten thousand dollars per violation if platforms get it wrong.

Here’s how the age estimation system works. Once an account holder hits 25 cumulative hours on a platform within six months (the “first trigger date”), the platform has 14 days to estimate whether that person is over 15, with 80% confidence.

At 50 hours (the “second trigger date”), the confidence requirement jumps to 90%. After that, the platform must update its estimate every 100 hours of use, or whenever it runs data analytics on the user for any other reason, whichever comes sooner.

That last clause is easy to miss and it means any time a platform runs its profiling algorithms on you for ad targeting, content recommendations, or anything else, it also has to re-evaluate your estimated age. The law essentially piggybacks mandatory age surveillance onto whatever commercial surveillance platforms already conduct, expanding the scope of both.

Because platforms face significant liability if they can’t meet these confidence thresholds, the law creates powerful incentives to harvest far more sensitive data about users than they do today, including about minors.

A platform that guesses wrong faces $10,000 per violation. A platform that overinvests in behavioral profiling to avoid those fines faces no penalty at all. The incentive structure points in one direction.

The bill claims it “does not create any duty on the part of a covered social media platform to request, collect, or retain any information from or about any account holder” and that age estimates must be “derived based on information collected and retained by the covered social media platform in the ordinary course of operation.”

This is the bill’s central fiction. Platforms that can’t achieve 80% or 90% confidence from existing data will need to collect more data, or face financial ruin from accumulated violations. The law doesn’t mandate new data collection in the same way that holding a knife to your wallet doesn’t mandate you hand over cash.

For users classified as children (under 16), the restrictions are extensive. Accounts require verifiable parental consent, with privacy settings locked to the most restrictive levels by default.

Platforms cannot show children profile-based feeds, profile-based advertising, or any “addictive interface features,” a category that includes infinite scrolling, auto-play video, push notifications, and display of personal metrics like reaction counts.

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