Besides The News,

01/13/25

Another weekend, another pile of news to distill! Here are our picks of what is in the news that caught our attention.

Aaron’s Picks

The Weekend started for me by seeing that Mr. Meta himself, Mark Zuckerburg, was on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. I was struck by the strange lack of contrition by the Facebook founder and CEO. The podcast was strange to listen to, honestly, not a typical Rogan-type exposé that meanders into harder topics. I haven’t logged onto Facebook in more than a year - and while I still attempt to use Instagram, I’m not exactly sure why. His treatment of so many during the pandemic and the 2016 election aftermath makes his product unforgivable. The most surreal part of the conversation was when they began to speak about hunting and his Kuai ranch with pigs. Mark had no idea what kind of Bow he used to hunt, and it reminded me of when I was in my youth trying to fit in by describing a skateboard I had fabricated that was hot pink and see-through. He felt as dishonest at that moment as my own lying had been back in 1986. The episode is hard to listen to, knowing what they did and how helpless he acted in trying to stop what he said he was going to stop. Thankfully, the court of public opinion isn’t the only one META will be facing for what ultimately were government-induced civil crimes. Children’s Health Defense will be seeing him in the Supreme Court. This article by Mary Holland explains why so many people feel the same skepticism towards Mr. Zuckerburg’s recent free speech conversion.