The twenty-fifth anniversary weekend of 9/11 was an ironic time for the Democratic Socialists and the Alt-Right to amplify their common war on AI. We may be on the cusp of a new PATRIOT Act. If we are, it’ll be as bad an idea as it was the first time.

We all love to hate Wikipedia: it is imperfect, but unavoidably useful; biased, but somewhat correctable. Could Grokipedia take what is good about it and round off the rough edges? Maybe.

We need to define terms. Our culture is always ready to debate and toss accusations, but we fail to stop and see if we even mean the same things by the words we hurl. No wonder we never settled anything.

Does this make me sound old? I don’t really care. The U.S. TikTok ban is spot on and the Brazilian X ban is not. No “back in my day” speech required.

If you’ve read my columns over the last few years, you know I’ve been far less pessimistic about Elon Musk’s Twitter (err, “X”) than many, even when he’s made inexplicable decisions. Officially supporting pornographic publishing on X, though, is a line crossed and a good time to consider the best alternative.

Meta has launched another social network, “Threads.” I signed up but already knew when I did that I wouldn’t be an active user. I hope many others will join me in not using it. I also hope it succeeds for the good of the Internet.

Tucker Carlson says he’s “back.” His three minute long Twitter video return is a tour de force argument on what’s terribly wrong in the media and the need for free speech. How desperately we need the whole truth and not just controlled bits of it. He’s right, but I’m hardly celebrating, because the setting is so ironic.