“Simmons was not a paid actor” according to Simmons, the White House, and Doordash: the three parties who could suffer most if she did turn out to be a paid actor. Snopes is ‘debunking’ theories using press releases from the guilty parties. The language used feels very biased against the allegations.

Are Doordash implying that they shipped this woman from her home state to the White House, asking her to take part in a publicity stunt with the president, and NO-ONE paid her for her time? She was clearly hand picked for her opinions on the NTOT thing.

All of these things are achievable without paying YouTube.

I disagree.

Interacting with the new show, even through piracy, leads to more voices talking about it and making Rowling’s cash-cow culturally relevant. It also normalises the shit takes she pushes through her stories at children.

I don’t like Ben Shapiro, and wouldn’t pay a dime for his streaming service. But pirating Chip Chilla to show to my kids still gives him a say in how me and my family view the world.

Why does Rowling get a pass? Because I happened to read her racist, classist tripe when I was a kid?

I get it: teens suck, kids these days have it too easy, snowflake PC blah blah blah.

But if a child has felt it important enough to report to their parents that a teacher is calling them names, then that child is not learning in a safe environment. The child has been told directly by their teacher that they are not viewed as intelligent or capable. That is not conducive to positive learning outcomes, or mental health.

I agree that Bozo is a very light term, and if the relationship between the teacher and student were close, it could be seen as a joke between people with a mutual respect, but we don’t know the state of the relationship here. The teacher could be a complete asshole, and this is the fifth time they have singled out the student in this way.

People here are saying “toughen up!” “The real world won’t be so kind!”, but I would argue that that is a failing of adults in the real world. Why are we teaching kids that the world is terrible and the only way to survive is to become just as bad? I’d rather teach students to value each other’s strengths, and to not accept the hatred and sadness of other people.

What the fuck am I reading here? Is NYT trying out satire?

This feels like a sob story about a family tightening their belts in the current economy. But these fuckers are saving more in a month than most couples earn!

They talk about living in a one-bedroom like they couldn’t spend more than 10% of their income on a larger space, and still save an entire minimum wage’s worth of money a year without breaking a sweat.

When you can pay for zoo memberships and museums, and still be saving over 100K a year, you are not like the rest of the world.

Huh? Small businesses are the ones that predominantly use FB to replace traditional websites. If you want to support local business, chances are they are using a free Facebook page rather than paying for web hosting.

Gladys’s Artisanal Buttplugs is owned by a 60 year old who doesn’t know the first thing about running a website, but she has used Facebook to send spam to her grandkids for years. If I want to avoid giving my money to Big Plug^tm, FB may be my only way to contact local creators.

I get the disdain for FB, I really do, but pretending that there aren’t people being held hostage by the system is a bit silly. This thread was about someone trying to untangle themselves from FB, and you’ve turned it into a moral argument, as if they don’t agree with your assessment of social media anyway.

OP isn’t asking about how to keep viewing shorts or memes from friends.

Many businesses forgo websites and put their contacts, opening hours, menus, and updates on a dedicated Facebook page. Is that small business open on Sundays? Google says yes, but Facebook has a post from the owner about their dog dying so the store is closed for the week.

I am part of several social groups that communicate entirely through Facebook. There is no way to get updates out to all members outside of the dedicated group pages. A venue change a few months back caused chaos because some people didn’t check the Facebook group in the week leading up to the event.

I too want to leave Facebook, and have stripped my use down to these minor use cases. But getting rid of it completely at this point cuts me off from some of my only positive mental health activities.