Parental Rights In Social Media & Teflon Don Strikes (Gold) Again - Top 3 Takeaways – March 26th, 2024
- Parental rights. Florida has been synonymous with parental rights in recent years. Parental rights over COVID-19 vaccines. Parental rights in education. Expanded parental rights in education...now you can add parental rights over social media to the mix. After Governor DeSantis vetoed the original version of the bill passed by the state legislature – which would have banned social media accounts for all minors under 16 without parental choice – the legislature rallied late to pass a version that had the parental choice Governor DeSantis sought. The final version of the bill, known as Online Protections for Minors will do the following...allow parents of any social media account holder under the age of 16 to delete their child’s account (this instantly sounds like a great parental bargaining chip – as far as potential punishments go for many parents). The new law prevents minors under 16 from opening social media accounts without parental consent. The law bans social media accounts for those under 14, including platforms having to delete existing accounts for those under 14. And violations of the new law are no joke – they carry fines between $10,000 to $50,000 each – enough that will no doubt catch the attention of social media companies to enforce the policy – that is at least after they’ve legally challenged the policy which is possibly coming. Previously attempted state bans for social media access for minors have been overturned in the courts – that was cited by Governor DeSantis as one of the reasons he vetoed the first version of the bill that lacked parental choice. Evidently this version strikes the balance that DeSantis thinks will legally stick and if it does it’ll be sticky starting in the new year. The effective date of the law is January 1st of next year which gives parents time to have conversations with their kids and social media companies time to do what they need to do to adjust. Speaking of social media companies...
- DJT is back. No, Donald Trump hasn’t gone anywhere – other than from Mar-a-Lago to New York to attend the hearing in the New York hush money case which was scheduled by the judge to start on April 15th. So yeah, after years of attempting to get Trump on a Russian collusion hoax, January 6th conspiracy, classified documents possession and RICO – it's the Stormy Freaking Daniels hush money case that they’re going to try him for first. This most certainly wasn’t the get Trump left’s original plan or preference. But they’ll be time to talk about those implications in the coming days. Today is DJT’s day. It’s been right at twenty years since the ticker symbol DJT, standing for Donald J. Trump (not to be confused with the Dow Jones Transportation Index) was in play publicly for investors. That was when Trump’s former publicly held company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts was delisted under that symbol from the New York Stock Exchange as the company, which was eventually purchased in bankruptcy by Ichan Enterprises, filed for bankruptcy. Investors who’re buying into DJT today are no doubt hoping for a better result than those who’d held until the bitter end twenty years ago but regardless of how the story for Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent of Truth Social goes, what we do know as it begins publicly trading on the Nasdaq under DJT today is that once again...
- Trump’s a genius. I still remember the conversations I had with those on the left eight or so years ago that tried to say Donald Trump was an idiot who got lucky by essentially inheriting his dad’s company. And I remember pointing out that at the time what Donald Trump actually inherited was a $1 million loan with the underlying assets of his father’s real estate business, which he didn’t inherit until after he’d become a self-made billionaire, valued at $40 million. I then remember suggesting that Donald Trump didn’t manage to moron his way into multiple billions of dollars. If they still pressed my standard line was...if Donald Trump is a moron and he’s worth billions, what does that make you? That generally did the trick (I don’t recall having to spell out for anyone that they’d, by their own definition be a sub-moron). In any event, love him or hate him, for anyone still in doubt that Donald Trump is a genius, today’s the day with which there is no doubt. Think back to January of 2021 when then President Donald Trump was de-platformed by every major social media platform he used. What was his response? To create his own. Did the mainstream media take it seriously? Nope. Then think back to when Elon Musk bought Twitter and unlocked Trump’s account. Did Trump Tweet? Nope (well technically just once – the mugshot). Then remember when Facebook allowed Trump access to post again on their platforms? Did Trump use them? Nope. Fast forward to today. Does the mainstream news media take Truth Social seriously even now? Nope. Are investors? Yep. To the tune of valuing the total enterprise as it comes public today at around $6 billion dollars... $3 billion dollars of which Donald Trump owns himself. Donald Trump is without a doubt a product and marketing genius. Who else has ever been de-platformed and turned it into a $6 billion enterprise worth over $3 billion for themselves? Donald Trump is a genius. And one who easily has the cash to pay the reduced $175 million bond in the New York Civil Fraud trial for the appeal to be heard. In so many ways it's ironic. The harder the left has worked to try to “get Trump”. The more successful he’s become. Think about this. Had Donald Trump won reelection four years ago – he'd have $3 billion less to show for it. Now he has that money and he’s currently the odds on favorite to become the next President of the United States. Teflon Don strikes again.