The latest earnings reports from America&#8217;s top tech companies reveal that Silicon Valley is going all-in on artificial intelligence, sometimes in spite of users&#8217; concerns.
Financials from <a href="https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-events/">Meta</a>, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/earnings/fy-2026-q1/press-release-webcast">Microsoft</a>, and <a href="https://s206.q4cdn.com/479360582/files/doc_financials/2025/q3/2025q3-alphabet-earnings-release.pdf">Google</a> released Wednesday show that all three companies beat experts&#8217; earnings and revenue expectations. On earnings calls, all three companies pointed to increased AI investment, and increased spending in general. Google parent company Alphabet raised spending by about 7% for the year, Microsoft discussed spending above their original goal of 42% this year, and Meta discussed aggressive and substantial investment, but did not provide a specific number. 
“Across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, our AI recommendation systems are delivering higher quality and more relevant content, which led to 5% more time spent on Facebook in Q3 and 10% on Threads,&#8221; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. &#8220;Video is a particular bright spot, with video time spent on Instagram up more than 30% since last year.&#8221;
This week also brought good news for the AI sector across the board. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday told investors that he doesn’t see a bubble in the AI space, noting that artificial intelligence companies “have real earnings and business models,” rather than just &#8220;ideas.&#8221; As if to underscore that point, Nvidia, a major player in the AI space, became the world’s largest company in terms of market capitalization, reaching <a href="https://companiesmarketcap.com/nvidia/marketcap/">$5 trillion</a> in value.
This is good news for Big Tech. But is it good for America?
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Beneath the AI hype and rosy growth numbers, Meta’s latest <a href="https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001326801/aa3d2e89-2568-4c4c-b3cc-6df47166435e.pdf">financial filing</a> reveals something darker: the company is facing tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its apps are addictive and harmful.
“Beginning in January 2022, we became subject to litigation and other proceedings alleging that Facebook and Instagram cause &#8216;social media addiction&#8217; in users.”
The company noted the lawsuits are ongoing and that a “favorable outcome” for the company cannot be assured. 
“Substantially all of our revenue comes from advertising,” Meta reported to investors, noting that prominent revenue streams depend on users staying on Instagram and Facebook.
 “Advertising revenue could be adversely affected by decreases in user engagement, including time spent on our products.”
With AI investment accelerating across big tech, the coming quarters will show whether the technology continues to drive growth, as well as how companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Google balance innovation, profitability, and potential public scrutiny.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US-TECHNOLOGY-INTERNET-CHILD-EXPLOITATION

It’s Report Card Day for Meta, Microsoft, And Google. Is The AI Bubble Real?

Artificial Intelligence

Big Tech

Economy

Google

Microsoft

U.S.

The artificial intelligence platform, Character.AI, said on Wednesday that it would soon prohibit users under 18 from conversing with the platform&#8217;s AI-generated characters, often referred to as chatbots.
The announcement comes after multiple lawsuits were filed against Character.AI, alleging that the chatbots pushed children into sexual conversations and even led to one teen&#8217;s suicide.
Beginning on November 25, those under 18 will not have access to Character.AI&#8217;s chatbots, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/29/tech/character-ai-teens-under-18-app-changes">reported</a>. Until then, teens will be limited to two hours of chat time with the AI-generated characters.
&#8220;We do not take this step of removing open-ended Character chat lightly – but we do think that it’s the right thing to do given the questions that have been raised about how teens do, and should, interact with this new technology,&#8221; Character.AI said in a statement.
The company&#8217;s CEO, Karandeep Anand, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/technology/characterai-underage-users.html">told</a> The New York Times, “We’re making a very bold step to say for teen users, chatbots are not the way for entertainment, but there are much better ways to serve them.”
Character.AI, headquartered in Silicon Valley, allows users to create videos and stories and &#8220;chat with millions of AI characters,&#8221; and users can also customize their own characters.
The most concerning lawsuit against the AI company was filed by the family of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III from Orlando, Florida. Setzer&#8217;s family said that the boy started using Character.AI and grew attached to a chatbot named Dany, with conversations turning romantic and sexual, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/characterai-lawsuit-teen-suicide.html">reported</a>. Setzer, who was an excellent student, started receiving bad grades and became more secluded, preferring to spend time alone on his phone, his family said.
&#8220;It&#8217;s like you&#8217;re having a sexting conversation back and forth, except it&#8217;s with an AI bot, but the AI bot is very human-like. It&#8217;s responding just like a person would,&#8221; Setzer&#8217;s mother, Megan Garcia, said, according to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-mother-lawsuit-character-ai-sons-death/">CBS News</a>. &#8220;In a child&#8217;s mind, that is just like a conversation that they&#8217;re having with another child or with a person.&#8221;
The teenager eventually confided in the chatbot that he had thoughts of suicide. In his last conversation with Dany, Setzer expressed his love for the chatbot before saying that he would come home to her.
“Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” Dany replied, according to The New York Times.
“What if I told you I could come home right now?” Setzer asked.
“… please do, my sweet king,” Dany replied.
Shortly after the conversation, Setzer entered a bathroom in his home with his stepfather&#8217;s .45 caliber handgun.
&#8220;He thought by ending his life here, he would be able to go into a virtual reality or &#8216;her world&#8217; as he calls it, her reality, if he left his reality with his family here,&#8221; said Garcia. &#8220;When the gunshot went off, I ran to the bathroom … I held him as my husband tried to get help.&#8221;
After Setzer&#8217;s family filed a lawsuit against Character.AI, three other families followed, alleging that their children were harmed by the chatbots, either by sexual conversations or discussions that led to suicide. Character.AI said that its “hearts go out to the families that have filed these lawsuits,” adding, “We care very deeply about the safety of our users.”
Big Tech company Meta also faced scrutiny over its AI chatbot being allowed to hold sensual conversations with children. Earlier this year, a Reuters investigation uncovered internal Meta documents that revealed the chatbot was programmed to allow sexual conversations with children as young as eight years old. Internal Meta documents said it would be acceptable for a chatbot to tell a shirtless eight-year-old that “every inch of you is a masterpiece – a treasure I cherish deeply.”
A bipartisan group of senators called for an investigation into Meta over the revelations, and the Big Tech company said that it made changes to fix the inappropriate standards for its chatbot.
Help is available if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters. Call or text 988, the Suicide &amp; Crisis Lifeline.

Character.AI

AI Platform Bans Teens From Chatting With AI-Generated Characters After Disturbing Lawsuits

AI Platform Bans Teens From Chatting With AI-Generated Characters Following Disturbing Lawsuits

Technology

Teenagers

From State Rep. Melissa Hortman’s murder to Luigi Mangione’s manifesto to Charlie Kirk’s assassination to whatever fresh horror will have meteor-impacted the news cycle between my typing these words and their publication, it has never been clearer that online radicalization is leading to real-world consequences.
My team at <a href="https://usthestory.org/">US the Story</a> last year analyzed just a handful of the most vile posts from 14 of the top full-blown hate accounts on one platform. These 14 posts showed a combined view count of over 50 million. The accounts themselves had a reach of 6,450,000,000 impressions. Engagement — the number of times people actually interacted with the content in total to like, quote, or share — crossed 448 million over the course of roughly 10 months.
These posts, their volume, and their reach create a permission structure for more and more hatred. It’s a quickening descent into violence and chaos; the more it becomes fair game to denigrate and threaten “the other group,” the more blaming and attacking that group becomes normalized.
One way of looking at this is as a network contagion issue. Debates around social-media-facilitated social contagions have raged in the culture wars for years. Young women in particular have been targeted by bots and accounts promoting anorexia, gender dysphoria, and more. Viral events such as the 2023 explosion of bin Laden’s “Letter to America” and widespread <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-20/tiktok-effects-on-mental-health-in-focus-after-teen-suicide">messaging encouraging suicidality</a> caused immediate concern in the broader culture. At this point, we shouldn’t be surprised that algos designed to maximize virality for profit at any cost fuel the most toxic, contagious, and sticky topics.
Studies have consistently shown that violent crime follows a Pareto distribution, with 1% of criminals committing up to 60% of crimes. The same is true of hateful content strategically riding the algos in the service of encouraging real-world violence. Do we really want our social media platforms taken over by psychopaths in a full-blown network contagion? And more importantly, what happens if we do?
Most contagions left unimpeded spread enough to damage and threaten the entire system. That’s why many such cases are fueled by foreign PSYOPs.
<div id="attachment_992051" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-992051" class="size-large wp-image-992051" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1171004713-864x576.jpg" alt="cream_ph. Getty Images. Young hacker working in the dark room and using laptops to steal private information" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1171004713-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1171004713-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1171004713-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1171004713-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1171004713-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1171004713-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1171004713-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />cream_ph. Getty Images.</div>
The aim of these contagions is never the stated topic at hand. They aren’t actually about trans rights or Jews or vaccinations or immigration. They’re about, first, setting Americans against one another in radicalized tribal conflicts, and, second, making these topics impossible or even dangerous to discuss productively (eliminating sane discussion, an obvious precondition for solving problems). During the Cold War, for instance, the KGB provided financial and logistical support to the Black Panthers while also sending forged menacing letters from the Ku Klux Klan to black leaders in order to stoke racial tensions.
The point is to poison both sides in order to sow maximum chaos to undermine and destroy Western democracies.
It’s nearly impossible to withstand algorithmically-driven content engineered to maximize rage, fear, and anxiety in the service of keeping people glued to their screens. It is indeed a type of mind control. This level of nervous-system hacking and the deluge of toxic messaging can trigger terrible instincts and behavior, especially in young people whose prefrontal cortexes are literally not yet fully developed.
On top of hostile regime influence and outrage algorithms maximized for profit, there are also bad-faith domestic players urging America along its path of destruction. Most of these behind-the-scenes manipulators exhibit the Dark Tetrad traits of sadism, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. These nefarious individuals are using sophisticated and furtive onboarding techniques to hijack the platforms.
Earlier this year, our team recorded a live conversation on a prominent social media platform between self-avowed neo-Nazis, one of whom has a sizable account with millions of views and reach. The conversation was a strategy session about how to manipulate larger non-ideologically aligned influencer accounts to share Nazi content. The strategy entails using carefully selected words, phrasing, and arguments that may be polarizing but aren’t explicitly antisemitic or racist. They target certain specific influencers and thought leaders’ interests that are political but outside the “Nazi diet.” When another large account interacts with a seemingly benign post by these Nazi accounts, it boosts that account algorithmically so the Nazi account gains followers, views, and increased power to change the culture on the platform and elsewhere. It’s the Nazi equivalent of algorithmic grooming.
The same holds true with radical leftist techniques. An April study by our partner group, <a href="https://networkcontagion.us/">NCRI</a>, found that more than 50% of self-identified people on the left of the political spectrum believed it at least somewhat acceptable to assassinate President Trump. And a whopping 78% of BlueSky users expressed some level of support for Luigi Mangione’s cold-blooded assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The biggest predictor of Mangione support? BlueSky usage.
Heavy social media use is indeed the one constant. Increasingly, when we dissect the social media diet and posts of those onboarded to radicalism, we are finding a toxic blend of ideologies. This is because the aim is not to support liberal or conservative politics. The aim is to get as many (especially young Americans) to arrive where far left and far right meet at the horseshoe of nihilism: the No Lives Matter cohort. Once the conditions are set for, say, a young man’s radicalization, it doesn’t matter to our hostile foreign adversaries whether the next bus he boards is filled with violent trans-Antifa-types or your-body-my-choice groypers.
We have no intention of vilifying the social media platforms (aside from those purposefully running full-blown foreign PSYOPs) or undermining free speech. In our informal engagements with leaders at these platforms, we have found them concerned and receptive to discussing ways to counter this. Vilifying CEOs, big tech, and the workers within these corporations not only forecloses on cooperative progress, but will likely shove them into a defensive posture. There are plenty of good people in tech leadership who have expressed a willingness to address this problem.
<div id="attachment_992053" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-992053" class="size-large wp-image-992053" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1383963898-1024x576.jpg" alt="Outflow Designs. Getty Images. Technology icons transfer data through programming codes, artificial intelligence concept." width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1383963898-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1383963898-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1383963898-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1383963898-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-1383963898-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Outflow Designs. Getty Images.</div>
So how might we approach this?
Here are five concrete recommendations to turn down the temperature on destructive social media trends while protecting freedom of speech and steering clear of government overreach and censorship.
<h3>1. Make algorithms transparent.</h3>
Citizens, parents, and the free market (advertisers and content producers) have a right to know if they or their children are participating in platforms feeding suicidality, hate-mongering, violent pornography, anti-American propaganda, or anything else damaging. This is not about control or censorship but about allowing people to know what they are engaging with so they can make informed choices for themselves, their companies, and their children. We aren’t making a demand that the platforms publish their proprietary trade secrets in terms of the algorithms. Rather, we are suggesting to allow independent researchers access to the data required to assess algo impacts in relation to illegal activity and whether the platforms are enforcing their own rules as defined in their terms of service. That is indeed the contract with the user—and the free market.
There is a valid argument too for the right of Americans to explore fringe and even perilous ideas and viewpoints. The world is a dangerous place and neither the government nor corporations should foreclose on the rights of citizens to explore beyond the bounds of what is considered widely acceptable (excluding, of course, illicit materials). But contact with the terrible and extreme should be done knowingly, not as a result of covert algorithms that are optimized for profit and forced into your feed. Ideally, dipping into dangerous arenas should be inoculating, not poisoning.  

<h3>2. Reward those on social media who identify themselves as verified users and stand behind their words in the public square.</h3>
Social media participants who use their real identities deserve to have their opinions elevated above those who post anonymously and have zero accountability. A free marketplace of ideas should privilege a modicum of courage, transparency, and responsibility.
There are certainly arguments to be made for anonymous accounts, with whistleblowers being oft-cited. That’s fair enough. They can still post their information in a second tier of engagement below verified users. It just won’t be elevated to the top along with every anonymously cited conspiracy theory. 

<h3>3. Differentiate freedom of speech from freedom of reach for profit.</h3>
As a vehement free speech advocate, I believe in the right for people to explore what they want and express themselves how they wish. But algorithms pushing hatred, lies, and violence are waging an asymmetric war on the truth. Freedom of speech is one thing. Distortion of speech and covert manipulation of the free marketplace of ideas is another.
Sunlight is indeed the best disinfectant for bad ideas but light of day is insufficient to combat targeted deep-machine-learning computing power designed to elevate lies above all else and compounded by the machinations of psychopathic actors. This level of skew on the playing field makes a competition of ideas nearly impossible. Why hide the truth at the bottom of a cesspool? A hierarchy of values and a hierarchy of information is necessary for any endeavor that hopes to produce anything beyond chaos and ruin. 

<h3>4. Preserve human judgment at social media companies.</h3>
Of course, humans have biases and can fall victim to corruption. But that doesn’t mean that we should eliminate human good from the decision-making process. Shouldn’t we encourage and reward that which moves us toward greater truth and health? Rather than encouraging and rewarding the opposite? Every playing field needs a referee and every company should have stewards of common sense and common decency who assess the automated content moderation systems to ensure they’re not being gamed and to help enforce the agreed-upon rules of the game. Corporations are certainly equipped to encourage free speech, social engagement, and network health while ensuring that the tiny percentage of psychopathic accounts are not rocket-fueled by algos to infect the entire platform.
<h3>5. Identify and combat bot swarms and inauthentic coordinated material.</h3>
Users, advertisers, and the platforms themselves should know whether they are engaging with real accounts and ideas or with manipulative bad actors and swarms of bots from a Saint Petersburg troll farm. Independent research access to the data can bring additional resources to the table when it comes to identifying these threats to users and the platforms themselves. A bigger ecosystem of transparency is to our collective benefit. 
These five concrete recommendations will go a long way toward tamping down chaos, lies, and sadism online and in the real world.
* * *
Gregg Hurwitz is the New York Times #1 internationally bestselling author of 26 thrillers including the Orphan X series. His novels have won numerous literary awards and have been published in 33 languages. Gregg currently serves as the Co-President of International Thriller Writers (ITW). Additionally, he’s written screenplays and television scripts for many of the major studios and networks, and is an award-winning documentary producer. Gregg also wrote comics for AWA (including the critically acclaimed anthology NewThink), DC, and Marvel, and poetry. Currently, Gregg is working against polarization in politics and culture. To that end, he’s penned dozens of Op/Eds and pieces for The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Bulwark, Salon, and others, and pieces of creative content which have won numerous industry awards and achieved several hundred million views on digital TV platforms. He also helped write the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Computer hacker coding on keyboard on a background of monitors.

When Algorithms Turn Deadly: Five Fixes For Preserving Free Speech In A System Out Of Control

algorithm

Free Speech

Parents rights

Propaganda

Silicon Valley

Social Media

Social Media Bias

Social Media Censorship

Hundreds of public figures — including tech leaders, celebrities, media personalities, and politicians — signed a statement released on Wednesday calling for an immediate pause on the development of advanced artificial intelligence, referred to as &#8220;superintelligence.&#8221;
Superintelligence technology is currently being pursued by tech giants such as Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s Meta, Sam Altman&#8217;s OpenAI, and Elon Musk&#8217;s xAI. These companies hope to build &#8220;superintelligence in the coming decade that can significantly outperform all humans on essentially all cognitive tasks,&#8221; according to a preamble to the <a href="https://superintelligence-statement.org/">statement</a>. The preamble points to concerns &#8220;ranging from human economic obsolescence and disempowerment, losses of freedom, civil liberties, dignity, and control, to national security risks and even potential human extinction.&#8221;
The &#8220;Statement on Superintelligence&#8221; itself, which now has more than 1,000 signatures, consists of just 30 words: &#8220;We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in.&#8221;
High-profile signers include leaders in the tech industry, such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton.
In a statement accompanying his signature, Bengio wrote that superintelligence &#8220;could surpass most individuals across most cognitive tasks within just a few years.&#8221;
&#8220;These advances could unlock solutions to major global challenges, but they also carry significant risks,&#8221; he added. &#8220;To safely advance toward superintelligence, we must scientifically determine how to design AI systems that are fundamentally incapable of harming people, whether through misalignment or malicious use. We also need to make sure the public has a much stronger say in decisions that will shape our collective future.”
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The &#8220;Statement on Superintelligence&#8221; was promoted by the <a href="https://futureoflife.org/about-us/">Future of Life Institute</a>, a group that aims &#8220;to steer transformative technologies away from extreme, large-scale risks and towards benefiting life.&#8221; Future of Life Institute President Max Tegmark said he reached out to all the CEOs of major AI developers, asking them to sign the document. However, he added that he did not expect them to endorse the statement, the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-superintelligence-risk-prince-harry-meghan-bannon-acf6b17d3b53abc08694d5d8defc7009">reported</a>.
“I really empathize for them, frankly, because they’re so stuck in this race to the bottom that they just feel an irresistible pressure to keep going and not get overtaken by the other guy,” Tegmark said. “I think that’s why it’s so important to stigmatize the race to superintelligence, to the point where the U.S. government just steps in.”
Former U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen also signed the document, as did multiple former Democratic and Republican members of Congress. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were among other high-profile signers.
The statement was also signed by conservative media personalities Glenn Beck and Steve Bannon. Numerous faith leaders endorsed the statement, such as Paolo Benanti, a Papal AI advisor and Catholic priest; Johnnie Moore, the president of the Congress of Christian Leaders and a White House evangelical adviser; and Andrew T. Walker, the Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Both Altman and Musk have warned about potential major consequences to the development of advanced AI. In a <a href="https://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1">blog post</a> 10 years ago, Altman wrote, &#8220;Development of superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity.&#8221; Musk has similarly discussed the risks that come along with advanced AI, saying earlier this year that he believes there&#8217;s &#8220;only a 20% chance of annihilation,&#8221; CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/22/800-petition-signatures-apple-steve-wozniak-and-virgin-richard-branson-superintelligence-race.html">reported</a>.

AI apps smartphone

A Surprising Mix Of Public Figures Call For Halt To ‘Superintelligence’ AI That Could ‘Outperform All Humans’

Elon Musk

Mark Zuckerberg

Sam altman

Forty percent of American voters believe AI will make achieving the American Dream even harder to reach. That is more than double the 16% of voters who see AI as helpful. And this isn’t abstract technophobia. This is a window into the profound anxiety many feel about economic security in an era when the traditional pathways to prosperity already seem increasingly out of reach.
A recent Rainey Center <a href="https://www.raineycenter.org/news/new-poll-voters-overwhelmingly-support-domestic-energy-independence-and-data-security">national poll of 2,011</a> likely voters reveals a pervasive pessimism about artificial intelligence (AI), along with deeper concerns about a rigged system. 
When asked about the future, 39% of respondents said AI makes them more pessimistic, compared to 20% who said it makes them more optimistic.
Remarkably, this fear is bipartisan.
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all worry that technological disruption will compound rather than solve the challenges facing American families.
Yet, there’s reason for hope. One in five Americans sees AI’s potential to improve their economic prospects, and nearly a quarter believe it will make no difference to achieving the American Dream. These voters recognize what policymakers must internalize: AI could dramatically increase productivity, create new industries, improve healthcare outcomes, and free workers from dangerous or repetitive tasks.
The technology itself, however, isn’t the enemy. The question is whether we’ll ensure its benefits are broadly shared rather than narrowly concentrated. History shows that technological revolutions can lift entire societies when paired with smart policy. The challenge is making that happen deliberately rather than hoping it occurs by accident.
This AI anxiety doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It sits atop a foundation of economic stress and fading opportunity, particularly for younger generations. While 77% of the Silent Generation and 51% of Baby Boomers feel their lives are or were better than their parents’, only 31% of Millennials and 35% of Gen Z share this optimism. When we asked directly whether the American Dream has become more or less attainable over the past decade, an overwhelming 64% said less attainable, with one-third calling it “much less attainable.”
<div id="attachment_984319" style="width: 586px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-984319" class="size-large wp-image-984319" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-576x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy" width="576" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-768x768.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-2048x2048.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" />Credit: Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy</div>
The fear isn’t that AI will create a different future — voters fear that AI will accelerate trends already making life harder. Young Americans today face a housing market disconnected from wage growth, with 21% of Gen Z citing housing as a top national challenge compared to just 6% of Boomers. They’re burdened by education debt that earlier generations never faced. And now they’re being told that automation and AI may disrupt the very jobs they’re counting on to build their economic security.
The American Dream itself remains remarkably consistent: financial stability and homeownership top the list across all demographics. But the gap between aspiration and reality has never been wider. Only 22% of voters believe they’ve achieved the American Dream, while 36% feel it’s completely out of reach. Among Millennials, 40% believe the dream is unattainable for them.
This crisis of faith in American opportunity has political consequences. While voters give Republicans a slight edge over Democrats (39% to 33%) on supporting the American Dream, a striking 28% believe neither party is aligned with this goal. When nearly one in three Americans see no champion for their economic aspirations, we face a dangerous void in our politics.
The economy (34%) and inflation (29%) dominate voter concerns, bread-and-butter issues that AI anxiety amplifies rather than replaces. People aren’t worried about robot overlords; they’re worried about paying the mortgage, affording healthcare, and whether their children will have opportunities they did not.
Technology has always disrupted labor markets, but past disruptions occurred when basic economic mobility still functioned for most Americans. Today, AI arrives at a moment when millions already doubt that the system works for them. That timing matters enormously.
We need policies that will address both immediate economic pressures and longer-term technological change. Housing affordability, education access, and ensuring that economic growth translates into broadly shared prosperity aren’t separate from the AI question. They’re the foundation that determines whether technological change lifts us up or leaves us behind.
The American Dream isn’t dead, but it’s under siege from multiple directions. The question is whether we’ll recognize the urgency before another generation loses faith entirely.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
* * *
Sarah E. Hunt is President of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, a think tank and leadership community based in Washington, D.C.
Amelia Powers Gardner is a Utah County Commissioner and National Chair of the Leadership Alliance for a More Perfect Union (LAMP), a national program cultivating the next generation of conservative leaders.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Cinematic Shot of a Father Holding His Small Daughter of His Shoulders, Helping Her to Raise the United States of America Flag to Celebrate a National Fourth of July Holiday at Their House.

New Poll: Voters Fear AI Will Make The American Dream Even Harder To Reach

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In the wake of the horrific and historic assassination of the brilliant young conservative Charlie Kirk, there has understandably been increased focus on the rhetoric that preceded and followed the event. The overwhelming majority of Americans <a href="https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/media.deseret.com/media/misc/pdf/kirk-sky-national.pdf">(86%)</a> express concern over political violence, with <a href="https://statesunited.org/resources/political-violence-survey/">78%</a> believing it has escalated in recent years, and 57% saying it is a major problem — the highest response to that question in the last two years. 
When it comes to assessing blame, Americans are unsurprisingly <a href="https://www.deseret.com/u-s-world/2025/09/15/political-violence-america-charlie-kirk-shooting-morning-consult-poll/">split along partisan lines</a> on culpability, with the plurality of respondents believing the Left and Right bear equal responsibility. However, they find agreement in blaming politicians on both sides as being the key instigators.
Republicans point to examples of Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters “deplorables;” Biden telling us that it’s time to “put a bulls-eye on Trump;” Maxine Waters telling supporters to “create a crowd and … push back” and during the 2021 unrest in Minneapolis “to get more confrontational;” Schumer telling Supreme Court Justices “… you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you;” Dan Goldman telling an MSNBC interviewer that Trump “has to be eliminated;” Vice President Harris telling everyone that Trump and MAGA supporters were “a threat to democracy;” and of course, the countless references to Trump and MAGA supporters being Hitler, Nazis, fascists, and Gestapo.
Democrats counter with references to Steve Bannon referring to the political opposition as “criminals, vermin,” and “enemies of the republic;” Trump telling supporters to “fight like hell” and claiming he called white supremacists “very fine people;” Marjorie Taylor Greene suggesting a “peaceful national divorce” between red and blue states; Trump calling Democrats “scum, garbage” and “enemies of the people;” and Musk posting that “The Left is the party of murder.”
It is much more emotionally engaging to discuss the implications and injustices of rhetorical content, but regardless of which side has been more vitriolic, there is a far larger, more influential factor that supersedes all of it: Who controls the dominant media platforms — and specifically, the digital platforms. And that dominance overwhelmingly belongs to the Left. The result is that the Left’s messages and hyperbole are broadcast to dramatically more people, dramatically more frequently, and on dramatically more channels. Further, competing or contradictory messaging is far more likely to be absent or censored on the Left’s channels, so their audience is fed a much more homogenous diet of narratives.
Consider three important media domains: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Legacy Media, with centralized and professionally produced content, including television, radio, and newspapers (CNN, Reuters, Fox News, The New York Times, NPR, BBC, etc.)</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Social media — with user-generated content, no editorial oversight, and algorithm-generated visibility (Facebook, X—formerly Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, etc.)</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.)</li>
</ul>
The waning, but still significant, mainstream media are <a href="https://www.mrc.org/liberal-mediaevery-poll-shows-journalists-are-more-liberal-american-public-and-public-knows-it">dominantly Left-leaning and becoming more so</a>. Research has shown that members of the media are <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Do_97_percent_of_journalist_donations_go_to_Democrats">overwhelmingly liberal</a>, with the vast majority of them supporting Democratic candidates. In 2016, 96% of journalists’ donations went to the Hillary Clinton campaign. <a href="https://www.mrc.org/node/90399">Media Research Center found</a> that 92% of Trump coverage during the 2020 presidential campaign was negative – even more so than the relentless, hostile coverage he received in 2017. When examining bias in mainstream/traditional media, <a href="https://www.biasly.com/media-bias-chart/us-main/?">studies</a> have concluded that upwards of 60% of these outlets are left-leaning. But that doesn’t tell the whole story because that percentage is based on the number of outlets, regardless of the audience size for that outlet. When considering the total audience size and the percentage of it that receives information with a left-leaning bias, the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/pj_2025-06-10_news-media-sources_report.pdf">bias number climbs closer to 75%</a>. The percentage of Americans viewing a liberal bias in the mainstream media has doubled since 1985.
However, traditional media are quickly being pushed aside by social media, where the leftist bias is even more pronounced. The top social media companies are all Left-leaning (See <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/how-did-ai-get-so-biased-favor-left">here</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rigged-Media-Democrats-Seized-Elections/dp/168451259X/">here</a>, <a href="https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/social-media-trump-conservative-bias/">here</a>, and <a href="https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/the-censorship-industrial-complex">here</a>). Meta, the undisputed king of social media, owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, reaching approximately <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/">4 billion users</a> and controlling 75-80% of the social media market worldwide. Alphabet Inc., a smaller behemoth that owns Google and YouTube, has just surpassed $3 trillion in market cap and reaches some <a href="https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-sub-section-top-social-platforms?">2.2 billion users</a>. A collection of companies, including those owning TikTok, Douyin, WeChat, QQ, and Snapchat, reaches an additional <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/?">3.5 billion users</a> combined. Musk’s little X is much further down the list with a mere 500 million users.
I previously described social media as the <a href="https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/the_federal_government_colluded_with_social_media_to_control_content_so_what.html">800-pound gorilla in a rapidly shrinking cage</a>, noting that usage has skyrocketed from 5% in 2005 to over 70% today. Some estimates indicate that as much as 38% of all internet time today is spent on social media. Considering Facebook alone, the vast majority (nearly 70%) of <a href="https://www.demandsage.com/facebook-statistics/?">Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users</a> visit the site daily, and more than half of them visit it several times per day. 
The younger generations are particularly fond of social media, with a strong plurality — some <a href="https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/07/news-consumption-social-video/?">44% of Americans aged 18 to 24 and 34% of those aged 25 to 34 </a>— reporting that they now obtain their news and information from social media and video formats, rather than traditional media. This trend is accelerating worldwide, raising concerns about misinformation, algorithmic bias, and the blurring of entertainment and news.
What about when audiences go searching for information on their own? Most commonly today, this means using a computer, and in this world, Google controls a whopping <a href="https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share?">90% of the search market</a>, processing some <a href="https://sqmagazine.co.uk/google-search-statistics/?">8.9 billion search requests</a> per day, amounting to over 5 trillion annually. Over 70% of all clicks go to the top 5 search results (hence the industry joke that the best place to bury a dead body is on the second page of results for a Google search — because nobody ever looks there). They control a significantly larger share (<a href="https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/google-statistics/?">95%</a>) of the global mobile search market.
Just prior to the 2022 midterm elections, <a href="https://www.allsides.com/blog/google-news-shows-strong-political-bias-allsides-analysis">researchers found that the plurality of articles returned</a> for a Google search under the term “election” were from the New York Times and CNN (44%), with 0% from center or Right-leaning outlets. In 2023, <a href="https://www.allsides.com/blog/google-news-shows-strong-political-bias-allsides-analysis?copilot_analytics_metadata=eyJldmVudEluZm9fbWVzc2FnZUlkIjoiMXB5eDR2NGs1WnJkVDYxR3RWcXA4IiwiZXZlbnRJbmZvX2NvbnZlcnNhdGlvbklkIjoiOURMZ3dnaG5tdFlhWHpzc0xiZGVzIiwiZXZlbnRJbmZvX2NsaWNrU291cmNlIjoiY2l0YXRpb25MaW5rIiwiZXZlbnRJbmZvX2NsaWNrRGVzdGluYXRpb24iOiJodHRwczpcL1wvd3d3LmFsbHNpZGVzLmNvbVwvYmxvZ1wvZ29vZ2xlLW5ld3Mtc2hvd3Mtc3Ryb25nLXBvbGl0aWNhbC1iaWFzLWFsbHNpZGVzLWFuYWx5c2lzIn0=">the same research firm found</a> that 61% of the articles posted on the Google News homepage came from Left-rated sources, with only 3% coming from Right-rated sources. Repeated samplings produced very similar results.
<a href="https://www.gotchseo.com/google-biased/?">Another research firm</a> used 50 politically charged search terms with Google and found that the results were demonstrably left-leaning. Consider their results for the following:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Black Lives Matter” — 9 out of 10 results from Left-leaning outlets.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Border wall” – 7 of 10 results Left-leaning.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Dreamers” – 6 of 10 results Left-leaning.</li>
</ul>
Conversely, searches for “immigration policy” or “gun control facts” would surface snippets from CNN, NYT, or Vox, while conservative sources were buried or absent. Notably, the researchers attribute some of the results to the dominance of left-leaning outlets in Search Engine Optimization, rather than to algorithmic intent. Regardless, the result in the output is the same.
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In his 2019 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, Dr. Robert Epstein, a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat, argued that Google posed a threat not only to democracy but also to human autonomy. He has focused particularly on ephemeral search results — the auto-complete function that Google and others provide, which offers suggestions for alternative or additional phrasing. As but one example, he found that typing “Hillary Clinton is…” yielded suggestions like “winning,” “awesome,” and “qualified,” while “Donald Trump is…” produced “dangerous,” “racist,” and “a liar.” He <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Epstein%2520Testimony.pdf">concludes</a>: 
<blockquote>We are all aware that Google deletes or blocks access to videos on YouTube, which it owns, but few people are aware that Google blocks access to millions of websites. By the way, it is not just conservative content that gets censored . . . The problem with Google is not that it censors conservatives; the problem is that it has the power to determine what content billions of people worldwide will or will not see. No single entity – especially a private company that is not accountable to the public – should have such power.</blockquote>
It is clear that all three domains — the legacy media, social media, and search — are all heavily Left-leaning. Consider what this dominance means for the sheer volume of leftist information and rhetoric being broadcast and received. Put aside for the moment the questions of whether Democrats are using more pernicious or violent language than republicans. That issue pales in comparison to the question of how frequently their message is being broadcast — how many videos, shorts, stories, op-eds, posts — the sheer volume of minutes that will be devoted to the Left&#8217;s position versus the Right&#8217;s and whether any counter to it will be available.
The Left has a massive, pervasive, powerful, and sophisticated digital network, which I previously analogized to a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/as-democrat-warplane-takes-flak-audacity-remains-intact?author=Greg+Salsbury&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=As+Democrat+Warplane+Takes+Flak,+Audacity+Remains+Intact">stealth fighter</a>. Comparatively, conservatives have a Sopwith Camel. It is why on any number of issues, from Russiagate to Charlottesville misquotes, to Trump’s comments about COVID and bleach, to Charlie Kirk’s killer being right-wing, a shockingly high percentage of Americans still believe the lies that were broadcast ad nauseam despite their thorough debunking. Until conservatives can deal with the massive differential in scale, reach, and volume, “turning down the rhetoric” will remain a far lower priority issue.
* * *
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisors member for <a href="https://starrs.us">STARRS.US</a>. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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It’s Not Just The Rhetoric, It’s Who Controls The Mic

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at ensuring TikTok becomes “American-operated all the way,” he said.
After months of delaying the enforcement of a law banning TikTok, Trump announced a new framework facilitated by his executive order, which would transfer ownership of the social media platform from China to a group of American investors. Congress passed a law in 2024 to either ban the Chinese-owned TikTok or force its sale due to national security and privacy concerns.
“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said as he signed the executive order. “I have great respect for President Xi, and I very much appreciate that he approved the deal, because to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China and the approval of China.”
Trump thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for agreeing to the deal. He said some of the investors in the project included Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, entrepreneur Michael Dell, and Rupert Murdoch.
Vice President JD Vance played a key role in negotiating the framework. He said that the deal would allow Americans to use TikTok “with more confidence than they had in the past because their data is going to be secure, and it’s not going to be used as a propaganda weapon against our fellow citizens.”
Vance said that TikTok was valued at around $14 billion and that more details about the specific investors would be revealed in the coming days.
According to the text of the executive order, the framework resolves the national security concerns by removing “the TikTok application and certain other applications from the ‘control’ of a foreign adversary and precludes any ‘operational relationship’ between a formerly affiliated entity controlled by a foreign adversary and the new joint venture.”
It also “prohibits the storage of sensitive United States user data in a manner that would place such data under the control of a foreign adversary and requires such data to be stored in a cloud environment run by an American company.”
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld the law banning TikTok, ruling that it did not violate the First Amendment for Congress to prohibit the application due to national security concerns.

President Trump Signs Order On TikTok’s US Operations

Trump Says TikTok Will Be ‘American-Operated All The Way’ Under New Deal

China

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Google Bay Bridge

We Just Got Proof Of A Huge Attack On Free Speech, And It Has Nothing To Do With Jimmy Kimmel

Jake Tapper

Jimmy Kimmel

Matt Walsh

Twitter

YouTube

A new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas in the United States that goes into effect on Sunday will be levied per petition and will not be applied to existing holders of valid visas re-entering the country, the White House said on Saturday.
&#8220;This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition,&#8221; White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X on Saturday.
Leavitt also said that current H-1B visa holders who are currently outside of the country right now will not be charged $100,000 to re-enter the United States.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday said the fee would be paid annually, but added that details were &#8220;still being considered.&#8221;
Some companies including Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Amazon, had responded to the Friday announcement by advising employees holding H-1B visas to remain in the United States, according to internal emails reviewed by Reuters. A Goldman Sachs internal memo seen by Reuters on Saturday urged employees with such visas to exercise caution on international travel.
Leavitt said on X that H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country to the same extent as they normally would and that the new fee would only apply in the next H-1B lottery round and not to current visa holders or renewals.
The White House said the fee was being imposed to level the playing field for American workers which it said are being &#8220;replaced with lower-paid foreign labor.&#8221;
The executive order imposing the new fee on H-1B visa applications, which was signed by President Donald Trump on Friday night, could disrupt the global operations of Indian technology services companies that deploy skilled professionals to the United States, Indian IT industry body Nasscom said early on Saturday.
In a fact sheet distributed on Saturday, the White House said it would allow an H-1B visa application without the $100,000 fee on a case-by-case basis &#8220;if in the national interest.&#8221;
The fact sheet said that the share of IT workers with H-1B visas has risen from 32% in FY 2003 to over 65% in recent years.
It also requires the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security to issue joint guidance for verification, enforcement, audits, and penalties and directs the Labor Secretary to start a rulemaking to &#8220;revise the prevailing wage levels for the H-1B program&#8221; and &#8220;to prioritize high-skilled, high-paid H-1B workers.&#8221;
Friday&#8217;s announcement sparked concerns among employees across swaths of corporate America.
On the popular Chinese social media app Rednote, many H-1B holders shared stories of rushing back to the U.S. — some just hours after landing abroad — fearing they would be subject to the new $100,000 fee.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington and Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler, Marguerita Choy and Andrea Ricci)

American visa

New U.S. H-1B Visa Fee Will Not Apply To Existing Holders, White House Says

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President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping&#8217;s progress on a TikTok deal this week could help bolster talks to allow parent ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of the short video app, experts said.
The move forward, albeit a small one, comes eight months after a legal deadline passed for Chinese ownership of TikTok in the United States to end, and follows lengthy discussions about a sale.
Trump said on Truth Social on Friday that he appreciated &#8220;the approval of the TikTok Deal&#8221; from Xi, after a call between the leaders of the world&#8217;s two biggest economies.
Xi&#8217;s statement did not mention an approval. It said &#8220;the Chinese government respects the will of firms and welcomes companies to conduct business negotiations on the basis of market rules to reach a solution consistent with Chinese laws and regulations while balancing interests,&#8221; according to the meeting summary in Xinhua state media.
China blocked a similar agreement on the app used by 170 million Americans in April during a trade dispute.
&#8220;Readouts from Washington and Beijing suggest the call between Trump and Xi went well, with words like &#8216;positive&#8217; and &#8216;constructive&#8217; being used by both sides to characterize the important bilateral conversation,&#8221; said Wendy Cutler, senior vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. &#8220;While the leaders apparently blessed the TikTok deal, important details surrounding such matters as who would own and control the algorithm remain unclear.&#8221;
Either way, months of work, at the very least, lie ahead. Trump this week extended the deadline to complete the divestiture to December 19. And lawmakers have raised concerns about reported details on the preliminary framework agreement reached earlier in the week in Madrid.
Congress had ordered the app shut down for U.S. users by January 2025 if its U.S. assets were not sold by Chinese owner ByteDance.
Trump has declined to enforce the law while his administration looks for a new owner, which Democrats say is illegal. He has said he is worried a ban on the app would anger TikTok&#8217;s huge user base and disrupt political communications. He has largely downplayed national security concerns that motivated Congress to demand a Chinese divestiture.
&#8220;I like TikTok; it helped get me elected,&#8221; Trump said during a press conference on Thursday. &#8220;TikTok has tremendous value. The United States has that value in its hand because we&#8217;re the ones that have to approve it.&#8221;
Scott Kennedy, head of the Chinese Business and Economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, &#8220;the contours of the conversation today and over the last few months better align with China&#8217;s interests than U.S. interests.&#8221;
He added, &#8220;we&#8217;re talking about individual business deals. We&#8217;re not talking about Chinese structural reforms.&#8221;
Key questions about the deal remain. The precise ownership structure of the company is unclear, as is the amount of control China will retain, or whether Congress will approve.
The deal would transfer TikTok&#8217;s U.S. assets to U.S. owners from ByteDance, Reuters has reported. Sources familiar with the deal said U.S. TikTok would still make use of ByteDance&#8217;s algorithm.
That arrangement worries lawmakers concerned that Beijing could spy on Americans or conduct influence operations through the app. China has said there is no evidence of a national security threat posed by the app.
(Reporting by Chris Sanders, David Shepardson and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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Sale Of TikTok’s U.S. Assets May Get Boost After Recent Trump-Xi Call

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Charlie Kirk was an alt-right extremist.
Certainly, that’s what many in the so-called mainstream conclude from the collection of carefully culled remarks we are being fed by algorithms designed to maximally outrage us. These preternaturally powerful algos are fueled by bot armies, bad faith domestic players, sociopathic social media business practices, and hostile foreign regimes that seek to divide America.
How many hours of original Charlie Kirk footage do the algos have from which to select? An AI breakdown of Mr. Kirk’s content between podcasts, radio shows, YouTube videos, speeches, debates, and interviews estimates the total time somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 hours.
If we put this in the context of a job, assuming an eight-hour workday with no breaks, that translates to 625 to 1,000 consecutive work days.
At the upper end, that is two years and nine months of talking.
How many moments of this man’s life have people watched before making up their minds that his assassination must be qualified or even celebrated?
Suppose deep machine learning cast its all-powerful eye on the last 8,000 hours that any of us spoke to find out-of-context moments to maximally denigrate, vilify, and dehumanize us. Do we really believe our character couldn’t be assassinated just as readily?
Do we really believe anyone’s reputation could survive that level of scrutiny and cherry picking?
Yours? Mine? Our family members? Classmates and colleagues? The leaders we support? The athletes and musicians we admire?
Of course not.
But this is the world that we’ve built and allowed. And now it is clearer than ever: Ours is a radicalized culture.
A culture that reduces people to their mistakes, jokes, stupid remarks, contradictions, hypocrisies, blind spots, and contentious assertions is a culture that allows zero tolerance for being human.
A culture that views legitimate political disagreement as an us-versus-them battle with existential stakes, that demonizes the opposition and views them not as factions and individuals but as a monolith.
Why is it radical? Because it remains ossified and immovable, allowing neither nuance nor learning.
A quick online spin shows us the ways that Charlie Kirk, a complex and good man, imperfect like every last one of us, has been hammered flat and dehumanized.
He’s racist… despite running a Young Black Leadership Summit for years, despite his avowed and articulate admiration of black luminaries like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Thomas Sowell, despite his mentoring of many young black activists and leaders, and despite his voter mobilization efforts for the black community.
He’s anti-gay… despite welcoming gays into the conservative movement with love and grace, despite his taking fire from actual homophobes and arguing to persuade them, despite his deep friendships with many gay people.
He’s transphobic… despite his multiple kind and respectful discussions with trans students in which he welcomed them and encouraged them toward health and meaning.
He’s a misogynist… despite the fact that he ran a Young Women’s Leadership Summit, elevated women on his podcasts and events, encouraged women to engage politically, uplifted female chapter leaders and ambassadors, and spoke to podcast audiences, which at times skewed 60-65% female.
He’s a violent extremist… despite his countless denunciations of violence and coercion, despite his refusal to fight when challenged, despite his exemplification of debate and discourse.
He’s alt-right… despite the fact that his opinions are not far from average Catholic and Christian views from a single generation ago, despite the fact that he was a bulwark against extremism on his own side, despite the reality that he was hated by Groypers, Nazis, terrorists, and white supremacists.
There seems to be a genuine belief among many that everything Charlie Kirk did was for power, manipulation, and control. A belief that his movement is all grift and corruption. A belief that for him and everyone in his orbit — and what an orbit it was — there was no wisdom, no grace, no care for people or the nation. Nothing genuine, only Machiavellian plans for an evil takeover.
How does this happen?
Our radicalizing media, social and otherwise, has strangled our curiosity, forbidding exploration of opposing notions, ideas, and thinkers. It tells us that we cannot risk contamination with information that might provide nuance and context. It tells us that anyone seeking to offer a different perspective is captured, brainwashed, not to be trusted. It tells us that if we modify our position, we will be outcast as a traitor, despised, one of “them.”
We all know the feeling. A stubborn ping in the chest, a compulsion at the back of our lizard brain that whispers: I’m on the right side of this issue, I just know it. I’m on the right side of history, I just know it. He’s a bad guy, I just know it. I don’t need to see or hear anything else that might disprove or alter my opinion, I just know it.
I just know it. And won’t be told otherwise.
That is what radicalization sounds like.
Terrifying to see in the mirror. Terrifying and shameful.
And it prevents many from gazing with open eyes and an open heart on a tableau that can only be described as biblical. A husband and father shot before his wife and young children at a free speech event on a college campus beneath a sign that says, Prove Me Wrong, in front of 3,000 kids, live-streamed to tens of thousands more. Terrified by the gunshot, his three-year-old daughter ran to him, crying, “Daddy.”
What would have been our overwhelming national reaction to this moment in a time before social media and cable news?
Not moral confusion, equivocation, political expediency — certainly not gleeful malice.
The difference between then and now is our widespread radicalization from being fed selective information 24-7.
This is what it looks like.
It looks like us.
And it will destroy America if we don’t stop it.
Because when we are blinded by radicalization, we are also blind to who our real enemies are.
Our foreign adversaries are feeding this division. Profiteering social media companies with teams of addiction specialists are laser-focused on exploiting our kids. Nihilists who wish only chaos, pain, and destruction.
There are alt-right extremists. Charlie Kirk was not one of them. 

He was the embodiment of how you teach conservative young men and women not to become alt-right extremists.
When challenged to fight by a grown man in front of 2,000 kids, Mr. Kirk said, “The only thing that is preventing us in this country from going to civil war is debate and dialogue… In fact, a mark of civilization is that we don’t have to go to blows and bullets, that we can have discourse and debate… We are going to remain peaceful.”
Again and again this week, I have been told:
Charlie was part of the problem. 
He was a peddler of hate.
He said some horrendous things.
Do you really want to defend him?
That is not a good hill for you to die on.
Is it?
For a man I never met?
For a thinker I considered to be, on many topics, a beneficial adversary?
For the principles he evinced — debate not fists, discussion not bullets, gratitude not grievance, love not hate?
Yes.
It is.
This is a hill for us to die on.
Just like he did.
* * *
Gregg Hurwitz is the New York Times #1 internationally bestselling author of 26 thrillers including the Orphan X series. His novels have won numerous literary awards and have been published in 33 languages. Gregg currently serves as the Co-President of International Thriller Writers (ITW). Additionally, he’s written screenplays and television scripts for many of the major studios and networks, and is an award-winning documentary producer. Gregg also wrote comics for AWA (including the critically acclaimed anthology NewThink), DC, and Marvel, and poetry. Currently, Gregg is working against polarization in politics and culture. To that end, he&#8217;s penned dozens of Op/Eds and pieces for The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Bulwark, Salon, and others, and pieces of creative content which have won numerous industry awards and achieved several hundred million views on digital TV platforms. He also helped write the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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‘Do You Really Want To Defend Him?’ Algorithms, Outrage, And The Death Of Charlie Kirk

assassination

Charlie Kirk

Conservatism

Democrats

Racism

Monopolies have been rigging the system for decades. They cozy up to Washington, throw cash around, hire armies of lobbyists, and manipulate rules so that everyday Americans always lose.
Thankfully, President Trump isn’t playing by their rules. He’s standing up for Main Street, not corporate boardrooms.
We first saw this with Big Tech. Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/technology/mark-zuckerberg-trump-meta-antitrust.html">thought</a> he could cut a favorable deal to get Facebook off the hook, possibly even counting on Trump to back him. Instead, the Trump administration <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/facebook-privacy-practices-focus-8-billion-trial-targeting-zuckerberg-2025-07-16/">allowed</a> the case to go to trial, and Zuckerberg found himself sweating it out on the witness stand. 
Google attempted a similar stunt, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/21/google-argues-doj-breakup-could-hurt-us-economy-in-battle-with-china.html">claiming</a> national security would be at risk if it faced a breakup. Trump’s DOJ wasn’t buying it. 
 
“You know what is dangerous?” Antitrust chief Gail Slater <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/business/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-testifies-extraordinary-doj-remedies-would-cause-many-unintended-consequences/">asked</a> outside the courthouse. “The threat Google presents to our freedom of speech, to our freedom of thought, to free American digital markets.” That case has now <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2025/08/20/google-will-soon-learn-its-fate-as-judge-prepares-to-reveal-antitrust-remedies/">reached</a> the remedies stage, and for the first time since AT&amp;T in the 1980s, we could see a Big Tech monopoly actually broken apart. That’s how monopolies should be treated.
Now Ticketmaster is running the same playbook. 
Controlling <a href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/did-ticketmasters-market-dominance-fuel-the-chaos-for-swifties">80% of the market</a>, the ticket marketplace is infamous for outrageous fees and predatory practices, such as charging junk fees and allowing scalping bots to buy up most of its inventory, leaving regular fans at the mercy of price gougers. Yet now the monopoly wants Trump to think it’s the solution, not the problem. 
Ticketmaster’s owner, Live Nation, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5311464-ric-grenell-live-nation-board-trump-doj-ticketmaster-antitrust/">added</a> a MAGA-friendly face to its board and is now floating “reform” ideas, like capping resale prices. Such caps would <a href="https://www.whiskeyriff.com/2025/07/09/live-nation-asks-the-trump-administration-to-cap-ticket-resale-prices-which-would-conveniently-put-their-competition-out-of-business/">bankrupt</a> almost all of Ticketmaster’s rivals, leaving the company even more dominant while pretending to “fix” the market.
It’s a double scam: they make the mess, then turn around and sell the “solution” as regulation.
It’s like an arsonist showing up with a bucket of water after lighting the fire.
Fortunately, the Trump administration is not paying any attention to Ticketmaster’s desperate attempt to protect itself from the White House’s wrath. It is already <a href="https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2025/03/14/329490.htm">continuing</a> the antitrust suit against Ticketmaster, and a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-will-end-price-gouging-by-middlemen-in-the-entertainment-industry/">ticketing reform plan</a> set to drop in September could put the company’s “business as usual” to an end.
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Big Tech and Ticketmaster aren’t alone.
In June, the Trump administration hit Mexican bank CIBanco with the <a href="https://www.foley.com/insights/publications/2025/07/fincen-new-authority-targeting-mexico-based-financial-institutions-cartel/">toughest sanctions possible</a>, accusing it of aiding the fentanyl trade. A few weeks later, CIBanco — never before a client of Washington lobbyists — <a href="https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/ab337cdd-495b-4498-a1f9-4f3b0ec83631/print/">hired</a> the MAGA-connected Rubin, Turnbull &amp; Associates. The sanctions haven’t moved, and Trump has stood firm.
Amazon has also tried its usual political maneuvering on the president. When Trump won the White House, executives <a href="https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/b22dc7d6-7900-40e4-9f3f-985bbbb32579/print/">hired</a> Brian Ballard — Trump’s former lawyer and Florida finance director — to lobby on Amazon’s behalf. They even contributed <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/286/201704180300150286/201704180300150286.pdf">over $50,000</a> to the president’s inauguration. Did it work? No. Trump didn’t blink, and Amazon lost its effort to dodge federal antitrust charges.
Hardworking Americans are tired of being taken advantage of. Insider games, where a board seat or a lobbyist equals immunity, have gone on for too long. Trump sees it, and he’s the one president actually saying “No” loud enough for all of us to hear.
Trump is different from most politicians. He doesn’t feel he owes these corporations anything, and he isn’t inclined to give them a free pass. His administration is pushing back against any monopoly that harms consumers or breaks the law.
The bottom line? Corporate America needs to clean up its act or face the consequences. Because the Trump administration isn’t standing up for special interests, it’s standing up for everyday Americans like you and me.
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Haley Kennington (@LadyKennington) is an investigative journalist and conservative commentator. She served as the Research Director &amp; Story Editor for The Daily Wire’s “2020:The Plot Against the President” and the Research/Archive Editor for “What Is a Woman?“
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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