I did get some good news on Sunday relative to the streaming television project. It is picking up further support in the community. Apparently it is not just a random thing to spill out from my brain. There are people who agree that this is actually needed.

Editions of the Star Beacon are getting even smaller. Weekday editions are getting down to twelve broadsheet pages. There is plenty that happens locally but without a functioning news media nobody knows about it.

Although people locally use Facebook like AOL was used back in the day that might be in danger. Why? We have a convergence of actions leading to possibly unintended consequences. Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will be charging $12-15 per month for identity verification, impersonation prevention, and access to customer support for both Facebook and Instagram. In comments to the post Mr. Zuckerberg mentions that identity verification is really expensive to conduct manually which is why it has to be charged for and would not be done for free.

Separately from that we have the executive budget proposal to the legislature here in Ohio proposing something called the “Social Media Parental Notification Act”. In the proposed law under threat of fines and possible suspension of service within the bounds of the stat, the law would require certain social platform companies to: “Create a method to determine whether the user is a child under the age of 16”. The proposal effectively requires identity verification of all Ohioans before they use social media platforms so that the state government ensures no children under the age of 16 use these things without parental consent. The proposal provides no funding to the companies to carry out these functions.

If enacted by Ohio the result would be that Facebook would become either paid-only or simply unavailable here. I’m not sure rolling the dice on litigation would be the safest move in the current times. Judges out here have done crazy unexpected things that could be best termed as “weird”.

My state is run by crazy people.

At least none of them have one of the newfangled “Meta Channel” things yet…