‘Blaming the conduct of companies may provide some comfort’

Jeannie Suk Gersen at The New Yorker

For “decades, the understanding was that social media companies were essentially immune from legal liability,” says Jeannie Suk Gersen. If parents “have in the past felt they were competing with bad influences on children — questionable friends, shady neighbors or profanity-laced music among them — the core anxiety in this era is that algorithms have made it so that there is no competition at all, undermining parents’ opportunity to steer their children right.”

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‘In Texas and beyond, a political impulse: If you don’t like it, leave.’

Mark Z. Barabak at the Los Angeles Times

There is “no end of hurdles” that “would have to be surmounted for a partial Texas-New Mexico merger to occur,” says Mark Z. Barabak. But the “impulse to bust up, break away and move on is as old as America itself and, at the same time, as fresh as the latest provocation to pass the lips of the nation’s frothing commander-in-chief.” Secession “has long been the dream of dissenters, of the discontented and those who feel put upon.”

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‘Freedom itself is at stake in Hungary’

Martin Wolf at the Financial Times

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is “not a man of small influence,” and “for many so-called ‘national conservatives,’ notably in the U.S., he defines a successful and admirable form of right-wing politics,” says Martin Wolf. That “makes the parliamentary elections on Sunday far more important than the modest size of Hungary would suggest.” The “defeat of the man who embraced the notion of ‘illiberal democracy’ might mean a great deal for the survival of the threatened ‘liberal’ version.”

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‘Less than 10% now smoke, but we’re still far from finished’

Mario Danek at The Hill

The U.S. “crossed a milestone that sounds like the beginning of the end for cigarette smoking: Fewer than 10% of American adults now smoke,” says Mario Danek. But “percentages can obscure as much as they reveal.” Even at “9.9%, that still represents tens of millions of Americans who continue to smoke.” The “progress is real and should be applauded. But the harder question is what it will take to reach those still smoking and whether we’re ready for that.”

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