founding fathers

Why Twitter Is Better Than Facebook

/ warriorwoman91 / 1 Comment

I’ve often complained that my FaceBook experience is far inferior to the fun and games we all have on Twitter, so I thought I’d elaborate on just what exactly makes Twitter so much better than FaceBook.

Twitter is open

Probably the best example of why Twitter is a superior platform to FaceBook is it is an open network. The premise of Twitter is that unless you have a protected account—and who wastes their time with those—everything you post on Twitter is visible to anyone and everyone else on the Internet. Twitter is your own little broadcast network that can be as big or as small as the effort you put into it; therefore it is a given that personal, sensitive, or intimate material is posted at your own risk. In contrast, FaceBook is the Soviet Union of social networking—unless you have an active following virtually no one can see your content due to FaceBook’s limiting and restrictive algorithims. The rules that must be adhered to and the hoops that must be jumped through in order for the average person to grow their network are nearly impossible to overcome, and many would say it’s just not worth the effort. This idea that social networking should or can be limited to you and just your personal friends is contrary to its purpose, as the sharing of ideas and information should be allowed to go far beyond your immediate sphere of influence.

Twitter is impersonal

This is a huge (or yuge if you’re Donald Trump) advantage that Twitter has over FaceBook. Somehow I always feel obligated to respond to people on FaceBook even if I don’t want to for fear of offending someone. Other times, I feel I have to think and rethink what I’m about to post on FaceBook, wondering if this post might offend this person or seem inappropriate to that person. Still other times I really would rather not be friends with a particular person, yet I might offend him or her by unfriending or blocking whomever it is on FaceBook. It the social justice warrior’s dream where everyone has to walk on eggshells to prevent people from being offended, or suffer the consequences! With Twitter there is none of this flip-flopping over what I want to post or who I unfriend or unfollow—it’s not personal, so I don’t have to care.

Twitter levels the playing field

This is my favorite part of Twitter—the fact that I get to digitally meet and exchange ideas with people that in any other circumstance I would never get a chance to communicate with. Imagine a Californian getting to connect with conservatives in other states, a U.S. based college student sharing ideas with a British celebrity, or an average fan of a T.V. show getting to communicate with one of its actors. These are only a few of the ways that Twitter has broken down the traditional barriers between the middle class and the elite that FaceBook and it’s elaborate barriers only work to reinforce.

Twitter is a free for all

Anything, and I mean anything, goes on Twitter. If the U.S. would loosen the restrictions on its economy the way Twitter has allowed most information sharing to be unrestricted, we’d be going gangbusters! It is universally understood by most Twitter users that you are undoubtedly going to see everything offensive—whether it’s an opinion you dislike or a picture with graphic content—and that’s the nature of the free for all. FaceBook would restrict all content which it subjectively determines to be offensive in pursuit of some fascistic utopia where no one gets offended and no one really has any contact with other ideas. Unfortunately, with PC fears beginning to encroach on Twitter the free for all may not for much longer. So if I could give one piece of advice to Twitter I would ask that it continue to be the opposite of everything that FaceBook stands for by loosening restrictions and facilitating the unlimited exchange of ideas.

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Can Obama Use the Commerce Clause to Implement his Agenda?

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There are two ways by which the Commerce Clause is interpreted: broad application and narrow. These application types are used based on the definition of commerce believed to be attached to Congress’s power to “regulate commerce,” (Art. 1, Sec 8.3). Those who believe that commerce should be defined as any “gainful activity” (Barnett, 2001, p. 4) tend to apply the broad application to the interpretation of the Commerce Clause. On the other hand, those who believe that commerce is defined as merely the transfer of goods and services gravitate toward the narrow application of this clause. Below is a brief argument as to why the broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause should not be used.

The primary reason why the broad interpretation of the commerce clause should not be used is because it falls outside the boundaries of the original intent of the Founders. Their intent was obviously to institute a limited government, and the notion that any “gainful activity” should have the opportunity of being regulated goes far beyond any reasonable definition of the word “limited.” Gainful activity could be applied to virtually anything—from production, to agriculture, to your child’s lemonade stand, all of which could affect interstate commerce in one way or another. If the broad interpretation of the commerce clause is to be used on such a widespread and regular basis, the U.S. should cease to refer to itself as a limited government.

In contrast, the narrow interpretation of the commerce clause reflects both the meaning of the language used at the time of the creation of the Constitution as well as the original intent of the Framers. Limited government is more appropriately reflected when the definition of commerce is also limited to the transfer of goods and services. Also referred to as “intercourse,” this definition specifies the type of interstate economic activity that Congress is allowed to regulate, rather than leaving the interpretation open to any interstate economic activity as is the case with the broad interpretation. For these reasons, I believe that the narrow interpretation is more in keeping with the original intent of the Framers when they created the Constitution.