"We’re in a season of hand-wringing and scapegoating over social media, especially TikTok...."

"Young people are overwhelmingly unhappy about U.S. policy on the war in Gaza? Must be because they get their 'perspective on the world on TikTok' — at least according to Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat who holds a strong pro-Israel stance. This attitude is shared across the aisle. 'It would not be surprising that the Chinese-owned TikTok is pushing pro-Hamas content,' Senator Marsha Blackburn said.... Consumers are unhappy with the economy? Surely, that’s TikTok again, with some experts arguing that dismal consumer sentiment is a mere 'vibecession' — feelings fueled by negativity on social media rather than by the actual effects of inflation, housing costs and more.... Why don’t we know more about TikTok’s true influence, or that of YouTube or Facebook? Because that requires the kind of independent research that’s both expensive and possible only with the cooperation of the platforms themselves... [U]ntil politicians and institutions dig into the influence of social media and try to figure out ways to regulate it, and also try addressing broader sources of discontent, blaming TikTok amounts to just noise."

Writes Zeynep Tufekci — a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University — in "Avert Your Eyes, Avoid Responsibility and Just Blame TikTok" (NYT).

Why, exactly, is Caitlyn Jenner attacking Dylan Mulvaney?

There's this:

. @MarshaBlackburn thank you for speaking out and having a backbone - one of the best senators we have. Let’s not ‘normalize’ any of what this person is doing. This is absurdity! https://t.co/YmQcuwWKhj

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) October 26, 2022

I got there via "Caitlyn Jenner Piles on Trans TikToker, Calls Body Positive Video ‘Absurdity’/The anti-trans attacks against Mulvaney come days after her interview with President Biden surrounding transgender rights and policies" (Rolling Stone).

I've been avoiding the Mulvaney-at-the-White-House story. Not sure why. I'd already seen many Dylan Mulvaney videos on TikTok, including the one that reenacts the opening sequence of the old TV show "That Girl" (and the subsequent version of that where Marlo Thomas looks on and is (or acts) choked up about the tribute to her long-ago perky, girly youth). 

"In four days of Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the phrase 'child porn' (or 'pornography' or 'pornographer') was mentioned 165 times."

"There were also, according to transcripts, 142 uses of 'sex' ('sexual abuse,' 'sexual assault,' 'sexual intercourse,' 'sex crimes'), 15 of 'pedophile,' 13 of 'predators,' 18 of 'prepubescent' and nine of general pornography.... The Republican fixation on pornography continued during Monday’s round of statements by senators before the committee advanced Jackson’s nomination to the Senate floor. A preliminary transcript showed 41 mentions of 'porn' or 'pornography' and 32 mentions of 'sex offenders,' 'sexual assault' and the like.... Republicans on the committee congratulated themselves for avoiding 'personal slanders' of the sort they said Democrats inflicted on Brett M. Kavanaugh after women accused the Donald Trump nominee of sexual misconduct. Yet, they opposed Jackson with the most grievous of personal slanders... Graham: 'Every judge who does what you’re doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited.' Cruz: 'I also see a record of … advocacy as it concerns sexual predators.' Blackburn: 'What’s your hidden agenda? Is it to let … child predators back to the streets?' And, of course, there was Hawley, who previewed the hearings by saying Jackson’s record 'endangers our children.'"

From "Senate Republicans’ unhealthy fixation on child porn, by the numbers" by Dana Milbank (WaPo).

What goes around, comes around. Oh, but it came back around in a different form! An unhealthy and fixated form....

It's different but is it worse?

When Ketanji Brown Jackson said "Can I provide a definition? No. I can't... Not in this context I can't."

You can listen to the video here. Take note that the Republican National Committee Research gives us a distorted transcript, omitting key words and not using ellipses to show that there were omissions:

SEN. BLACKBURN: "Can you provide a definition of the word 'woman'?"

JACKSON: "No, I can't"

BLACKBURN: "You can't?"

JACKSON: "I'm not a biologist" pic.twitter.com/i7Rg83z5Y4

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 23, 2022

"Can I provide a definition? No. I can't... Not in this context I can't."

I find these omissions quite deceptive, though the video is there, so the deceptions stare you in the face. I suspect that if you're rooting for the GOP here, you think this is a fabulous gotcha and you won't absorb what I'm about to say. If you're rooting for the Democrats, keep reading an you might find a new perspective on this troublesome clip that's delighting your antagonists.

Blackburn asked "Can you provide a definition of the word 'woman'?" And Jackson's response — listen to the video — stressed the word "provide": "Can I provide a definition?" Jackson shows a judicial temperament: Instead of jumping to giving an answer, she inspects the question, its precise wording. What does it mean to provide a definition? 

I know I'm restraining myself from looking up the words "provide" and "definition" and spending the next 10 minutes contemplating whether providing a definition of a word is substantially different from saying what a word means. And then, can you ever really say what a word means?

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is," wrote Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison. "Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule."

Judges say what words mean when they have particular cases — concrete disputes to resolve — that require the understanding of words. Their powers of understanding unfold within a real context. They don't — like a dictionary — yield instant definitions of words. They refrain from giving answers in the abstract. 

Thus, it was entirely appropriate for Jackson to expand with "Not in this context I can't." I think that means: As a judge, I wait until I am presented with a real dispute that can only be resolved by determining what the word "woman" means. What would that context be? 

If I'd been in the Jackson's position, I wouldn't have made myself vulnerable by saying "I can't," and I certainly wouldn't have laughed at Blackburn in a manner that can read as contemptuous. I'd have turned the questioning back on Blackburn: When would a real case depend on finding the meaning of that word? As a judge, I need a concrete and particularized dispute to resolve. I have no expertise in defining words outside of that judicial role. 

Jackson gestured at that when she said "I'm not a biologist." Would it have been better to say "I'm not a lexicographer"? Yes, because she was asked to "provide a definition." By saying "I'm not a biologist," she suggested that if she were confronted with a real case that depended on the meaning of "woman," the expert she'd most want to hear from is "a biologist." That might have disappointed some people on the left. Is there a whiff of transphobia?

Is there any Senator who would would want to follow up with a question like "Biologist?! You're saying that biology determines who is a woman and who isn't?" It never rose to that level of sophistication, but it's obvious to me that the right answer is: It would depend on the relevant facts and legal texts in the particular case or controversy before the court, and multiple areas of professional expertise may very well come into play.