Opinion Category: Business

The threat to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has sent Social into a tailspin, and for weeks it’s been searching for a way to save it. Although it looked as though a conservative Republican plan put forth by Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina might be a solution, it was Senate Minority […]

After 50 years at the helm of Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner is giving up his controlling stake in the magazine. The New York Times reported on Monday that Jann and his son Gus—who’s the chief operating officer of Wenner Media—have decided to sell their remaining 51 percent share. The news comes just a year after […]

The second installment of the Destiny series has been out for roughly two weeks, which is just enough time for Social to conclude that it’s well worth a purchase. Destiny 2 is available now for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with a PC version coming on Oct. 24. The online-only first-person shooter shares some Halo […]

It’s a rivalry that has raged in the streets and in the malls (or what’s left of them) for decades. Adidas, or Nike? Nike wins on paper, according to CNN Money, but Nike’s Jordan brand just got dunked on by Adidas, which has outsold it for the first time in history. Adidas isn’t suffering from […]

Despite failure at every effort so far to whack Obamacare, the GOP remains committed to its long-standing goal of repealing (and maybe replacing) the Affordable Care Act. A last-minute vote against the so-called skinny repeal by Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) saved the ACA in July, but now another attempt to do it in is being […]

The UK’s controversial vote to withdraw from the European Union took place nearly 15 months ago, and the British government is still trying to figure out how exactly to make that a reality. The latest hiccup in the Brexit plan involves a rift between Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, both of […]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos might have public schools in her crosshairs, given her staunch support of private and charter systems, but two comedians stepped forward on Sunday night at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles to defend them, or at least the ones in Washington, D.C. Dave Chappelle, who attended D.C. public schools, and John […]

From all indications, mother! is the ultimate high-risk, high-reward movie—viewers are leaving theaters either loving it or absolutely abhorring it. The film premiered last Friday in the U.S. and has a star-studded cast including Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer. The plot is hard to follow and features countless biblical allegories, but […]

As Republicans gear up for one last go at Obamacare repeal with the Graham-Cassidy Bill, Democrats are pushing ahead with a radically different plan. Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) unveiled his “Medicare for All” bill, which, as the name suggests, would introduce a single-payer healthcare system handled by the government rather than a combination […]

Floyd Mayweather’s fight with Conor McGregor may have been the top-billed bout of 2016 so far, but there’s one boxing match that aficionados of the “sweet science” believe will be remembered as the fight of the year. Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Gennady “G.G.G.” Golovkin, middleweights considered among the most evenly matched fighters in recent memory, […]

Sean Spicer’s appearance aside, the 2017 Emmy Awards were met with applause and approval on Sunday night. Hosted by Stephen Colbert, the Emmys honed in on the topic no one can escape: President Donald Trump and the state of politics in the U.S. After an opening musical number to that effect, Colbert waved at the […]

From James Bond flicks to the Jason Bourne series, movies about espionage and human killing machines are almost always a sure bet. This year’s latest effort comes courtesy of Lionsgate, which released American Assassin last week. Despite opening against the hotly anticipated It remake and the mind-bending Jennifer Lawrence thriller Mother!, Assassin held its own […]

Apple’s official foray into facial recognition isn’t getting the buzz the company might have been hoping for. At last Tuesday’s event in Cupertino, Calif., the tech giant unveiled a facial recognition feature for its fancy new $999 iPhone X. It’s supposed to replace the old ways a user would unlock an iPhone—i.e. typing in a […]

President Trump’s recent bipartisan push has been giving him the slightly more favorable headlines he’s been known to crave. But when it comes to a legislative solution for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Twitter and President Trump can’t come to a consensus on A) if a deal with Democrats is a good idea and B) […]

Mainstream media has been more under fire than ever since the 2016 presidential campaign bred an epidemic of fake news, online and on-air. According to a Harvard-Harris Poll in May, 84 percent of voting Americans said that mainstream news is unreliable. Although that skepticism may have been enhanced by fake news found on Facebook and […]

On Friday, NASA space probe Cassini plunged into Saturn after a 20-year mission to the ringed planet. But this was no catastrophic disaster for NASA. In fact, it sent the probe on its crash course, destroying it to make sure it wouldn’t slam into Saturn’s moons once fuel ran out. The fiery end for Cassini […]

Solar power, once a subject of skepticism on social media, is finally having its day in the sun. The natural energy has been getting cheaper for years, and companies that invested early in sun power are starting to see serious growth, according to USA Today. That could translate into big savings for homeowners, who stand […]

A couple of Silicon Valley bros are facing the wrath of Social—specifically, Twitter—after announcing a startup with a name that’s rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. Paul McDonald and Ashwath Rajan are former Google employees with a not-so-revolutionary idea: a pantry box service they’re calling “Bodega.” The pantry boxes would be located in […]

Perhaps rushing to judgment after one game is foolish, but it’s hard to blame Cleveland Browns fans for doing just that. The team lost its Week One matchup to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 21-18, but the relatively close game—and a solid performance at quarterback—offered a glimmer of hope for the NFL’s most downtrodden franchise. DeShone Kizer, […]

The U.S. men’s national soccer team (USMNT) has never been known as a powerhouse, but it’s certainly not a pushover, either. In the last two World Cups, the USMNT has advanced past the group stage, indicating it is at least middle-of-the-pack compared with competitors. But the Yanks are barely alive in World Cup qualifiers, and […]

In a political culture more polarized than ever, many a pundit and commentator has started looking for an alternative to the Red-Blue divide that dominates government and so often sabotages efforts to accomplish the people’s business. Some have turned to third parties, but one new idea has set off a lot of chatter. Last week, […]

Since her defeat, Hillary Clinton has made sporadic appearances and pronouncements, but she’s about to return to the public eye in a big way. Her election retrospective, What Happened, is out on Sept. 12, and Social is already buzzing about it. It’s worth noting, though, how difficult it is to isolate opinions about the book […]

The first slate of NFL preseason matchups are underway this week, and Colin Kaepernick is still waiting for a team to sign him. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback had a good enough 2016 season by any reasonable standard to get picked up in free agency—he threw for 16 touchdowns and just four interceptions in […]

Donald Trump Jr. is getting most of the scorn/attention in recent days for his role in organizing a meeting with Russians allegedly connected to the Kremlin to collect dirt on Hillary Clinton, but President Trump’s son-in-law isn’t exactly Mr. Popularity either. Jared Kushner, along with Trump’s then- campaign chieftain Paul Manafort, attended that fateful meeting […]

In the latest sign that no one can agree on anything except that nothing can be agreed upon, Republicans have apparently turned on the idea of college. A new Pew Research poll indicates that while 55 percent of Americans still believe higher education institutions have a positive effect, only 36 percent of Republicans feel that […]

For all of recorded history, humans have had a pretty well established method of ingesting chocolate, which is putting it in their mouths and swallowing. Their reasoning has been straightforward enough: chocolate tastes good. But an Orlando-based company called Legal Lean has a different idea—it wants consumers to snort chocolate. Legal Lean’s product, called Coco […]

Liberals in Congress were split back in March when Neil Gorsuch was nominated to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Many feared that he would prove to be a conservative jurist cut from the same cloth as his predecessor. To Washington’s surprise, it only took three […]

Ad revenue is what supports a lot of content on the Internet—but could care less. Online advertisements get 66 percent negative sentiments on Social, with “bad” and “annoying” driving the conversation. But help may be on the way, courtesy of Google, which makes billions from ads but is planning to integrate an ad-blocker into its […]

If you’re itching for a trip to a far-away place but lack the funds to make it happen, Google Earth might be able to tide you over. The app got a massive makeover this week, and it’s hard to find many complaints about the new version. There are beautiful 3D renderings of the entire globe, […]

James Baldwin died in 1987, but his words feel as relevant as ever in “I Am Not Your Negro,” which was given a wide release in theaters last Friday. Directed by Raoul Peck, the documentary “is entirely drawn from Baldwin’s work,” said The New York Times, and “much of it comes from notes and letters written […]

The day after Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, hundreds of thousands of protestors will take to the streets of the nation’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington. Months in the making, the march is a direct rebuke of Trump, his newly appointed Cabinet, and his “grab […]

A future with plentiful food and less disease could be right around the corner, depending on how scientists choose to utilize a powerful gene-editing tool named CRISPR. The technology “harnesses the immune system of bacteria to snip individual genes, either knocking them out or even inserting new ones in their place,” according to Vox. With […]

Buzzfeed’s decision to publish the salacious, unconfirmed 35-page dossier regarding president-elect Donald Trump’s alleged antics in Moscow has been met with near-unanimous condemnation. Buzzfeed registers just a 15 percent positive score on Social, certainly not aided by Trump referring to the website as a “pathetic pile of garbage” during his Wednesday press conference (though Buzzfeed […]

Barack Obama might wrapping up his presidency, but he’s not done rocking it on Social just yet. Following his Tuesday night farewell address, the outgoing President scored 65 percent positive sentiment ratings, a veritable slam-dunk in politics. In his speech, Obama touted huge accomplishments such as healthcare reform and diplomacy deals with Iran. But he […]

In the aftermath of a Facebook Live video that shows a possible hate crime – the alleged kidnapping and torturing a white special-needs teenager — support for Black Lives Matter on Social has plummeted, despite there being no connection between the movement and the incident. Chicago police recently arrested four suspects—all black—and charged them with […]