Andrew Dickens: Why should America check my socials?

I don’t want to ask what America is thinking, but what are they thinking?

As more details of their social media information requests to enter the States came to light yesterday, the less I wanted to go there.

To get in I need to supply a wealth of personal information, including DNA and all my social media links. Now I love America and its people, but if I have to jump through all those hoops my first reaction is "forget it". 

The Land of the Free is no longer the Land of the Free Speech. Say the wrong thing on social media and they may cancel you. This is worse than anything under Biden or Obama, it’s cancel culture writ large.  

And the irony is that it’s so dumb. If you’re really an enemy of the States, you’ve already cancelled all your social media. This will cancel the tourists, not the terrorists.

Righto: here’s the most bonkers thing I heard yesterday out of Trump’s America 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio halted the State Department’s official use of the typeface Calibri, calling the Biden-era move “wasteful,” and ordered the return of Times New Roman. 

He called it a part of a push to stamp out diversity. Now how does that work? 

Well in 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ordered the typeface change to Calibri to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers. 

Now that was true, it was invented for people with low vision, and by the way it’s Microsoft Office’s default font and apparently it works, but apparently that’s woke.

So back to Times New Roman we go, and the left are saying it tallies with MAGA’s obsession with all things Roman. And it would all be just a funny margin in history if it wasn’t so expensive and therefore wasteful.

You’d think that you’d just ask everyone to change their default and off we go. But no. Teams are going to have to check every little unit. Apparently, that’s $145 thousand an agency, and there’s a lot of agencies in American bureaucracy.

And here’s the real rub: Times New Roman takes more ink. And then when you calculate the sheer volume of wordage coming out of the American state, the cost actually mounts into the many millions. 

The right often complains about the cost of crazy left-wing ideology, seemingly blissfully unaware that they’re just as ideologically crazy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't want to ask what is America thinking? But

(00:02):
what are they thinking? As more details of their social
media information request to enter the States came to the
light yesterday, the less I wanted to go there. To
get in, I need to supply a wealth of personal information,
including DNA and all my social media links. Now, I
love America and it's people, but if I have to
jump through all those hoops, my first reaction is to
forget it. The Land of the Free is no longer

(00:23):
the land of the free speech. Say the wrong thing
on social media, they may cancel you. This is worse
than anything under Biden and Obama. It's canceled culture writ large,
and the irony is so dumb because if you really
are an enemy of the States, you've already canceled all
your social media. This is going to cancel the tourists
and not the terrorists in Seace. I'll probably get canceled

(00:44):
because I've said this. Here's the other bonkers thing that
I heard yesterday out of Trump's America. Marca Rubio halted
the State Department's official use of the typeface Calibri. He
called the whole font wasteful and order the return of
Times New Roman called it as part of a push
to stamp out diversity. Now, I thought, how does that work. Well, apparently,

(01:04):
back in twenty twenty three, Anthony Blincoln ordered the typeface
change to Calibri to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities.
If you've got low vision or dyslex here and people
who use screen readers, it's easier to read. And that
is in fact true. It was invented for people with
low vision. And by the way, it's Microsoft Officer's default font,
and apparently it works. But apparently it's also woke. So

(01:28):
America's going back to Times New Roman. And the left says,
of course they're going back to Times New Roman. Meg
is obsessed with all things Roman. Now, this would all
just be a bit funny, you know, I just change
the font. If it wasn't actually so expensive, you'd think
you just have to ask everyone changing the default font,
off we go. But no, Apparently teams are going to
have to check every little unit. And apparently that's one

(01:48):
hundred and forty five thousand dollars an agency. And there's
a lot of agencies in American bureaucracy. And here's the thing.
Times New Roman takes more ink, and then when you
calculate the sheer volume of wordage being printed out of
the American state, the cost actually mounts into many millions.

(02:12):
The rite off and complain about the cost of crazy
left wing ideology, seemingly blessfully unaware that their jest is
ideologically crazy. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,
Listen live to News Talks it Be from five am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.