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If youre not on TikTok, you may not have heard of Aaron Parnas. But for many young people across the U.S., hes a prominent political news source, with over 3.5 million followers on TikTok and just under one million on Instagram. Parnas isnt the only TikToker Gen Z and Gen Alpha turn to for news. Between 2020 and 2024, the share of adults regularly getting news from TikTok nearly quintupledwith adults under 30 leading the surge. Who is Aaron Parnas? After starting college at 14, Aaron Parnas completed his degree at 18 and graduated from George Washington University Law School at 21 in 2020. That same year, Parnas transitioned from Republican to Democrat. He is the son of Lev Parnas and detailed both his familys political experiences and his personal journey in the memoir Trump First. Outside of TikTok, Parnas has worked as a securities litigation attorney and a Democratic digital strategist. He first gained traction online by posting legal content during the pandemic. In 2022, he pivoted to covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine, sharing pro-Ukrainian stories from his relatives living there. His account quickly blew up, gaining 1.2 million followers in just a few weeks. TikTok as a News Platform TikTok is increasingly becoming a news platform, where users watch influencers summarize news stories and topicsgiving you the TL;DR in a way, Parnas said. Parnas and others are often able to post as soon as news breaks. Ill post 20 times a day if I have to, he told the Daily Voice. For example, Parnas was among the first to report on President Zelenskyys March 5, 2022, call with U.S. lawmakers, during which Zelenskyy requested more resources and suggested it could be the last time they saw him alive. Gen Z and Gen Alphas Shift in Media Habits According to the Pew Research Center, 39% of adults under 30 regularly get news from TikTok. However, less than 1% of the accounts users follow are journalists or traditional news outlets. Instead, young people are turning to social media influencers like Parnas. A lot of [his followers] say they dont go to CNN, FOX or MSNBC, he said. Parnas believes Gen Z and Gen Alpha are disenchanted with legacy news media. He argues that traditional journalisms dedication to neutrality can be a turnoff, and that younger audiences are more open to editorializing and personal opinions from news sources. TikTok also makes space for diverse perspectives to be heardsuch as those of Parnass Ukrainian relatives. Challenges of TikTok News Consumption Parnas credits his ability to post quickly to the fact that he operates solo and doesnt need to go through multiple layers of approval. Still, his goal is to spread accurate information. I would never consider myself an investigative journalist by any means, Parnas said in an interview. Instead, he views himself as a news aggregator who shares information from verified sources with his followers. He acknowledges that legacy media remains important due to its superior sourcing and fact-checking. However, not all TikTok influencers prioritize accuracy. The platform lacks a system to prevent the spread of misinformationwhether its unverified claims, personal (and possibly uninformed) opinions, biased interpretations, or outright fabrications. Parnas describes the relationship between traditional journalists and TikTok creators as a double-edged sword. While creators help traditional reporting reach younger audiences by repackaging it for social platforms, the original journalists often dont get the credit they deserve. As a result, many young users may struggle to recognize what trustworthy journalism actually looks like.
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Is your green my green? Probably not. What appears as pure green to me will likely look a bit yellowish or blueish to you. This is because visual systems vary from person to person. Moreover, an objects color may appear differently against different backgrounds or under different lighting. These facts might naturally lead you to think that colors are subjective. That, unlike features such as length and temperature, colors are not objective features. Either nothing has a true color, or colors are relative to observers and their viewing conditions. But perceptual variation has misled you. We are philosophers who study colors, objectivity, and science, and we argue in our book The Metaphysics of Colors that colors are as objective as length and temperature. Perceptual variation There is a surprising amount of variation in how people perceive the world. If you offer a group of people a spectrum of color chips ranging from chartreuse to purple and asked them to pick the unique green chipthe chip with no yellow or blue in ittheir choices would vary considerably. Indeed, there wouldnt be a single chip that most observers would agree is unique green. Generally, an objects background can result in dramatic changes in how you perceive its colors. If you place a gray object against a lighter background, it will appear darker than if you place it against a darker background. This variation in perception is perhaps most striking when viewing an object under different lighting, where a red apple could look green or blue. Of course, that you experience something differently does not prove that what is experienced is not objective. Water that feels cold to one person may not feel cold to another. And although we do not know who is feeling the water correctly, or whether that question even makes sense, we can know the temperature of the water and presume that this temperature is independent of your experience. Similarly, that you can change the appearance of somethings color is not the same as changing its color. You can make an apple look green or blue, but that is not evidence that the apple is not red. Under different lighting conditions, objects take on different colors. [Photo: Liia Galimzianova/Getty Images] For comparison, the moon appears larger when its on the horizon than when it appears near its zenith. But the size of the moon has not changed, only its appearance. Hence, that the appearance of an objects color or size varies is, by itself, no reason to think that its color and size are not objective features of the object. In other words, the properties of an object are independent of how they appear to you. That said, given that there is so much variation in how objects appear, how do you determine what color something actually is? Is there a way to determine the color of something despite the many different experiences you might have of it? Matching colors Perhaps determining the color of something is to determine whether it is red or blue. But we suggest a different approach. Notice that squares that appear to be the same shade of pink against different backgrounds look different against the same background. The smaller squares may appear to be the same color, but if you compare them with the strip of squares at the bottom, theyre actually different shades. [Photo: Shobdohin/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA] Its easy to assume that to prove colors are objective would require knowing which observers, lighting conditions and backgrounds are the best, or normal. But determining the right observers and viewing conditions is not required for determining the very specific color of an object, regardless of its name. And it is not required to determine whether two objects have the same color. To determine whether two objects have the same color, an observer would need to view the objects side by side against the same background and under various lighting conditions. If you painted part of a room and find that you dont have enough paint, for instance, finding a match might be very tricky. A color match requires that no observer under any lighting condition will see a difference between the new paint and the old. That two people can determine whether two objects have the same color even if they dont agree on exactly what that color isjust as a pool of water can have a particular temperature without feeling the same to me and youseems like compelling evidence to us that colors are objective features of our world. Colors, science, and indispensability Everyday interactions with colorssuch as matching paint samples, determining whether your shirt and pants clash, and even your ability to interpret works of artare hard to explain if colors are not objective features of objects. But if you turn to science and look at the many ways that researchers think about colors, it becomes harder still. For example, in the field of color science, scientific laws are used to explain how objects and light affect perception and the colors of other objects. Such laws, for instance, predict what happens when you mix colored pigments, when you view contrasting colors simultaneously or successively, and when you look at colored objects in various lighting conditions. The philosophers Hilary Putnam and Willard van Orman Quine made famous what is known as the indispensability argument. The basic idea is that if something is indispensable to science, then it must be real and objectiveotherwise, science wouldnt work as well as it does. For example, you may wonder whether unobservable entities such as electrons and electromagnetic fields really exist. But, so the argument goes, the best scientific explanations assume the existence of such entities and so they must exist. Similarly, because mathematics is indispensable to contemporary science, some philosophers argue that this means mathematical objects are objective and exist independently of a persons mind. The bright colors of this granular poison frog signal a warning to predators of its toxicity. [Photo: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA] Likewise, we suggest that color plays an indispensable role in evolutionary biology. For example, researchers have argued that aposematismthe use of colors to signal a warning for predatorsalso benefits an animals ability to gather resources. Here, an animals coloration works directly to expand its food-gathering niche insofar as it informs potential predators that the animal is poisonous or venomous. In fact, animals can exploit the fact that the same color pattern can be perceived differently by different perceivers. For instance, some damselfish have ultraviolet face patterns that help them be recognized by other members of their species and communicate with potential mates while remaining largely hidden to predators unable to perceive ultraviolet colors. In sum, our ability to determine whether objects are colored the same or differently and the indispensable roles they play in science suggest that colors are as real and objective as length and temperature. Elay Shech is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University. Michael Watkins is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Social media users have been having a field day with Waymos autonomous vehicles, sharing videos that poke fun at the driverless cars getting stuck, acting unpredictably, or simply navigating the world a little too awkwardly. The latest wave of posts follows Waymos recent expansion into Austin, where users are already documenting bizarre and frustrating experiences with the service. TikTok user Becky Levin Navarro posted a video on April 20 claiming a Waymo car trapped her and her fellow passengers on the side of a highway after heading in the wrong direction. This is the most insane thing. Were in a Waymo, here, under Mopac, she said. It was going the wrong way, we called customer support, it stopped us right here and wouldnt let us out of the car. @beckypearlatx Zero stars for waymo. When we pulled up next to Deep Eddy Cabaret and the waymo didnt let us out and instead kept going the wrong direction towards downtown we said please let us out here it wouldnt let us out so it headed east, turned around back towards deep eddy cabaret and then STOPPED in a horrible spot to stop. We kept asking for it to move and customer service refused. #waymo #tiktok original sound – Becky Levin Navarro The video shows passengers speaking to customer support through the cars intercom. The agent explains the car can’t be moved manually, and asks for a physical address to relocate the vehicle. A Waymo spokesperson later responded: Waymo riders always have the ability to pause their ride and exit the vehicle when desired. Passengers can exit the vehicle by pulling the handle twiceonce to unlock and another to open the door. From being called drunk robots to causing traffic jams in the middle of the night, Waymo has become a regular subject of online trolling. Viral clips include Waymos honking at each other in the early morning hours, jamming up intersections, and getting stuck in drive-throughs. Some show police and parking enforcement stepping in to deal with wayward vehicles. @bluenote727 Waymo Self Driving Car Big Malfunction original sound – Blue Note A video from San Francisco shows a Waymo going the wrong way during a Warriors game as officials try to redirect it. Its not funny. This is a very serious matter, a police officer jokes to bystanders. The vehicle eventually backs up, awkwardly swerving to avoid a pickup truck. See, it worked!” the officer says with a shrug. “Still a little weird. I wouldnt have went that way, but . . . @travellingnepali When a Waymo driverless car goes the wrong way during a Warriors game in SF and the cops + parking enforcement have to teach it a lesson. Waymo: processing processing Finally it gets the memo and turns back! #Waymo #bayareacheck WaymorivingStruggles #SanFrancisco #WarriorsGame #driverlesscar #nepali original sound – Anil & Mansha Waymos fleet has more than tripled on California roads over the past year. A DMV report from April 11 cites 30 autonomous vehicle incidents in 2024. Still, Waymo reports 81% fewer injury-causing crashes and 64% fewer airbag deployments compared to human drivers in San Francisco and Phoenix. Despite its safety claims, the company remains a favorite online target. As Waymo expands into more citiesincluding a recent launch in Tokyothe internet doesnt seem ready to let the driverless cars off the hook.
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