A theatre charity is bringing prisoners and ex-prisoners to the stage to build skills, challenge stigma, and create pathways toward reintegration.

Just before leaving office, Chile’s president signed off on a marine park around the Juan Fernández Islands that’s actually bigger than Texas. This new protected area is now the third largest of its kind in the world and covers half of Chile’s territorial waters.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/marine-national-park-bigger-than-texas-created-by-departing-chilean-president-around-pacific-islands/?utm_source=newsletter.goodnewsnetwork.org&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=that-s-a-good-pony&_bhlid=a8ff7c4486386af9e9ee61504267cb0383818c47

A massive study of over a million German solar installations found that panels degrade at about half the rate scientists previously believed. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/weve-been-overestimating-how-fast-solar-panels-degrade-by-half-they-may-last-twice-as-long/

And a jury is hearing about Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s monopolization. Either the oligarchs win, and the public will be completely neutered in our ability to have any say over our society. Or they will lose, and be subject to the rule of law. This week, we can score one of the rule of law. https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/normal-americans-say-enough-to-big?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

There are, however, forums for ordinary people, such as trials by plaintiff lawyers heard by juries. Last week, a jury found Elon Musk liable for securities fraud when he manipulated the price of Twitter stock, ordering him to pay $2.5 billion.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/normal-americans-say-enough-to-big?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

But ultimately, America is a democracy, and in a democracy, everyone who runs a powerful institution has obligations to the people. Not just elected leaders. Everyone. It’s obvious that a super-class of creeps who have seized power in America don’t believe that.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/normal-americans-say-enough-to-big?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

The idea that hosting a website meant you were simply a vessel for speech became more and more absurd, as lawyers brought cases with fact patterns demonstrating significant danger.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/normal-americans-say-enough-to-big?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

This strange view of free speech has created a disconnect of libertarian legal elites towards basic morality. Indeed, in 2024, Paul Clement, a lawyer for a Facebook and Google trade association, told the Supreme Court that algorithms fostering suicide had First Amendment protections.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/normal-americans-say-enough-to-big?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

For instance, it was a Ralph Nader group that first put forward the idea that money was speech, until that got solidified in Citizens United in 2010. Since then, corporations have used that provision of the Constitution to block labor law, election rules, and regulation of pornography.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/normal-americans-say-enough-to-big?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

There are many reasons for this decline, but the big one is that big tech’s aura of invincibility is gone. Indeed, most of the public response has been positive, with the gist being “finally someone has held these guys accountable for something.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/normal-americans-say-enough-to-big?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email