3.27.26 Social media companies held liable, 40th anniversary of Stand By Me, and Listener Feedback

Good morning, judgements come for social media companies, will parents follow suit, and

the right response to the death of the wicked.

John Stone Street will be along shortly for Culture Friday.

Later, a coming-of-age story about boys on the edge of manhood and what it takes to guide

them there.

Kids lose everything unless there's someone there to look out for them.

Max Bells has a review of Stand By Me and Your Listener Feedback.

It's Friday, March 27th, this is the world and everything in it.

From listener-supported world radio, I'm Marna Brown.

And I'm Nick Eiger.

Good morning.

Up next, Ken Cuffing-10 with today's news.

President Trump sent Thursday that he's giving Iran 10 more days to reopen the Strait

of Hormuz before the U.S. military takes aim at Iranian energy facilities.

The S-7, you're going to say, oh Trump's a terrible negotiate, or the S-7, and I said,

I'm going to give you 10.

The president during a White House cabinet meeting said Iran earlier this week allowed

10 vessels filled with oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as a goodwill gesture.

And he said despite the niles on Iranian state TV and some public grandstanding, Iran

is absolutely negotiating.

In fact, he said its government is begging for a deal.

And U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitkov told reporters that Washington's 15-point cease-fire

plan was delivered to Tehran.

This has been circulated through the Pakistani government, acting as the mediator.

And this has resulted in strong and positive messaging and talks.

Whitkov out and though that Iran should not miscalculate again.

Meanwhile with energy prices still elevated amid the war, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent

voiced optimism about reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

I am confident that shipping traffic will continue to increase on a daily basis, even

before we secure the straits.

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Thursday just before boarding a State Department

jet and route to France for a summit of G7 ministers.

And he again called out U.S. allies, particularly NATO countries, for not doing more thus far

to help secure the Strait.

The United States is constantly being asked to help an war, and we have more than any other

country in the world on a war that's happening in another continent in Ukraine.

But when the U.S. had a need, he didn't get positive responses.

Secretary Rubio echoed the President's remarks, saying that reopening the Strait is far

more important to Europe than to the United States.

Venezuela's deposed dictator Nicolas Moruro and his wife, co-defendant Celia Flores

wore beige gel uniforms into a Manhattan federal court room on Thursday.

Rolls-Kristen Flavin reports.

The couple pressed Judge Alvin Hellerstein to throw out drug trafficking charges against

them, but the judge made clear that's not going to happen.

But he did question whether the federal government should continue to block Venezuelan government

funds from covering the couple's legal costs.

Existing U.S. sanctions bar that money from flowing, but Hellerstein noted that relations

between Washington and Caracas have warmed since Maduro's capture in January.

The judge, however, delayed his ruling on the question.

President Trump said today Maduro will get, quote, a fair trial, both face life in prison

if convicted.

For world, I'm Kristen Flavin.

It is now day 42 of the funding labs at the Department of Homeland Security, and air

travelers continue to wait and winding hours-long security lines, including this traveler

at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

Traveling from Houston to Baton Rouge, so I should have just driven, right?

Five hours would have been hilarious next to this.

Amid the airport chaos, pressure is growing on Congress to fund Homeland Security ahead

of its upcoming spring recess.

Democrats are trying to move quickly to debate and offer to end the funding impasse.

Republicans are trying again to address democratic demands for changes to immigration enforcement.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he has given the final offer to lawmakers across

the aisle.

Democrats have repeatedly said that they want to pay TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, and employees

who defend America from cyber attacks.

This bill would do it.

But some Democrats claim the GOP's latest offer does not go far enough to limit immigration

enforcement tactics.

President Trump has already dispatched ICE officers to assist TSA agents, and he is now

discussing the possibility of deploying the National Guard to airports if the shutdown

continues.

Olympic organizers say biology will determine who competes in women's sports at the

2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

World's Harrison Waters has that story.

Olympic athletes going forward will be required to take a one-time cheek swab or blood test

to screen for male DNA.

Kirstie Coventry is president of the International Olympic Committee, or IOC.

She says the policy reflects evidence-based science.

Male chromosomes give performance advantages in sports that rely on strength, power, or

endurance.

At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat.

So it's absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in

the female category.

But as recently as 2024, that was not so clear to officials.

The IOC has previously encouraged what it framed as inclusion, and deferred to governing

bodies of each sport to determine eligibility to play in female sports.

But after a controversial boxing match in Paris, and President Trump's executive order

last February calling for clarity in the women's category, the IOC has changed course.

The new rules state that men, regardless of physical appearance or so-called gender identity,

can only compete in men's sports.

Reporting for World, I'm Harrison Waters.

And I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead, John Stone Street is standing by for Culture Friday, and later your listener

feedback for the month of March.

This is The World, and everything in it.

It's Friday, March 27th.

Glad to have you along for today's edition of The World and Everything in it.

Good morning, I'm Merna Brown.

And I'm Nick Iker.

It's Culture Friday, back with us today, John Stone Street, the president of the Colson

Center, and host of the Breakpoint podcast, John.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Well, John, two massive legal blows from Metta this week.

They are sending shockwaves all throughout Silicon Valley, first and early in the week

New Mexico.

A jury there hit Metta with a $375 million verdict for failing to protect kids from

exploitation, then came Wednesday, California, another jury found Metta and YouTube liable

for addictive designs that the jury said fueled a young woman's mental health crisis.

So two states, two completely different kinds of legal attacks.

But one big question is the immunity shield for big tech finally cracking.

So John, for you, lawyers say this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Do you think we're watching the start of a huge legal shift?

Oh, they are huge.

That's the understatement because this obviously opens up the potential of all kinds of future

litigation too.

And we know the victims are many from patients who have experienced this kind of mental distress

or depression, even being led to self harm and suicide.

And also what we now know, which is that the tech execs knew.

They behave differently with their own kids as compared to how they were expecting and

hoping parents would behave with their kids.

So I think the precedent here is the same as the harms of smoking and the lawsuits against

Big Tobacco.

I think it's similar to the lawsuits against the Sackler family after misadvertising addictive

free pain medication.

That's a famous story as well.

The question is, where is this going to end?

And I think it still leaves the question, are we going to behave differently?

Because yes, I do think the companies bear some responsibility.

But now we know, now they've been guilty, now the platforms are still there.

And the addictions also are still there.

Now we know how bad it is, particularly for children.

And yet parents are still buying smartphones and putting their kids on social media or allowing

their kids to be on social media.

Schools, private schools, public schools are still encouraging technology use and not regulating

it even during the school day.

Some are, a whole lot more are now than used to be.

But there's a responsibility now that we know, now that it's been litigated, now that

a decision has been made, now that these companies are beginning to be held accountable, that

we hold ourselves accountable.

Speaking of an event last week, in another country that is not as far down the sewage drain

as we are on some of these issues, and I just did a flat out endorsement, get your kids

off social media, get your kids off screens.

And another speaker there that was a pastor who was on the panel with me said, and get off

it yourselves.

In other words, you need to reflect the kind of behavior that you're expecting your kids

to exhibit.

And I think that's the case.

We have companies held accountable, consumers need to hold themselves accountable.

John, you said we know, we know the harm, we know what these platforms are doing.

So how much of this is really new?

I mean, and how much of it is something we should have acted on years ago?

Yeah, I think there's a difference between 20 years ago and 10 years ago.

I think it is a difference between the ability of parents to stay in touch with their kids

and a culture that felt more dangerous.

There were all kinds of reasons for parents to want to stay in touch with their kids.

And that's been a driver of, I think, of parents doing this for their kids in many ways.

But 10 years into it, when you're talking about the social media boom, we knew a lot

more than we acted upon.

Educational officials knew a lot more than they acted upon.

Just like these companies knew a lot more than they acted upon.

And there's also those who use this, not only those who developed this technology and created

it in a way so that it would be addictive, but then those who knew it and then used that

to brainwash kids.

I mean, one of the things we're going to have to reckon with that Gene Twangie and others

that pointed out is that when you lay the trend lines of social media use and the expansion

and growth of that among miners and the incredible spike in mental health issues among miners

of gender confusion and self-harm, I mean, these are trend lines that literally lay on

top of each other.

And we knew that.

We should have known that.

And those companies that leverage these platforms that we are now saying are dangerous knew that

they were dangerous than just like parents did.

So there's a lot of accountability here to go around and look even 20 years ago.

We may not have known everything about smartphones, but we had a whole lot of people warning us

about screens and entertainment addiction and things like that and early sexualization

of children and go down the line of the things that we did know about.

So were we pressing on this?

No.

Should we have been more?

Absolutely.

Well, John, before we leave this topic altogether, I'm curious what your overall thought

was as to the importance of these verdicts.

Would you say that this is a general good for the culture?

You know, when a culture gets messed up, it's a lot more like a drop of dye has been put

into the water and you can't really pull it out without kind of going through a whole

purification process.

There's going to be overreach, there's going to be greed, you know, of lawsuits and

lawyers.

And honestly, it's kind of like again, the Sackler family.

The overall amount of money that they ended up paying was nowhere near the damage that

they cost.

And you know, you think about eye-popping number like $300 and some million in one jury

decision, that's eye-popping, but that's not even close to the overall financial cost

of this behavior.

So there's going to be positives and negatives, there's going to be good and bad, even in

the decisions that are rendered in the future of the litigation.

Well, another story this week, John, the death of Kermit Ghaznell, the Philadelphia abortion

doctor convicted in 2013 of murdering infants born alive during late term procedures, along

with the death of a patient under his care.

His clinic was described by prosecutors as a house of horrors.

The case drew outrage at the time, not only for the crimes themselves, but for how little

attention it received from the national media.

John, when you look back at the Ghaznell case, both the crimes and the lack of media coverage,

what stands out most to you now?

It is hard to know where to begin.

I mean, this was a scandal at the time that the media was so silent on really what was

the trial of maybe the most prolific serial killer in American history by any definition

not to mention the medical malpractice here specifically directed at women and the lack

of care to women who underwent abortions, some of them having died at the clinic or in

the days after.

I mean, this was just an incredible thing.

It was also a story about the lack of oversight, how abortion got to play by different rules.

There was more oversight in Philadelphia of nail salons and ice cream shops than what

this was, which became known as a house of horrors according to the police investigators

that looked at the story.

And the media coverage of this or the lack thereof, both during the trial and now in the

days after his death, I guess is unsurprising.

The malpractice is pretty deep as we know in media and we saw it actually this past week

or the last couple of weeks and another death, that of Paul Erlich.

Here you had the author of the population bond who predicted essentially that the population

of the earth would exceed the resources decades ago and lead to mass starvation and so on

and so on and so on.

What did we have?

We had national media outlets calling his views controversial.

They weren't controversial, they were flat out wrong and not only were they flat out wrong,

but they inspired things like China's one child policy, which was a state-sponsored genocide

of epic proportions, not to mention forced sterilizations and developing nations like

India and other places.

Paul Erlich and Kermit Gossnell have an awful lot in common.

Their views were very anti-human.

Their ideas had consequences and because they were such bad ideas, they had victims.

They were both wrapped up in their own ability to be heroes and saviors and ended up instead

leading to an awful lot of deaths and the media failed to deal with either one of them

in a way that was appropriate for the terribleness of their views.

So it came in bunches in the last couple of weeks, not only from Gossnell, but also Paul

Erlich.

Well, John, let me ask you this.

How do you think Christians ought to respond to the death of someone responsible for real

evil like this?

We did just have a public object lesson with the president of the United States celebrating

the death of someone he considered to be a political enemy and he was rightly criticized

for the way he went about that, but it does raise a question, I think, for us.

What is the right response to the death of the actual wicked, specifically a convicted

mass murderer?

Well, Scripture tells us that God doesn't share the death of the wicked, but it also doesn't

do anything to downplay the wickedness of the wicked.

And that's why I think the Bible is so compelling and the Christian worldview so compelling when

people ask, you know, what is it about it that you find the most convincing?

It's its description of the human condition because with another worldviews, you have

to assume that humans are gods and some worldviews, you have to assume that intention overcomes

the rightness or wrongness of action and others, you, you know, basically remove human responsibility

or accountability, you know, since we're just essentially animals with a conscience.

It's within the Christian worldview that you have the inherent human dignity and also

the ability and capacity of humans to violate that dignity both in themselves and in others.

His Pascal wrote about this in incredibly powerful terms in his collection of writings called

Ponceis that humans are the glory and the garbage of the universe.

And I think we should apply that and frame that out and how we think and talk about folks.

I thought, for example, Professor Robert George on his ex-account wrote a bit of a description

of Kermit Gosnell as an image bearer and also as someone who just completely lost track

of what was true and right and what gave humans value and the consequences of that were

dramatic.

And I think you can do that as a practitioner like Gosnell did.

I think you can do it as a theoretician like Paul Erlich did.

I think you can do it as a dictator like we saw throughout the 20th century and the dehumanizing

ideas of communism and so on.

There's all kinds of ways to violate human dignity and it doesn't do us any favors to downplay

that, ignore that or anything else and yet what do we know that God does not rejoice

in the death of the wicked.

All right, John Stone Street is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint

podcast.

Thank you, John.

Thank you both.

Additional support comes from the Joshua program at St.

Dunston's Academy in Virginia, a gap year shaping young men through trades, farming,

prayer, stdunston'sacademy.org.

From Waters Edge, competitive rates and supporting churches, 4.55% APY on a 13-month term investment,

watersedge.com slash invest.

And from the evangelistic film, heaven, how I got here with Stephen Baldwin as the thief

on the cross in 30 languages, open the Bible.org slash heaven.

Today is Friday, March 27th.

Thank you for turning to world radio to help start your day.

Good morning.

I'm Merna Brown.

And I'm Nick Eichert.

Coming next on the world and everything, in it a film returning to select theaters this

weekend, marking its 40th anniversary of the film, stand by me.

World's Max Bells now on why this coming of age tale has stood the test of time.

The late Rob Reiner directed stand by me.

In an interview, he reflected on what drew him to the story.

It was about him and this journey to see the body was something he had to do in order

to come to grips with his relationship to his father and how his friends helped him

see him through that difficult time because he felt his father didn't love him.

Stand by me is based on a Stephen King's story called The Body, in which a group of boys

intrigued by news of a missing boy had out on an adventure.

King in turn had been inspired by the 1954 novel Lord of the Flies about boys who crash

land on an island and have to govern themselves.

The results in that book are not good, but in stand by me, the boys leave civilization

behind in order to become more civilized.

They have to face the unknown to come to grips with reality.

I'm never going to get out of this town, am I going to?

Reiner made this movie before the Princess Bride, one of the few Hollywood movies approved

for viewing in the most guarded Christian homes in the 1990s.

Stand by me would not have made that cut.

It's rated R for profanity and course language throughout.

It happens sometimes.

Friends come in and out of your life like bus boys in a restaurant.

The film is framed by a voiceover from Gordy played by Richard Dreyfus.

He remembers an adventure in the late summer of 1959 in Castle Rock, Oregon, when he and

his friends searched for the missing boy who might have been struck by a train.

The four of them strike out with our bedrooms through the forest to find the corpse.

We follow their adventure and their confessions to each other about the pain in their own

families.

They are growing up.

The boys talk big, trying to be tough and street wise, but their journey reveals that

they're insecure, finding their way through the forest, but also through life.

Gordy's parents ignore him, overcome with grief over the loss of their older son who died

in an accident.

The Bible says in the midst of life we are in death, did you know that?

I lost a brother in Korea.

A junkyard owner mocks one of the other friends, Teddy DuChamp, about his dad, who suffers from

shell shock.

He stormed the beaches at Normandy.

Teddy cries in defense of his dad.

Gordy's boyhood friend and leader of the pack is Chris Chambers, played by an exceptional

river Phoenix, the late brother of Joaquin.

Chris delivers a moving monologue about the people in the town accusing him of being a thief,

even though he write it as wrongs.

He sees Gordy's talent and encourages him about his writing.

These boys are trying to find their way on this escapade, and the struggles on their quest

strengthen them to take on the difficulty in other, more painful parts of their lives.

They face dangers in the forest like howling wolves, and leeches, and a swamp.

The search for the missing boy also causes them to face their own mortality.

They enjoy teasing each other, but they offer genuine support.

The events of the movie happen at the end of elementary school.

It's a right of passage.

In literature, we have a tradition of coming-of-age stories, great expectations, huckleberry fin,

and even the catcher in the rye.

These stories show the change from the tomfoolery of youth to the responsibility of manhood.

In our age in which many young men find themselves in prolonged adolescence, these stories

are worth retelling, a max-bells.

Finally today we end the week with your listener feedback.

Becky Manring of Sterling Heights, Michigan, sent this in about our feature story on a

church that's set out to help members with special needs.

Good morning.

I want to thank your report that was on the 11th of March, Mary Jackson's report on ministering

to people with disabilities, and bringing it to all of our attention that we have brothers

and sisters who have challenges because of different things in their bodies that don't

work the way they are supposed to, and yet they need Christ, they need compassion.

And we in the church are to minister to them because they are just as much part of the

body as anyone, and they teach us Christ in new ways.

Well, Murna, Lindsey Griffin of Tampa, Florida, sent this note in about your March 12 story

on grandparents raising their children.

I listened twice to your story about grand families on Thursday.

Both times I was brought to tears, not because of sadness, but because of pure joy.

And little mercy described her baptism, and her favorite song, and how she and her grandmother

would sing it in the car.

You could hear the love and happiness in her voice.

It was the most beautiful sound, and you could absolutely feel the goodness of God.

It's stories like this that make your podcasts an essential part of my day.

On March 10th, we had a story about Christians in Thailand.

My listener, Christine Hayden, lives there, and had this to say,

Hi, this is Christine Hayden in Bangkok, Thailand.

We just listened to the podcast about the challenges of evangelism in Thailand.

Thanks so much for this report.

We have lived in Thailand almost 30 years, ministering in Christian education at international

community school.

May listeners continue the prayers for the lovely people here who need Jesus.

Thanks again.

And finally, Lita Powell from Cedar Crest, New Mexico, on our February 23rd history book.

I really enjoyed Arsenio Orteza's piece on Johnny Cash, and the concise summary of

his life, his music, and the good times, the bad times, the challenges, the victories.

It was just a great piece, and I hope you do more of those kind of segments to learn about

these people that have passed on, that have left their mark on this world.

So thank you for that piece about Johnny Cash.

And that's listener feedback for the month of March.

All right, time now to say thank you to the crew who helped out with this week's programs.

Mary Reichard, David Bonson, Max Bells, Mary Muncie, Emma Eiker, Albert Moller, Onise

Dua, Elizabeth Schenk, Hunter Baker, Cal Thomas, Lauren Canterbury, John Stone Street,

and Bethel McGrew.

Thanks also to our breaking news crew, Kent Covington, Steve Closterman, Travis Kircher,

Daniel Devine, and Christina Groove.

And thanks to the Moonlight Maistros, serving up the program each weekday, bright and

early, Benj Eiker, and Carl Peats.

Harrison Waters is Washington producer, Kristen Flavin, his features editor, Lindsay

Mast is producer, and I'm executive producer, Nick Eiker.

And I'm Erna Brown.

The world and everything in it comes to you from world radio.

World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible recounts what happened after Jesus healed the tin lepers.

One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice,

and he fell on his face at Jesus' speed, giving him thanks.

Now, he was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus answered, were not ten cleansed?

Where are the nine?

Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

And he said to him, rise and go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

This is 15-19 of Luke, chapter 17.

Give thanks and praise to God this weekend, and be sure you're in a Bible-believing

church on Palm Sunday.

And Lord willing, we'll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now and grace and peace.