Daniel Ducote

The role of social media in politics has increased ten-fold in light of recent events, including Russian interference in the 2016 election, which included the use of social media "troll bots" to spread fake news and propaganda; the sale of Facebook users' private data to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that aided Donald Trump's campaign for president; and, more recently, news of social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube using various tactics to censor political speech, from "shadow banning" to demonitizing content to outright banning of accounts. This has resulted in a larger debate about whether these "Big Tech" companies are to be treated as private companies, free to do whatever they want and dip into politics as they please, or if they qualify as public institutions that have socio-political responsibilities to the public, and, if the latter is the case, what exactly these responsibilities are. While I'm

Hello friends, family and fellow citizens, As many of you know, we had a big election in Louisiana Saturday. Congratulations to everyone who ran, especially those who emerged victorious in their races or made it to runoff elections, which will take place on November 16. A big shout-out to Eddie Rispone, a businessman who's devoted many years of his life to this state and to the Republican Party. He'll be going to a runoff with Governor Edwards on the 16th. We need to give our full support to him so that we can get a fresh new face and, most importantly, a political outsider who can use his experience from the private sector to help dig out state out of the deep hole it's fallen into thanks to the lobbyists, into the governor's chair. Congratulations as well to Covington Councilman Patrick McMath and Representative Reid Falconer on making the runoff in the District 11 State Senate race. Y'all, these are two awesome people who have worked so hard on their campaign

Who are you? Tell us about yourself in 300 words or less. I'm a recent LSU graduate with degrees in Film and English training to become a teacher of English, grades 6-12. I'm a political outsider who has never sought public office before, and I'm ideologically independent with a strong conservative/libertarian lean. I'm running for office because I want our state's economy to become competitive with the rest of the United States and I have lots of concrete proposals for how we can create new, higher-paying jobs, improve our education system and strengthen the economy without government intervention in the marketplace. I'm also socially conservative, strongly opposing abortion and gun control, and believe we need to take on the trial lawyers and other lobbyists, as they are the single greatest threat to Louisiana's prosperity with the hold they have on our politicians at both the state and federal levels. I don't intend to use this office to campaign