Free Republic

George Washington University (GWU) law professor Jonathan Turley slammed “global censors” Monday morning on “Fox and Friends” following the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov. French authorities arrested Durov, the billionaire creator and messaging app CEO ... concerns many in the European Union have for potential chilling of free speech. ... People need to realize what’s really going on here. We haven’t seen anything akin to a charging sheet, but it appears that he’s being arrested under these European laws that are designed to force social media companies to engage in censorship,” Turley said. ... the “most infamous” European law...

I like liberals. In fact I count liberals among my best friends. But when they get peeved, liberals can say the darndest things! I’m not bothered by the progressives’ sky-is-falling predictions or the off-key Mother Earth dirges. But when the environmentalists begin to call for disinformation campaigns, criminal prosecutions, and cold-blooded executions, I say, “Hold on a green minute, fella!” Before proceeding, I’ll give credit where credit is due, to Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma who has documented many of the jackboot tactics on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee website. The first tactic of the Climate Greenshirts...

Every year ahead of the June 4 commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese government tightens online censorship to suppress domestic discussion of the event. Critics, dissidents and international groups anticipate an uptick in cyber activity ranging from emails with malicious links to network attacks in the days and weeks leading up to the anniversary.Much of this cyber activity by Beijing is done covertly. But a recent restructuring of China’s cyberforce and a document leak exposing the activities of Chinese tech firm i-Soon have shed some light on how Beijing goes about the business of hacking.As a China expert...

Free speech is on trial at the Supreme Court, but Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson is no fan of the First Amendment. The Constitution, you see, limits the government. But leftists want unlimited government — which is why they hate the Constitution. During Monday’s oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri, formerly known as Biden v. Missouri, Jackson claimed to oppose any ruling in favor of Americans’ constitutional right to free speech if it limited the government’s ability to censor that speech via Big Tech. “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways...

Is the Great White North starting to thaw for medical professionals chilled by the threat of punishment for what are now mainstream COVID-19 beliefs and practices? Professional conduct tribunals in two Canadian provinces threw in the towel in vaccine-related disciplinary proceedings this month, part of the broader but inconsistent withdrawal of Canada's wide-ranging COVID crackdowns involving arrests of clergy, dismissal of service members and freezing of bank accounts and fundraisers. A third province this month dropped its case against a traveler who refused to use Canada's COVID vaccination tracker, while political opposition leaders are seeking Supreme Court review of the...

New emails released by the House Judiciary Committee reveal the Biden Department of Homeland Security created a Stanford University “disinformation” group that censored Americans’ speech before, during, and after the 2020 election. The group, known as the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), worked with DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to flag, suppress and remove online speech in coordination with big tech companies. The Gateway Pundit was a top target of EIP in the 2020 election. New information leaked from the investigation into EIP found that The Gateway Pundit was also a top target of EIP during the 2022 election....

Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon talked to us about being censored for a joke. You’ll never guess what happened next. Last year, the Babylon Bee was censored for naming Rachel Levine its ‘Man of the Year’. Now, the David Horowitz Freedom Center has been banned over a speech about that joke. On Friday afternoon, Seth Dillon, the gregarious leader of the Babylon Bee, took the floor to tell attendees at the Center’s Restoration Weekend about his fight against censorship. When USA Today named Rick ‘Rachel’ Levine, a transgender Biden administration official, as one of its ‘Women of the Year’, the...

once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks. The GOP offensive started during the 2020 election as public critiques and has since escalated into lawsuits, governmental inquiries and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in stopping almost all coordination between the government and social media platforms.

New emails show officials at the Department of Homeland Security created a Stanford University “disinformation” group that censored Americans’ speech before the 2020 election, according to a House Judiciary Committee report exclusively obtained by The Post.

Google has partnered with the United Nations, World Health Organisation and others in a new global censorship tool that was introduced last Monday, according to LaToya Drake, head of Google News Lab.Google News Lab is “a team within the Google News Initiative whose mission is to collaborate with journalists to fight misinformation” and other things. And, the Google News Initiative (“GNI”) “works with publishers and journalists to fight misinformation.” The GNI and its Lab seem to be one and the same thing with the Lab simply being a page on the GNI website.Below are the short descriptions from GNI’s ‘About’...

...Across the tech industry...wide swaths of people tasked with protecting the internet's most-populous playgrounds are being shown the exits. The cuts come at a time of increased cyberbullying...and as the spread of misinformation and violent content collides with the exploding use of artificial intelligence....Twitter effectively disbanded its ethical AI team in November and laid off all but one of its members, along with 15% of its trust and safety department, according to reports. In February, Google cut about one-third of a unit that aims to protect society from misinformation, radicalization, toxicity and censorship. Meta reportedly ended the contracts of about...

At today's House Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) questioned D. John Sauer, Special Assistant Attorney General at the Louisiana Department of Justice, about Biden Administration attempts to curb speech on social media. WHITE HOUSE STAFFERS ARE SOME OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE ON THE PLANET EARTH. OFTENTIMES, THEY GET THE DISPOSITIVE OPINION ON APPOINTMENTS TO DIFFERENT POSITIONS WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. THEY INFLUENCE STATEMENTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY. THEY INITIATED REGULATORY REFORM. THEY OFTEN HAVE A SIGNIFICANT VOICE ON WHICH ASSIMILATION THAT IS CONSIDERED AN APPROVED. MR. SOUR, I WANT TO UNDERSTAND HOW MANY OF...

A Pennsylvania lawmaker on Tuesday issued what free speech advocates are calling a veiled threat to withhold funding from the University of Pittsburgh over the school's decision to allow several conservative speakers on campus. During an appropriations hearing on university funding, Pennsylvania state representative La'Tasha Mayes (D.) demanded that Pitt disinvite Cabot Phillips, Riley Gaines, and Michael Knowles from upcoming campus events. All three speakers have a history of "targeting transgender students," Mayes claimed—especially Knowles, whom she accused of saying that "transgender people should be eradicated."

… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation. The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept. The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” (link). However, when...

Below is my column in the Hill on the first hearings this week to be held by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. It could be one of the most consequential investigations for free speech in decades if it pulls back the curtain on government censorship programs. After the historic release of the Twitter Files by Elon Musk, questions remain on any similar coordination with other social media companies with federal agencies like the FBI to target views considered “disinformation” or “misinformation.” Here is the column: This coming week a new House select subcommittee will hold...

Professor Shmuel Shapira, M.D., MPH, served as the Director General of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) between 2013 and 2021, where he led Israel’s effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Prof. Shapira is also the founder and head of the Department of Military Medicine of the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine and IDF Medical Corps. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University in Israel. Shapira previously served as Deputy Director General of the Hadassah Medical Organization and as the Director of the Hebrew University Hadassah School of Public Health....

Twitter employees reading the tea leaves as they try to discern the future in an Elon Musk-owned company received some bad news last week. Musk recently prepared a presentation for investors, known as a pitch deck, that outlines some of the moves he’s planning for the social media giant, according to The New York Times. The deck includes Musk’s plans to expand the company, which in the long run will expand its workforce. However, it makes it clear that about 10 percent of the workforce that starts 2023 will not finish the year.

During and after the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the white 18-year-old accused of murdering two white men and injuring another, one could hardly keep track of the insanity based on falsehoods recklessly peddled by media and politicians. In Chicago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson marched in the front line of a group of protesters where some chanted, "When black lives are under attack, what do we do?" Black lives under attack? Rittenhouse is white, as were the two men he shot dead and the man he injured. In September 2020, presidential candidate Joe Biden posted a video that included a picture...

NIGEL FARAGE: What a bizarre spectacle, to see two important world leaders muzzled behind the thickest face masks that could possibly ever been made. So much so it was actually quite difficult to hear anything anyone was saying. But that was the first thing that was utterly bizarre. And I think Boris Johnson and of course, you know, our culture as yours has always been, is that leaders are accountable to the press, from all sides and all opinions, who could ask questions. And I think Boris was completely stunned that the new culture in America, who was supposed to...

If America's leftists/statists have their way, our nation will end up divided into two distinct tribes – the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. This idea is not so farfetched, as many articles and posts have been written about how the unvaccinated should be denied health care and unvaccinated teachers and children should be denied entry into schools. Sporting events, entertainment, public venues, restaurants and bars, and, yes, even workplaces, are denying entry to the wicked unvaxxed. Opinion columnist, Michael J. Stern, wrote in USA Today that, "It's time to start shunning the vaccine hesitant," and vaccination proof "should be required to...