Free Republic

Foreign press will need permission to publish anything online in China under new rules proposed by the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology earlier this week and reported by Quartz. Under the new provisions, which are due to take effect on March 10 and are the latest evidence that China is clamping down on foreign influence, the government said it hopes to “regulate online publishing” and “promote the healthy and orderly development of online publishing services.” “Sino-foreign joint ventures and foreign business units shall not engage in online publishing services” and must be approved by the government before doing so, the rules, which were...

As if to prove my Wednesday post, Twitter has suspended Stacy McCain's account. He wasn't too clear on the exact cause, and doesn't really seem to know. But at the moment, it ends with “EXPECT UPDATES…” Datechguy wrote a nice write-up on McCain, the man. You probably know that much already. After my previous post being about Twitter, I'd like to say I expected stuff like this, but of course I did not think it could be so soon, or so overt. This was pretty quick. It's as if the grown-ups left for the weekend, and the SJW interns are...

Rumours that Twitter has begun ‘shadowbanning’ politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.

Yiannopoulos discussed the current business turmoil at Twitter and how, instead of trying to right the ship, the social platform is trying to flex its political muscle with moves that will marginalize right-wing voices. More disturbingly, he said, is the more financially stable Facebook and its coordination with government censorship: It’s not just Facebook we’re talking about. They own WhatsApp and they own Instagram. And WhatsApp and Instagram are two of the companies that are winning the short messaging war–that are winning the war for Millennial attention and for Millennial users. Twitter lost that war. Twitter only really appeals to...

[snip] Needless to say, the irascible puppet was veeeeery problematic. "What do you identify as, besides pretentious?" he asked one male student. After a female student explained what a "trigger warning" was, he began to speak about her in a very sexual manner, clearly angering her. One female student was quizzed on what "mansplaining" meant. But after she was done explaining, Triumph went to a male student, saying he could probably explain it better. To close the video out, Triumph brought in a flamboyantly gay African-American man into the room. Once the man was gone, he asked the students to...

I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. I had to. My Publisher, HarperVoyager, refused to publish it because of some of the ideas I wrote about in it. In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. They felt my ideas weren’t socially acceptable and were “guaranteed to lose fifty percent of my audience” as related back to me...

... I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. I had to. My Publisher, HarperVoyager, refused to publish it because of some of the ideas I wrote about in it. In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. They felt my ideas weren't socially acceptable and were "guaranteed to lose fifty percent of my audience" as related back to...

On Twitter, every voice has the power to shape the world. We see this power every day, from activists who use Twitter to mobilize citizens to content creators who use Twitter to shape opinion. To ensure people can continue to express themselves freely and safely on Twitter, we must provide more tools and policies. With hundreds of millions of Tweets sent per day, the volume of content on Twitter is massive, which makes it extraordinarily complex to strike the right balance between fighting abuse and speaking truth to power. It requires a multi-layered approach where each of our 320 million...

16 Year Old Girl’s Migrant Fears Video That Some Claim Facebook Are ‘Censoring’ “Please help us!… It is… very hard to live day-to-day as a woman” says 16 year old Bibi Wilhailm, a German girl who has uploaded her personal experiences of Arab and Muslim migrants in a new video that some claim is being censored by Facebook under it’s new “hate speech” guidelines. The 20 minute video, apparently created by the 16 year old Facebook user Miss Wilhailm, starts with her saying that she is, “so scared everywhere, for example if my family and I go out together, or...

As the Islamic world continues on their modern-day crusade to purge the world of “infidels” by shooting, stabbing, beheading and burning those who oppose the “religion of peace,” the Western world is embroiled in idiocy. The left appears infinitely more concerned with offending the delicate sensibilities of the Muslim world- both the peaceful and the murderous adherents of the religion- than they are with protecting the Western world from Islamic terrorism, a threat which the U.S. president refuses to cite as a danger.

The decision to censor books published in Iran is to ensure that Iranians are protected from a Western "cultural onslaught" Iran's culture ministry has decided to censor the use of the word "wine" and the names of "foreign animals" and dignitaries from any books published in the Islamic Republic. The new rules are designed to protect Iranians from what the regime calls a "cultural onslaught" by the West. Mohammad Selgi, the head of book publishing at the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance, said: "When new books are registered with us, our staff first have to read them page by...

VeriSign Inc. is selling its Network Solutions business, which provides Internet domain name registrations, to Pivotal Private Equity for approximately $100 million so it can focus on infrastructure services. VeriSign gained Network Solutions' registrar and registry businesses when it purchased the company in 2000. The registrar business, which offers services such as business e-mail, Web sites, hosting and Web presence, will go to Pivotal Private Equity, the company said Thursday. VeriSign will retain the registry business, which provides the backbone for the .com and .net domain names. VeriSign recently renamed the registry business VeriSign Naming and Directory Services and...

Germany said on Tuesday that Facebook, Google and Twitter have agreed to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours, a new step in the fight against rising online racism following the refugee crisis. The government has been trying to get social platforms to crack down on the rise in anti-foreigner comments in German on the web as the country struggles to cope with an influx of more than 1 million refugees this year. The new agreement makes it easier for users and anti-racism groups to report hate speech to specialist teams at the three companies, German Justice Minister...

If you've got a website or are otherwise familiar with traffic-tracking sites out there, you'll know that Google no longer allows you to see the search terms that a reader has used to find a specific page/URL on your own blog or website (if they are signed-in with their Google account when searching, which is most people). I use 'StatCounter' to see the what, who, and when of those coming to my own blog...So I cannot say with any certainty why somebody at Google HQ in Mountain View, CA is searching for my posts, nor what search terms they...

Several prominent accounts suspended as social media giant tightens 'hateful conduct' rules

During the darkest days of communism, Romanians had something to brighten their oppressed existence illicit American movie parties. Under Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship, the Eastern European country had very little contact with the West. But thanks to Teodor Zamfir who was willing to smuggle VHS tapes, and his translator Ilina Nistor who dubbed them, over 3000 movies made it over to Romania between 1985 and 1989. Millions of lives were changed and uplifted as a result. Chuck Norris v. Communism (Variety Interview)After recognizing Nistor's voice at a film festival, Ilinca Calugareanu chatted with the woman whose inflection and tone were nearly...

..."Just for the record, if she does not already know, ......... is one of the biggest jerks in the foreign service," the US ambassador to Germany John Kornblum is quoted as saying in a newly-released email from Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal.

The First Amendment protests the free speech rights of Americans — but apparently not those of pro-life advocates singing Christmas carols on a public sidewalk outside a local abortion business in Falls Church, Virginia. Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Monday to the Falls Church Police Department after two officers told several Christmas carolers to stop singing on a public sidewalk outside of an abortion business. One of the carolers captured the officers on video informing the carolers that singing is prohibited under a noise ordinance and that they must cease singing. The letter explains that police cannot use the...

Sharyl Attkisson, formerly an investigative reporter with CBS, recently launched Full Measure News. Those who have followed Attkisson on Twitter know that she has been relentless in her pursuit of stories that have been abandoned by the mainstream news, such as the Fast and Furious scandal and Benghazi. Full Measure News was to be an independent outlet for investigative reporting, but tonight Attkisson is reporting that the entire Full Measure News account has been pulled by YouTube.

Chinese censors are scrubbing sites of mentions of North Korean girl band By Victoria Ho 19 minutes ago After the Moranbong Band's abrupt cancelation of their performances in Beijing over the weekend, it appears Chinese censors went to work deleting speculation and chatter about the North Korean girl band on mainland sites. The Moranbong Band, whose members were said to be handpicked by North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, were on a goodwill mission to Beijing and were set to perform three concerts starting Saturday night. But just hours before the first, they abruptly canceled the gig and headed home on...