Free Republic

I am the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, whose account Twitter locked because it tweeted a link to a Daily News article that I wrote about Twitter locking my personal account. Twitter informs me that the account was locked because the News article contains quotes from the New Zealand mass killer, and New Zealand and Australia have laws against sharing the manifestos of shooters.

In a video and article published on Wednesday, ex-Google employee Zach Vorhies speaks with the antitrust investigators at Project Veritas about the thousands of internal Google documents he recently released to the public.  Among the cache of information is a list of sites that Google has blacklisted with an algorithm developed to alter users' search results.  American Thinker is one of them. The highlighted photo below is from frequent contributor Steve McCann It wasn’t easy for Vorhies to break away from his lucrative Google salary and come forward with the trove of information that shows a huge political bias...

“… we definitely help divide people”Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEOIt is impossible to understand the current state of social polarization while ignoring the Internet, and its especially toxic part, which should be called anti-social media (“ASM”). ASM includes Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Reddit. ASM distorts our social and political communications in many ways. The mechanics of ASM generate misunderstanding, hatred, and polarization. ASM leaders multiply this damage by denying that and falsely pointing fingers at Trump and Trump supporters. Lack of Empathy Aggravated by AnonymityASM is not and has never been social. The internet is perfect for storing and transmitting information,...

A researcher who has spent more than half a decade monitoring Google’s influence said he believes the tech giant will “actively interfere” in the 2020 elections. On Aug. 6, President Donald Trump said his administration is watching Google “very closely.” Dr. Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, told The Epoch Times that Google has access to a number of powerful manipulation methods mostly through “ephemeral experiences” that can shift votes. Online ephemeral experiences are brief moments where information is generated instantaneously, such as search suggestions. They are not stored anywhere and can’t...

The White House is reportedly exploring potential executive action President Trump could take to address his and other Republicans' allegations of anti-conservative bias among social media companies. Politico reported Wednesday that the White House has circulated a draft proposal, though it is unclear what exactly the order would do or how it would target tech companies. One source told the outlet that the details of the proposal remain in flux. "If the internet is going to be presented as this egalitarian platform and most of Twitter is liberal cesspools of venom, then at least the president wants some fairness in...

The mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio are horrific tragedies. In the case of the El Paso shooting, the suspected terrorist gunman appears to have been inspired by the forum website known as 8chan. Based on evidence we've seen, it appears that he posted a screed to the site immediately before beginning his terrifying attack on the El Paso Walmart killing 20 people. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Nearly the same thing happened on 8chan before the terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand. The El Paso shooter specifically referenced the Christchurch incident and appears to...

I just downloaded and started using Brave. All I've done is make it the default browser and import bookmarks from Chrome. Are there any other settings I should know about or addons to make it run better? In their addons they recommended Microsoft Edge but since I've never used it before I don't see why I would be using it now. Should I add that on for some reason? I am also using AdGuard 7.0, which I installed before Brave. Is the built in ad blocker for Brave good enough to make AdGuard redundant? I've never had any problems with...

...Moments before the El Paso shooting on Saturday, a four-page message whose author identified himself as the gunman appeared on 8chan. The person who posted the message encouraged his “brothers” on the site to spread the contents far and wide. In recent months, 8chan has become a go-to resource for violent extremists. At least three mass shootings this year — including the mosque killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the synagogue shooting in Poway, Calif. — have been announced in advance on the site, often accompanied by racist writings that seem engineered to go viral on the internet.... Mr. Brennan...

We’ve all looked up a word to find out its definition, but some of the political terms on Google’s “dictionary” are biased and could have long term implications for our nation’s political future.If you look up the word “conservative,” for example, you get these acceptable synonyms: traditionalist, conventional, orthodox, stable, prudent, and old-fashioned.  But these are also accompanied by these rather unflattering words: dyed-in-the-wool, unchanging, hidebound, timid, unadventurous, unenterprising, and set in one's ways, and stick in the mud.Terms associated with leftist politics did not have such condescending synonyms. The word “progressive” was described as modern, liberal, advanced, forward-looking, forward-thinking, go-ahead, enlightened, enterprising,...

Last week, mostly lost in the news cycle of Trump versus “the squad” and the anticipation of the Mueller hearings, was the testimony of Dr. Robert Epstein in front of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution regarding the power of Google to manipulate elections. Epstein, a Harvard Ph.D. in psychology and behavioral sciences, is a Democrat who voted for Clinton in 2016. Yet what he testified to should be troubling to every American who is concerned about election integrity and the threats of manipulation by powers both foreign and domestic. Epstein testified, based on 13,000 saved search results of...

A bi-partisan bill working its way through Congress could drastically change how copyright claims are processed, and would create a system to impose up to $30,000 in fines on anyone who shares protected material online. In other words, the Congress wants to make it easier to sue people who send a meme or post images that they didn’t create themselves, essentially a giveaway to lawyers who sue unsuspecting suckers for a living. The Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved the “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019,” which “creates a voluntary small claims board within the Copyright Office that...

My facebook account has been terminated

When I posted a quick item last month about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez standing in front of a chain-link fence and weeping at an empty strip of pavement on the other side, I didn't think much of it. I just thought it was amusing that AOC posed for the cameras, got the publicity she wanted, and then was embarrassed when other photos taken at the scene revealed what she was actually looking at: So AOC was really just trying to get some stock border crisis images for Getty. The “crying at the border” pics were just crying at cars behind a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday kept up his pressure on global tech giant Google days after his Treasury secretary ruled out any national security concerns over the company’s work in China. Trump, in a tweet, did not offer any evidence of a problem with Google’s business in China but said if there were any issues, his administration would find out about it. On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he and Trump had both had direct talks with Google’s chief executive and were assured that the tech company’s work with China was “very, very limited.”

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes reportedly met with the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and multiple state attorneys general in recent weeks to discuss breaking up Facebook. Hughes and two prominent antitrust academics, Scott Hemphill and Tim Wu, met with federal and state officials and have laid out a possible antitrust case against the social media giant, The New York Times reported Thursday. The group argues that Facebook has made “serial defensive acquisitions” to maintain its control over the market and allow the company to hike up advertising prices while also lowering the quality of the user experience,...

A man has died after reportedly filming himself swallowing poisonous centipedes and geckos alive. The Chinese vlogger, named only by his surname Sun, live-streamed himself carrying out the stomach-churning challenge, which he had hoped would gain him more online followers. The 35-year-old is said to have been found lifeless by his girlfriend when she went to check on him at his flat in the eastern city of Hefei. He was later pronounced dead. Sun had also been filming himself drinking large amounts of alcohol, as well as eating mealworms for the platform DouYu, where he had 15,000 followers.

Last week, at the invitation of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, I spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Google’s having placed more than 60 Prager University videos on its restricted list. ast week, at the invitation of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, I spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Google’s having placed more than 60 Prager University videos on its restricted list. Any family that filters out pornography and violence cannot see those particular videos on YouTube (which is owned by Google); nor can any school or library. This statement is as much about what I and PragerU stand for...

“Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands."

Two members of a police department in a New Orleans suburb were fired Monday — one for a Facebook post calling U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “vile idiot” and suggesting that she be shot, the other for “liking” the post. Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson announced the terminations Monday. Officer Charlie Rispoli was fired for a post saying Ocasio-Cortez “needs a round” and not “the kind she used to serve” — an apparent reference to her having once been a bartender. Officer Angelo Varisco was fired for “liking” the post. “It’s very disappointing,” Lawson said, adding that the Gretna department...

Discussions about social media censorship have been going on long before Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress to testify about Facebook. Figures like President Trump have brought to the national stage claims that social media giants are disproportionately censoring conservative voices. What we should all be discussing though, is who exactly are the people that are censoring us? Last month, employees contracted by Facebook to perform content moderation, broke their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to speak with Casey Newton, who then published a 7000-word, pseudo-expose on The Verge. While Newton’s purpose of his article was to portray Facebook as running a de...