Free Republic

President Obama’s aides have drafted a team of Internet-savvy staff members to produce a series of videos, digital op-eds, Facebook and Twitter posts, and six-second animated GIFs to capture a larger audience than the mainstream media’s shrinking number of viewers and readers. They are essential tools in selling the president’s message during his last two years in office, White House officials say. In recent announcements on college affordability, immigration and net neutrality, the president has relied on social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Medium, Vine, LinkedIn and Twitter. Last Tuesday, Mr. Obama previewed his plan for broadband access in a...

Students across the United States are getting a taste of progressivism. And it doesn’t seem to please their palates. The implementation of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity lunch standards is encountering backlash from students and school administrators across the country. The program seems to have taught them a valuable lesson in the realities of progressivism -- that when American voters give up power to busy-body progressives, the result is more control over their lives and the loss of individual liberties. They responded to this newfound reality with boycotts, social media angst, and filled trash cans instead of filled bellies.According to the Government...

The troubling implications of the Central Command social media hacking In a coincidence many Americans may see as emblematic of the administration’s approach to global terror, President Obama was addressing the nation regarding cyber security Monday while hackers claiming to represent ISIS assumed control over the media accounts of the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM). “ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now,” said one tweet sent from CENTCOM’s account. The hacking of the Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts began Monday afternoon and lasted approximately 30 minutes...

When Kevin Jones discovered that his 10-year-old daughter had created several secret social media accounts and was dating a boy, he was understandably upset. His response was to dress her in a pink T-shirt that reads: “I’m 10 Years Old” on the front and “5th Grader” on the back. She also donned barrettes, pink shoes, and a Sofia the First cartoon backpack. Jones posted photographs from all angles on his Facebook page as punishment for her rule-breaking, along with an update that reads, “Here’s the consequence behind her actions. An age-defining shirt. Yes people she is 5’9” & 10 years...

The end of 2014 marks, as the ends of all years do, the creation of “best of” and “worst of” awards. It was in that spirit that the American Thinking awarded former Alaska governor, former vice presidential candidate, and most powerful female politician on the planet, the “American Achiever of 2014” award in a piece on Saturday. As she contemplates her political future, such as a possible run for the presidency, Palin can indeed look back on 2014 as a year in which much was achieved. When one describes Palin as the most powerful female politician on the planet, one...

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Some city officials are upset over a photo posted to Instagram by a West Philadelphia paramedic, showing two black men pointing a gun at a police officer and describing police as “the enemy.” ~snip~ The paramedic has since taken the photo down and responded on Facebook saying that he deeply apologizes and that he did not mean to hurt his brothers in blue or offend anyone. It is not known at this time if the paramedic will be disciplined.

Jeb Bush may be top dog in the latest 2016 polls, but he’s woefully behind the rest of the GOP field when it comes to friends, likes and retweets. The former Florida governor took to social media Tuesday to announce that he will “actively explore the possibility of running” for president in 2016, tweeting a link to a statement on his Facebook page. Journalists and political junkies leapt at the news, but Facebook fans … not so much. As of early Tuesday afternoon, hours after Bush’s 10 a.m. announcement, his tweet had amassed 5,700 retweets and 2,200 favorites. On Facebook,...

Sen. Ted Cruz is winning on social media. Between Sept. 1 to Dec. 1, the Texas Republican garnered the most mentions on Twitter out of 10 potential 2016 candidates, with 4.55 million mentions to his two handles, @SenTedCruz and @TedCruz, according to data provided to Politico. Cruz also had similar success on Facebook, with 1.8 million people talking about him, adding up to a whopping 5.6 million interactions (posts, comments and likes) between Aug. 22 and Nov. 22. The only other candidate with as much clout as Cruz on social media was former Secretary of State and likely 2016 Democratic...

In the world of Twitter and Facebook hashtags, the potential 2016 presidential candidates who generate the most buzz are former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, according to Politico. On Facebook, Clinton and Cruz together racked up 40 percent of posts and comments having to with the 2016 presidential race. On Twitter, both got 47 percent of mentions on the topic. And while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush attracts plenty of media attention, he’s virtually ignored on social media, getting a lowly 3 percent of Facebook mentions and 2 percent of tweets, Politico noted. Sen. Marco...

Are the DHS and FBI trying to protect troops or only to depress and demoralize them? Is this how the DHS can keep active duty soldiers from sending messages of Christmas hope to their families? A Marine Mom asks Canada Free Press (CFP) this vital question: “Does it make any sense that the DHS and FBI are telling veterans, their families and active duty troops to scrub their social media sites, while Holiday Greeting YouTubes posted by the military itself are still online online after Sunday night’s warning was issued?” “The FBI on Sunday issued the strongest warning to date...

"....Kim Kardashian, a celebrity by virtue of having accomplished not a thing substantive, but having been an expert at using a voyeuristic culture to make herself well-known, decided to sit for nude photos, apparently to make sure she stayed in the limelight. Did she do this to raise awareness about women's body image issues? Did she get nude photos taken to highlight the abuse of animals for expensive fur or clothing? Of course not, to both of these. At a time when women want to be taken seriously and enter into leadership positions,Kardashian apparently merely wanted continued fame and fortune...

Andrew Stiles contributed to these explanations.What is Truthy?“Truthy” is a research project being conducted by the University of Indiana. Proponents claim this is an apolitical study of how information spreads online through the social media platform Twitter.What is Twitter?Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to post hot takes and/or anonymous insults on the Internet.What is the Internet?The Internet is a cultural phenomenon that allows people to earn money by typing words on a computer regardless of talent or expertise. For example, you are reading this “explanatory” post on the Internet. Weird, huh?Yeah, that is weird. Told you.What is...

California Rep. Darrell Issa, who asked Twitter followers Friday to tweet photos of their family members in the U.S. military, was duped into retweeting support for some of history’s most notorious killers. A Twitter user by the name @BrooklynJuggler trolled the Republican into retweeting a photo of his dear “Uncle Lee,” which was really a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald, the former Marine believed to have assassinated President John F. Kennedy, The Daily Dot reported. Another user by the name @Butt_C_Planet tricked Mr. Issa into retweeting a photo of his “late grandfather,” which was actually a photo of Heinrich Himmler,...

An 11-year-old hunter from Oceola Township, Michigan, took a rare albino 12-pointer with a crossbow last week while hunting with his father. The albino buck was well known in the area, but Gavin Dingman ended up being the lucky hunter to harvest it. Sadly, the celebration ended for Dingman and his family, as they became the subject of death threats and social media backlash. "My dad was just like, 'Take a deep breath. Are you sure you can take the shot? If you're not 100 percent, we don't want to injure it,'” Dingman told the Livingston Daily on Monday. The...

Earlier this week, the federal government’s National Science Foundation, an entity created to encourage the study of science — encouragement that it achieves by awarding grants to scholars and universities — announced that it had awarded a grant to study what people say about themselves and others in social media. The NSF dubbed the project Truthy, a reference to comedian Stephen Colbert’s invention and hilarious use of the word “truthiness.” The reference to Colbert is cute, and he is a very funny guy, but when the feds get into the business of monitoring speech, it is surely no joke; it...

Canadian officials were quick to finger ISIS in this week’s attacks on government targets. But it’s still not clear whether or not the killers were part of a larger jihadist web. Terrorists have twice attacked Canadian government targets this week, with a shooting Wednesday at the country’s parliament in Ottawa. Now Canadian and American authorities are trying to learn whether the killers acted alone or were part of a larger extremist network. The mayhem caused by alleged Ottawa shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau occurred just two days after another man, Martin Rouleau-Couture, struck two Canadian soldiers with a car in Quebec—killing one...

Well, if you thought the Wendy Davis gubernatorial campaign, which has devolved into a clown show, couldn’t get any worse; you should brace yourselves. She had this tweet featuring a bunch of eager young Davis supporters, but there’s only one problem. It was actually a group of volunteers for the College Republican Federation of Virginia who posed for a photo after knocking on doors for Ed Gillespie, the GOP senate hopeful in the Old Dominion.

It might be time to whittle down your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Not just because they continually post “news” articles from The Daily Mash or because they upload twelve pictures of their newborn baby every day, but because they could be negatively affecting your credit scores and credit worthiness. In a society where online data is abundant and easy to obtain, creditors are starting to use this information to their advantage. Lenddo, a ‘trust-based lender,’ is very open regarding their policy of using social media data as a factor in loan applications. In an article by Fortune...

"...I was victimized all over again," she said. "I had my ID set as Tina Si at the time. Luckily I went in and changed my name to Tina IsSavedByGrace and blocked them and it stopped." But her problems weren't over. A short time later, Facebook demanded she provide photo identification to prove she is a real person. Their goal, she added, was to silence her. "They didn't care that I was a rape victim," she said..." [mandatory excerpting sux pls read the whole article]