Free Republic

Megyn Kelly: Trump and First Amendment 'not a beautiful match' © Getty Fox News host Megyn Kelly criticized Donald Trump’s use of Twitter and warned of the potential "de-legitimization” of the media under the president-elect in a Wednesday interview with NPR’s "Fresh Air." Kelly, who was the target of many social media attacks during the campaign, said Trump might not be aware “that every tweet he unleashes against you ... creates such a crescendo of anger and, in my case again, threatening behavior.” The reporter cited "thousands of tweets" directed at her as an example — threats to "beat the...

One might understand this best in terms of John Boyd’s famous OODA Loop. Used by military tacticians, the Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act loop describes the cycle in which opponents operate during a fight. Whoever can cycle more quickly gains the initiative and controls the fight. Whoever cycles more slowly remains off-balance, constantly having to re-observe and re-orient to circumstances dictated by the enemy. The media cycles more slowly. Trump retains initiative by constantly feeding their hysteria and confusion with a steady diet of controversial tweets. Each new tweet grabs their attention and they restart the process. Like clockwork, every...

The following comments are based on the article, "NBC's Matt Lauer confronts Trump over his tweeting: Are you having a 'difficult time breaking' this habit?" from Business Insider.This morning on NBC’s “Today” show Matt Lauer talked to Donald Trump about his tweet addiction. Matt asked “I have not see you backing off fights on Twitter,” referring to Trump's attacks on Boeing for cost overruns, the cast of Hamilton, The New York Times, “Saturday Night Live,” and the media in general. Trump replied "No, I think I am very restrained, and I talk about important things.” Trump went on to...

The Internet has jumped the shark. An omnibus personal media platform independently encompassing all social media, Facebook, Twitter & all, intricately controlled by YOU, is 'technically' possible--but you'll never see it. It would enable you to absolutely control your own e-profile, dynamically interacting all social media solely at your command, completely immune to censorship, hosted on your computer as an independent, autonomous server. The technology exists now. But computer techno-fascism will never allow you to have it. A microcosmic example is 'the internet of things'. To counter the 'blinking 12:00 display' on all your devices, they should all interact wirelessly...

The drama over Buzzfeed trying to publicly shame the stars of an HGTV show over their church’s stance on same-sex marriage just keeps getting more ridiculous. The author of the hit piece, Kate Aurthur, is a reporter and editor for the liberal site Buzzfeed News. Alex Varney, a producer for Dana Loesch, a conservative host for The Blaze, emailed Arthur, asking her to come on the show via Skype to discuss the article. Then, in response to a tweet from Loesch that criticized her, Aurthur tweeted a screenshot of the email Varney sent to her to ask about coming on...

Donald Trump tweeted that Saturday Night Live is "unwatchable" and "totally biased," after Alec Baldwin impersonated him in a cold open sketch mocking his tweets. Saturday's episode featured Baldwin as the president-elect constantly distracted by his Twitter feed during a national security briefing. The sketch opened in a classroom, where a high school student named Seth was retweeted by Trump--recalling Trump's real retweet of a 16-year-old named Seth, who attacked CNN over its coverage of Trump's false claim that millions of people voted illegally.

A Kuwaiti online activist will spend 10 years in jail, an appeals court has ruled, for posting messages on Twitter that "insulted the emir" and "spreading false news" that endangered the country. The court on Thursday confirmed the jail term against Waleed Fares handed down by a lower court in May, AFP reported. Fares was arrested in September 2015 for comments under the name “Gibrit Seyassi” about Kuwait’s emir and ruler, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah, "offending the judiciary" and "accusing the attorney general and public prosecution of being biased". Fares said at his trial he had been beaten and...

A really really angry Sally Field announced on Chelsea Handler's Netflix show on Thursday that she joined Twitter in order to understand why people voted for Donald Trump. As you can see in Chelsea's tweet video below, Field is not only clueless as to why Trump won the election but has no real understanding of how our federal Constitution works. 

When the white nationalist leader Richard B. Spencer was suspended from Twitter recently, he hopped over to YouTube to address his supporters. “Digitally speaking,” he said, Twitter had sent “execution squads across the alt-right.” He accused Twitter of “purging people on the basis of their views,” calling it “corporate Stalinism.” Then he mapped out a path forward. “There’s obviously Gab, which is an interesting medium,” he said. “I think that will be the place where we go next.” Gab is a new social network built like a hybrid of Twitter and Reddit — posts are capped at 300 characters, and...

Breitbart News organized the boycott after Kellogg withdrew their advertising from Breitbart News, claiming that the site and its conservative readers were not “aligned with our values as a company.” The boycott, which has also taken place under the hashtag #DumpKelloggs, has generated thousands of posts on Facebook and Twitter, with the official Kellogg’s Facebook pages for various products being bombarded with complaints from Breitbart’s readers. “We regularly work with our media-buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that aren’t aligned with our values as a company,” said Kellogg’s Kris Charles in a statement this week....

President-Elect Donald Trump just tweeted something really astounding about his domestic policy. However, should it be reported as news? What to do? What to do? Oh, what a quandary! Anybody with a lick of common sense would agree that, of course, it should be reported as news. After all, what difference does it make whether the medium is television, radio, telegraph, smoke signals, carrier pigeons, or, yes, Twitter? News is news. However for the New York Times the fact that Trump uses Twitter to relay important information is a matter for much amusing hand wringing as you can see in the...

Since, clearly, nobody in the incoming administration will play Daddy and take away the future president’s text addiction for the sake of the country, the rest of us have to. Twitter’s 317 million users need to demand that the service ban Trump for life. #BootDonald, anyone? Twitter has permanently suspended users in the past, most prominently rapper Azealia Banks and right-wing gadfly Milo Yiannopoulos – for tweets containing racially tinged, slur-filled, and other abuse. After all, Twitter is a private company. It can ban anyone at any time for any reason. It can boot people whose names begin with A,...

The president-elect of the United States is a notorious troll — a fact which his promise to ban Muslims from entering the country, threat to imprison and strip Americans of citizenship for exercising their First Amendment rights, and widespread insulting of people online all make clear. We now learn via Slate that the two technology platforms Donald Trump uses most prominently to spread his messages of hate and division, Twitter and Facebook, take a very different stance on how to respond to future instances of harassment by Trump. Namely, Twitter says it would consider suspending his account. Facebook, which CEO...

Since Election Day, President-elect Donald J. Trump has proposed a U-turn in American diplomatic relations with Cuba, boasted about negotiations with a major manufacturer, trumpeted false claims about millions of illegal votes and hinted that he might upend current free speech laws by banning flag burning. All in 140 characters or less. As news organizations grapple with covering a commander in chief unlike any other, Mr. Trump’s Twitter account — a bully pulpit, propaganda weapon and attention magnet all rolled into one — has quickly emerged as a fresh journalistic challenge and a source of lively debate. How to cover...

US News This afternoon In an alternate universe, Hillary Clinton is assembling her White House cabinet right now. In this universe, she's maintained a low profile since her election loss, occasionally crossing paths with hikers and shoppers near her home in Chappequa, New York.

"@sdcritic: @HighonHillcrest @jeffzeleny @CNN There is NO QUESTION THAT #voterfraud did take place, and in favor of #CorruptHillary !" 9:21 PM - 28 Nov 2016

The social media website Twitter is facing criticism for its recent decision to grant verification to the Muslim Brotherhood’s official mouthpiece, which routinely writes in favor of violent terror acts and disseminates anti-Semitic propaganda. The Muslim Brotherhood–which has been designated as a terror outfit and banned by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and elsewhere–operates in the online sphere via a website known as Ikhwan Web, which serves as the Brotherhood’s “official” English-speaking feed. Twitter recently granted verification to Ikhwan Web’s online feed, giving the organization an air of legitimacy that leading lawmakers and experts described as reckless given the Brotherhood’s history...

ntTrump on Recount Efforts: Remember When People Told Me to Accept Results?Dana Bash to Sanders: Is It Appropriate for Obama to Offer Condolences for a Brutal Dictator?'Disgraceful': Canadian PM Slammed on Twitter For Offering Tribute to Fidel CastroProminent Harvard Law Prof Tells Electoral College to Abandon Trump Trump: ‘I Won the Popular Vote If You Deduct the Millions of People Who Voted Illegally’ by Josh Feldman | 3:44 pm, November 27th, 2016 Donald Trump tweeted this afternoon that he won the popular vote if you factor out “the millions of people who voted illegally.” Earlier today Trump was going off...

Text of the Tweet: The latest The US Embassy Lisbon Daily! http://paper.li/USEmbPortugal/1395936614?edition_id=11abd3d0-b3a8-11e6-8380-0cc47a0d15fd … Thanks to @Here4_Blood #twittergate #pedofiles https://twitter.com/USEmbPortugal/status/802410365883584512 Very odd. Possibly related to this? http://wearechange.org/internet-sleuths-convinced-podestas-kidnappers-police-sketches/

Article cannot be posted to FR. Link to the article is here. Summary: Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud owns 34.9 million shares of Twitter stock. Jack Dorsey, Twitter's co-founder and CEO, only owns 21.86 million shares. Links to the official filings substantiating these numbers are within the article linked above.