Free Republic

The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a new initiative dubbed the “U.S. Tech Force,” comprising about 1,000 engineers and other specialists who will work on artificial intelligence infrastructure and other technology projects throughout the federal government. Participants will commit to a two-year employment program working with teams that report directly to agency leaders in “collaboration with leading technology companies,” according to an official government website. Those “private sector partners” include Amazon Web Services , Apple , Google Public Sector, Dell Technologies , Microsoft , Nvidia , OpenAI, Oracle , Palantir , Salesforce and numerous others, the website says. The Tech...

When Stephen Scheeler became Facebook's Australia chief in the early 2010s, he was a true believer in the power of the internet, and social media, for public good. It would herald a new era of global connection and democratise learning. It would let users build their own public squares without the traditional gatekeepers. "There was that heady optimism phase when I first joined and I think a lot of the world shared that," he told the BBC. But by the time he left the firm in 2017, seeds of doubt about its work had been planted, and they've since bloomed....

‘We are building these things so damn fast that by the time they are online and activated, the problems are already built in.’Since returning to office, President Trump has made the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) a key focal point of his second administration. Just last week, the president signed an executive order launching the “Genesis Mission,” a new “national effort” that seeks to utilize AI to “transform how scientific research is conducted and accelerate the speed of scientific discovery.”“With the Genesis Mission, the Trump Administration intends to dramatically expand the productivity and impact of Federal research and development within...

A growing number of IT staffing firms are posting help wanted ads that say the quiet part out loud: Americans need not apply. Federal law prohibits this—duh—but in an industry reliant on an H-1B program that provides visas to more than 700,000 immigrants, the Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium “identified over two dozen job postings since 2024 that appear to bar applications from U.S. citizens” in favor of visa holders. Many of the companies behind them tout their commitment to DEI. Take LanceSoft, an IT staffing firm committed to “diversity, equality, and inclusivity.” In a post to an IT jobs aggregator...

The ex-mistress of Eric Schmidt has accused the former Google CEO of rape and spying on her with hidden cameras while she was naked — even as he allegedly subjected her to creepy surveillance and humiliating comments at the tech startup they operated together. Michelle Ritter, a 31-year-old tech entrepreneur, detailed the allegations in a filing last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, claiming 70-year-old Schmidt subjected her to sexual battery, harassment, domestic violence, and violations of computer hacking and wiretapping laws. Last month, The Post broke the story of the bitter legal spat, which stems from a relationship...

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has picked former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan to serve as co-chair of his transition team…Khan — a 36-year-old Democrat who bought major cases against Meta and Amazon while running the FTC from 2021 to 2025 — surprised some onlookers on Wednesday as she appeared alongside Mamdani at his first post-election press conference. During her time at the FTC, Khan waged an unsuccessful fight to stop Microsoft’s acquisition of video game giant Activision-Blizzard; blocked an attempted merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons and enacted a ban on non-compete agreements when workers switch jobs, which was...

In a report that originally aired on "CBS Sunday Morning" November 22, 1998, correspondent Rita Braver talked with Internet entrepreneurs (including Zip2 co-founder Elon Musk, Digital Bitcasting owner Peter Dougherty, and Cypress Semiconductors CEO T.J. Rodgers) about competing against tech giant Microsoft, which was then engaged in a fight with the U.S. government over the company's hold on the software market.

YouTube TV viewers can no longer see Disney channels including ABC and ESPN after the two sides failed to agree on a new content distribution deal. Other channels that vanished from Google’s pay TV platform include the Disney Channel, FX and Nat Geo. Google’s pay TV platform said in a blog post late Thursday that Disney had followed through on a threat to suspend its content amid the negotiations.

A tech tycoon who was abducted, stabbed and shot dead in central California had bullied and humiliated his employees ahead of his grisly murder, a court heard. Tushar Atre, 50, was dragged out of bed at his Santa Cruz beach house around 3am on October 1, 2019, by a group of men who broke into his plush $5.4 million residence. The men - two of whom were his employees - stabbed and kidnapped the millionaire, before shooting him and leaving him for dead 14 miles away in a rural mountain area, investigators alleged. They also stole thousands of dollars in...

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — On a scorching hot Saturday in San Antonio, dozens of teachers traded a day off for a glimpse of the future. The topic of the day’s workshop: enhancing instruction with artificial intelligence.After marveling as AI graded classwork instantly and turned lesson plans into podcasts or online storybooks, one high school English teacher raised a concern that was on the minds of many: “Are we going to be replaced with AI?”That remains to be seen. But for the nation’s 4 million teachers to stay relevant and help students use the technology wisely, teachers unions have forged an...

For generations, Americans believed the First Amendment was untouchable — the cornerstone of our Republic. But today, freedom is under attack. Behind closed doors, government agencies, Big Tech, universities, and NGOs built a powerful system to control what citizens can say, hear, and believe. This is not speculation. It is a documented reality. “God Complex: The Rise of America’s Censorship Machine” is a Big Picture Originals documentary that reveals how this system came to be, how it operates, and why every American who values freedom must pay attention. Because when speech is silenced, the truth disappears — and with it,...

Elon Musk wants H-1B visas because he says America needs more tech workers. The real reason for these visas is our schools aren’t teaching math well enough. By law, H-1B visas go to foreigners who do specialized jobs, mostly in tech. Every year, 65,000 regular visas are handed out, plus 20,000 for advanced degrees. A 2023 federal report showed 65% of H-1B jobs are computer-related, but less than 1% go to social sciences. America’s math problem is getting worse. In 2024, a staggering 72% of eighth-graders failed to score at the proficient level in math, which is up from 66%...

GROK’ED AND LOADED: President Trump and Elon Musk are teaming up again — this time to bring Grok 4 and Grok 4 Fast to his administration, aiming to revolutionize and supercharge AI innovation across all government agencies.

-snip- Foreign workers, starting September 21, can’t enter the U.S. on an H-1B visa unless their employer’s petition (the paperwork requesting the visa) includes an extra $100,000 payment to the federal government. This fee must be renewed and paid annually, according to United States Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. -snip- Nationally, there are approximately 730,000 active H-1B holders as of early 2025. -snip- Washington currently ranks 4th nationally for H-1B activity. The state, particularly the Seattle metropolitan area, is a major hub for the U.S. tech industry, with companies like Amazon and Microsoft relying heavily on H-1B visas to hire...

Summary Tech industry trade group sued to block Mississippi law NetChoice claims the law violates free speech protections WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Thursday to put on hold a Mississippi law requiring that users of social media platforms verify their age and that minors have parental consent in a challenge by a trade group whose members include Meta's (META.O), Facebook, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), YouTube and Snapchat (SNAP.N). The justices denied a request by NetChoice to block the law while the Washington-based tech industry trade association's legal challenge to the law, which it argues violates the...

Melinda French Gates has made a glaring dig at Donald Trump's tech billionaire friends for not staying true to their values. The billionaire philanthropist and businesswoman, 60, voiced her concern over Silicon Valley's political shift to the right and argued that many leading figures are only 'pivoting' because of public relations and image. It comes after tech giants, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple CEO Tim Cook were all front and center at Trump's inauguration in January, and after her ex-husband, Bill Gates, sat down with the president at the White House to discuss his...

Numbers don't lie Recently, however, I was looking for web search engine popularity numbers. The usual sites people use for these numbers, such as Statcounter, as Ed Bott recently pointed out, have real problems. So, I went to the most reliable source I know of, the US federal government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP). This site gives a running count of US government website visits and an analysis. On average, there are 1.6 billion sessions in the last 30 days, with millions of users daily. In short, DAP gives a detailed view of what people use without massaging the data. According...

Evan Richardson grew up in Silicon Valley, surrounded by big tech companies that transformed how people live, socialize and work.As a curious kid, Richardson took apart electronics and put them back together. A career in technology seemed like a natural and safe path after his service in the military.“Tech was always an industry you go into, you’re going to make a lot of money and you’re never going to get fired,” he said.For thousands of tech workers like Richardson, those days are over. In March, the 43-year-old Hayward resident was caught off guard when he learned his employer, payment company...

Ok, sorry it has a paywall---this is only my review of it. Everyone needs to read this powerful book. It's DENSE, and took me about 4 hours to read, but the insight into how the big social tech companies are stealing our lives is important. Previously in my substacks I had written part 1, covering the first 1/3 of the book. This covers the last 2/3.

The FTC is not suing Meta for its past leftism or current MAGA-ism but for its longstanding, documented monopolism. Even Big Tech’s toughest conservative critics must admit Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have had a good few months. In the wake of President Donald Trump’s reelection last November, the $1 trillion company finally scrapped its worst woke initiatives, from Facebook’s infamous “fact-checking” regime to its internal DEI programming. Its sites are apparently no longer throttling political content. And Zuckerberg has even rebranded himself — going “all-in on a MAGA-dominated Washington,” buying a $23 million home two miles from the White House,...