Free Republic

A bill recently passed by the Florida legislature would assess fines as high as $250,000 against social media companies that ban political candidates from their platforms. The bill — widely seen as a rebuke to tech companies that blacklisted then-President Donald Trump from their servers in the waning days of his administration this year — was passed earlier this week by the Florida House and Senate. It is expected to be signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. The legislation directs that social media platforms "may not willfully deplatform a candidate for office who is known by the social media platform...

California Officials Pressured Big Tech to Censor Social Media Election Posts Judicial Watch in Court to Stop a Maryland County from Giving Cash to Illegal Aliens Judicial Watch Fights Hard Left ‘Critical Race Theory’ California Officials Pressured Big Tech to Censor Social Media Election Posts We now have chilling details of California state officials and Big Tech executives conspiring to uproot the First Amendment and influence the 2020 election. And, key targets were Judicial Watch and me. The proof is in 540 pages and a supplemental four pages of documents we received from the office of the Secretary of...

One of the unfortunate vestiges of liberalism's lingering influence upon American conservatism, and by extension the Republican Party that is conservatism's default political vehicle, is the pervasive knee-jerk tendency to view government action as per se bad and private-sector action as per se good. This ideology, which might be called "market fundamentalism" or "private-sector fundamentalism," takes on differing forms: in its more benign variation, a principled commitment to unwavering laissez faire, but in its more malignant variation, a less principled commitment to corporate boosterism and outright cronyism. The realignment now unfolding before our eyes in American politics could finally retire...

What actions should an individual conservative take to push back against today’s onslaught of cancel culture, loss of freedom, and the Left’s destruction of America? What if you work full-time, protests aren’t your cup of tea, you don’t plan to run for political office, and you don’t have plans to become a conservative journalist anytime soon?Action and defiance and has a storied history in America: Patrick Henry, Frederick Douglas, Susan B Anthony, Rosa Parks, and MLK. But what if you are not destined for the pages of the history books? You can still make your voice heard and your actions...

While lawmakers in the United States are engaged in a public relations battle of who can crack down harder on big tech, the European Commission is poised to pass the Digital Marketing Act that would fundamentally alter how American big tech operates on the continent.Advocates of the Digital Markets Act contend the bill will provide businesses "who depend on gatekeepers to offer their services…a fairer business environment" and prevent large tech companies from using "unfair practices" to "gain an undue advantage." Unfortunately, the Digital Markets Act is not written to advance competition, but instead it targets U.S. tech companies and...

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch announced today that it received 540 pages and a supplemental four pages of documents from the office of the Secretary of State of California revealing how state officials pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the 2020 election. Included in these documents were “misinformation briefings” emails that were compiled by communications firm SKDK, that lists Biden for President as their top client of 2020. The documents show how the state agency successfully pressured YouTube to censor a Judicial Watch video concerning the vote by mail and a Judicial Watch lawsuit settlement...

Judicial Watch has done an excellent job discovering direct evidence of collusion between government officials, the Biden campaign and social media companies Facebook, Twitter, Google (YouTube) to censor speech and remove content. California officials were using a list generated by a firm called SKDK (working for Biden campaign) to inform the social media companies of content for removal. […] The Office of Election Cybersecurity in the California Secretary of State’s office monitored and tracked social media posts, decided if they were misinformation, stored the posts in an internal database coded by threat level, and on 31 different occasions requested posts...

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Monday said it will establish a new campus in North Carolina that will house up to 3,000 employees, expand its operations in several other U.S. states and increase its spending targets with U.S. suppliers.

Big Tech moguls including Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, and Patricia Ann Quillin, the wife of Netflix’s billionaire CEO, have donated $7.5 million to groups associated with Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors. Big Tech has been censoring stories critical about Khan-Cullors and her real estate buying blitz — while she and her groups advocate for policies that the Silicon Valley billionaires support. Specifically, Khan-Cullors has been loudly advocating for Net Neutrality. “Dustin Moskovitz, a billionaire co-founder of Facebook, and his wife Cari Tuna, are among the biggest donors to groups controlled by Khan-Cullors. Through their Open...

It’s not an exaggeration to say that if America remains on her current trajectory, she will be unrecognizable in another generation. Lady Liberty will be replaced by a snarling leftist with a blue crew-cut. We’ve arrived at a tipping point where the foundational beliefs that made our way of life possible are under relentless siege by a radical, Marxist ideology that holds our values, traditions and culture in utter contempt. Today, the institutions of family, church, education, free enterprise, and self-government are mere remnants of their former glory. The Left’s long march through our institutions is nearing its dystopian destination,...

Tech moguls who made their fortunes from Facebook, Twitter and Netflix have donated at least $7.5 million to groups tied to BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who has in turn publicly backed their policy goals, according to a new report. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, and Patricia Ann Quillin, the wife of Netflix's billionaire CEO, all gave generously to Cullors' PAC and associated charities, according to the New York Post. Cullors for her part has strongly advocated for 'net neutrality', a policy that financially benefits online content providers such as Netflix and social media sites.

By resisting censorship from the government, corporations, or cancel mobs, we reaffirm the value of the freedoms won and cherished in centuries past.As I wrote in a preceding essay, the First Amendment was written to limit the government’s power. In the 18th century, only the state was conceived as possibly wielding the power to keep free people from speaking their minds. Thus, if maintaining a free people requires free speech, it followed that the government must be kept from controlling speech. For a long time, no more was necessary, but that would change.As the United States grew in population and...

The CEO of Rumble, a platform which is taking on YouTube as an alternative, said that the platform was seeing “tremendous growth.” Rumble’s monthly user count has gone from 1.6 million users in 2020 around the US election time to 31.9 million by the end of the first quarter of 2021. The CEO Chris Pavlovski launched the platform back in 2013 with an aim to provide “video creators a way to host, manage, distribute and monetize their content.” The company believes in providing small creators “equal opportunity” for expressing themselves freely and giving them the same set of tools that...

The Left and Big Tech are in a war against our First Amendment rights. And now former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is openly calling for Americans to be silenced with the power of the federal government. Clinton denounced big tech for not doing more to censor viewpoints that she opposes. She claims a dangerous lack of censorship on big tech is leading to a rise in “populism and nationalism.” In an interview with Rappler CEO Maria Ressa on Hold The Line, Clinton described herself as a victim of a targeted campaign by “bullies” to accuse her of “terrible things.”...

Today Apple announced that they would be allowing Establishment Oligarch-owned Parler back on the Apple App Store. This comes after Parler ousted their pro-free speech CEO and Founder John Matze, who claims that his 40% stake in the company was stolen from him. After removing Matze Parler implemented a “troll filter” to censor “trolling content,” whatever that means. Bloomberg reported that Parler is working with third-party artificial intelligence software company Hive to automatically censor and remove content that Apple doesn’t like. Hive works with other Big Tech companies like Reddit to leverage artificial intelligence to censor content at scale. Shortly...

The definitive list of left-wing companies that you should boycott - Once upon a time, the Cardinal rule of business was to never even discuss politics, yet nowadays, more and more large corporations are brazenly choosing to alienate half of the country by taking sides against Donald Trump, against Republicans, by attacking voting integrity laws, by pushing for censorship of conservative speech, and/or by reinforcing the Democrat's toxic culture war, including pushing the false and racist narrative of systemic racism. These companies are a threat to our country and our freedoms.

Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz has poured over $5 million into a network of nonprofits run by Black Lives Matter leader Patrisse Cullors, according to financial disclosure records, raising questions about whether this relationship played a role in the company's decision to censor unflattering news articles about the activist last week. The social media giant blocked its users from posting links to a New York Post story that revealed Cullors, a self-described Marxist, spent $3.2 million on high-end real estate as her Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation raked in millions in donations. Facebook said the reporting violated its "privacy and...

Microsoft Corporation will invest US$1 billion in Malaysia over the next five years as part of a new partnership with government agencies and local companies, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said on Monday (Apr 19). The investment would be the US tech giant's biggest in Malaysia. The announcement comes after Malaysia in February gave conditional approvals for Microsoft, Google, Amazon and state telecommunications company Telekom Malaysia to build and manage hyper-scale data centres in the country and provide cloud services. It also comes after the country saw foreign direct investments (FDI) plunge by 68 per cent last year, the biggest decline...

"Exile" conjures images of banished figures like Napoleon, who languished on the island of Elba, rendered powerless by isolation. Groups of people considered troublemakers also have been exiled from their lands. Diasporas of "undesirables" like the Jews have been a constant in the history of nations whose rulers wanted to be rid of what they considered indigestible elements. Exile within one's own country by a totalitarian regime has been less noted. For such an enterprise, we may look at Vichy France, which was under the thrall and control of a fascist political system imported by Germany but facilitated by French...

Web browsers controlled by Big Tech companies often collect massive amounts of user data which can be used to create detailed profiles and track you across the web. Some, such as Microsoft’s Edge browser, even integrate technology that adds “trust ratings” and “misinformation” warnings to the links in your browser. By switching to one of these privacy-focused browsers, you can fight back against Big Tech data harvesting by blocking ads and trackers. Not only does this protect your privacy but it often gives you a much faster and smoother user experience. Check out the list of private web browsers below...