Free Republic

Leftist billionaire George Soros’ ungodly fortune is leaving a dark legacy on American culture and society. Apparently, that legacy included moonlighting as a Minister of Truth by dumping millions of dollars into fighting the leftist catch-all boogeyman of so-called “disinformation” online and across the globe. Soros poured $14,853,765 into at least 50 groups for the express purpose of railing against “disinformation” online and elsewhere between 2017-2021 alone, according to Open Society Foundations records. The Soros-funded groups found in MRC Free Speech America’s tally included radicalized organizations engineered to fight against “disinformation” disseminated by users on Big Tech platforms. One U.S.-based...

The National Owners Association called California’s recently-passed AB 1228 “draconian” and costly to franchisees in a memo distributed to its members. “The new ‘AB 1228’ legislation has been voted into law and will result in a devastating financial blow to California McDonald’s franchisees at a projected annual cost of $250,000 per McDonald’s restaurant,” the advocacy group representing some 1,000 McDonald’s franchisees said in the memo obtained by FOX Business. “These costs simply cannot be absorbed by the current business model.” CNBC earlier reported on the NOA memo. Among the bill’s key components: It would raise the minimum wage for fast-food...

The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to freeze an appeals court ruling blocking it from coercing or encouraging social media companies to censor speech. The Fifth Circuit found Friday that the White House, Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI violated the First Amendment, partially upholding a lower court’s decision in the free speech lawsuit Missouri v. Biden. While it ruled that the July injunction issued by District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty was “vague and broader than necessary,” it issued a revised version prohibiting the Biden administration from taking actions to...

A federal appeals court has agreed with a lower court that the Biden administration likely can be proven to have pressured Big Tech to censor Americans whose views did not align with the Democrat talking points. And the result is that leftists en masse are trying to deny it, a sentiment expressed by the White House, which stated, “This administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections. Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account...

Microsoft researchers said on Thursday (Sept 7) they found what they believe is a network of fake, Chinese-controlled social media accounts seeking to influence US voters by using artificial intelligence. A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington said that accusations of China using AI to create fake social media accounts were "full of prejudice and malicious speculation" and that China advocates for the safe use of AI. In a new research report, Microsoft said the social media accounts were part of a suspected Chinese information operation. The campaign bore similarities to activity which the US Department of Justice has attributed to...

Four very powerful billionaires—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreessen—are creating a world where “nothing is true and all is spectacle.” If we are to inquire how we got to a place of radical income inequality, post-truth reality, and the looming potential for a second American Civil War, we need look no further than these four—“the biggest wallets,” to paraphrase historian Timothy Snyder, “paying for the most blinding lights.”

Former president takes on "federal machinery" of censorship of political speech. He also urges Congress to probe evidence of ballot application fraud scheme uncovered by Michigan law enforcement.Former President Donald Trump is vowing to dismantle the federal machinery built by the Biden administration to censor political speech in America, saying he will appoint new leaders of agencies that have engaged in silencing free speech. He also said he would sign an Executive Order banning government employees from participating in projects that infringe the First Amendment.The 45th president made the comments Thursday during an interview on the "Just the News, No...

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has rejected a request by Democrat primary candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a temporary restraining order preventing Google-owned YouTube from censoring his content. Despite legacy media fears that tech platforms are relaxing their censorship efforts in response to Elon Musk’s changes at Twitter/X, YouTube recently doubled down on its “medical misinformation” policy, which it has used as a pretext to censor RFK Jr., who is Joe Biden’s closest competitor in the Democrat party primary, on several occasions. "The Court finds that the First Amendment claim is unlikely to succeed...

Tuesday was a banner day for censorship in America.Within an hour of each other, I saw two prominent individuals lose access to major publishing platforms. In one case, Apple removed with no warning and no explanation Glenn Beck’s podcast from their platform, and in the other Scott Adams announced that Amazon has permanently banned him from self-publishing his books on their Kindle platform..@AmazonKDP (for independent publishers) banned me for life this week, so my book launch for Reframe Your Brain might be delayed. Their stated reason is that I don't own my own content, although they have documents proving I...

Google has partnered with the United Nations, World Health Organisation and others in a new global censorship tool that was introduced last Monday, according to LaToya Drake, head of Google News Lab.Google News Lab is “a team within the Google News Initiative whose mission is to collaborate with journalists to fight misinformation” and other things. And, the Google News Initiative (“GNI”) “works with publishers and journalists to fight misinformation.” The GNI and its Lab seem to be one and the same thing with the Lab simply being a page on the GNI website.Below are the short descriptions from GNI’s ‘About’...

Canadians’ access to news on Facebook and Instagram will be cut off in the coming weeks after Meta said Tuesday that a “fundamentally flawed” law is forcing the company to make the tough decision. Canada’s Online News Act, passed by its leftist legislature earlier this summer, requires Big Tech companies to negotiate agreements with Canadian news outlets and pay them for news content shared on social media platforms, Reuters reported. Meta spokesman Andy Stone slammed the law in a tweet on Tuesday and said ending access to news on its platforms was the only option. “Today we’ve begun the process...

New York Attorney General Letitia James and 20 other attorneys general have filed an amicus brief (pdf) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, urging a judge to reverse a lower court decision and allow Biden administration officials to continue to instruct social media companies on impermissible content. “An open dialogue between government officials and social media companies is critical to keeping Americans safe," stated Ms. James. The attorneys general say that states have taken actions similar to federal agencies, and are backing the Biden administration in their appeal. "Amici States, too, routinely engage with social-media companies...

If you listened to the government, you would believe that the operation went like this: Social media companies couldn’t handle all the moderation they had to do. They didn’t want harmful “misinformation” or even *gasp* “malinformation” on their platforms. They kept identifying what they considered dangerous untrue posts that threatened the fabric of society. They even identified true posts that would scare others, and those were worse. People were discussing COVID vaccine side effects, and it started spreading. The social media companies were invested in ensuring that every American felt comfortable getting a shot in the arm, no matter the...

Faced with imminent contempt of Congress charges, Mark Zuckerberg has finally agreed to cooperate with the GOP probe on Big Tech-government collusion. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) called off a markup session to formally file contempt of Congress charges against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, citing Facebook’s “newfound commitment” to the Judiciary Committee investigation into censorship collusion. However, Jordan hinted at the extent of Facebook’s incestuous relationship with government entities for the purpose of censoring Americans. In a related bombshell revelation, Jordan unleashed the “Facebook Files” on Thursday detailing how the Biden White House coerced Facebook to assault Americans’...

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced legislation Thursday to establish a new federal regulatory commission made up of presidential nominees to "rein in Big Tech." snip The independent regulatory commission would be composed of five commissioners appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. snip House Republicans, meanwhile, have repeatedly accused the Biden administration of censorship, pointing to the July 4 federal court ruling in Louisiana that deemed multiple agencies within the executive branch, including the FBI, Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, colluded with social media companies to quash First Amendment free speech...

Big Tech companies are deliberately manipulating the outcomes of our elections and the thinking and beliefs of our children. And they are having an enormous impact.If you doubt that, consider this latest snippet of data from my lab, the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT).Consider this: The GOP currently has a slim 10-seat majority in the House of Representatives. Without Google's interference in 2022, it would likely now have a majority of between 27 and 59 seats.The 2022 midterm elections that gave the Democrats a two-vote majority in the U.S. Senate had quite a bit of help from...

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and others are praising presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says childhood vaccines are linked to autism and that the Central Intelligence Agency killed his uncle. He has wondered out loud whether Wi-Fi exposure leads to cancer. Some of tech’s big stars are praising his campaign for president. Silicon Valley loves a contrarian, which is why some tech luminaries threw their support to Republican Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. This time around, Kennedy, a Democrat, is the one getting the antiestablishment buzz in the tech world.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit apparently decided that the federal government maintaining its Orwellian censorship collusion with Big Tech was more important than protecting Americans’ free speech. Louisiana Chief District Judge Terry A. Doughty issued a preliminary July 4 injunction prohibiting President Joe Biden’s administration from “engag[ing] in any communication of any kind” with Big Tech platforms for the purpose of pushing censorship of constitutionally protected speech. That ruling had a shelf life of about 10 days. After Doughty initially denied the Biden administration's request for a stay on the injunction on July 10, the Fifth...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi discussed the newest Twitter Files and pointed to one email exchange where Twitter “immediately” suspended accounts flagged by the FBI without investigation on Twitter’s part that Twitter later couldn’t point to solid proof to back the FBI’s allegations. Taibbi said, “In one shot, you can see the FBI asks to remove three accounts, that gets forwarded to Twitter, Twitter immediately suspends them, the accounts. But more importantly, when there’s a glitch, and the accounts remain up, the FBI immediately writes back and says, what’s the deal? We just wrote...

The judge has issued a Memorandum ruling on the government’s Motion to Stay Injunction in Missouri v. Biden. It’s another amazing day for freedom. The judge first goes through the criteria for granting an injunction. [embedded court document] The court AGAIN states they feel the plaintiffs will succeed on the merits, but he also adds something—that the White House defendants and the Surgeon General Defendants were found to have likely engaged in the coercion of social media companies. He then goes on to AGAIN give examples. [embedded court document] Read this, legacy media. Everyone else should read it too. The...