Free Republic

A spokesman for Meta confirmed to AFP that it would not take part in this year's event, with Google telling the Irish Independent that it too would not be making the trip to Lisbon. We're now on WhatsApp. Click to join. Irish entrepreneur Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder of the Web Summit, wrote on social media platform X last week that he was "shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders & governments." "War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are," Cosgrave wrote on October 13. Hamas militants...

Qualcomm, one of the largest microchip manufacturers globally, is scaling back its workforce. The San Diego, California-based company will be laying off about 1258 roles in California, according to a filing with the California Employment Development Department. Impacted employees include those based out of San Diego and Santa Clara in multiple roles, from engineers to legal counsel to human resources, with job reductions coming around December 13th. The layoff news comes about a month after the company announced a deal with Apple to provide 5G chips through at least 2026. Qualcomm is also the chip supplier for the newly announced...

Nearly a decade after the selling of the Iran deal, it’s much easier now for Americans to see that it was the origin point in a series of hugely consequential lies that have shaped our country at home as surely as they have shaped the lives of people in the Middle East. They lied about Obama’s successor being a Russian spy to delegitimize the government and divide the country, in the hope of removing an elected president from office. They lied about an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, to justify designating one half of the country as domestic terrorists, in...

A federal court ordered an injunction on a top agency within the Department of Homeland Security after finding that it likely violated the First Amendment by coordinating with social media companies to effectively censor "election-related speech." On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals extended the scope of an injunction in place that limits the Biden administration's communication with big tech companies to include the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security. According to GOP Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is leading the litigation against the Biden administration, CISA is the "nerve center" of...

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...