Free Republic

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes thinks the government should give cash handouts to people with the lowest incomes in order to fight income inequality. And he thinks the money should come from higher taxes on wealthy individuals and even big tech companies, like Facebook. Hughes, 34, was one of Facebook’s co-founders, along with Mark Zuckerberg and three of their Harvard classmates, in 2004. He was Facebook’s spokesperson for the company’s first three years, before leaving to finish his Harvard degree and then to work on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign as a media strategist. He says he's made "half a billion...

A growing number of companies in Silicon Valley will now offer paid time off for their employees to protest the president. The Washington Post reports that San Francisco startup Fauna used to have employees take time off on an as-needed basis; now, though, its workers can take unlimited time to participate in rallies, vote, write letters or other activities related to civic duty. A notable company that is following suit is Facebook.

Melinda Gates says she will preference women and non-whites over men and white people, specifically for these immutable characteristics that have nothing inherently to do with business success. Melinda Gates has decided to enter the venture capital world by sending her money to people based at least partly on their sex and skin color, she said in a recent Fortune interview. Disparate Outcomes Can Signal Broader Possibilities In the Fortune interview, Gates says “I think real change can occur when the VC community starts to demand that the people it invests in have diversity, the right values, and the right...

Nigel Farage put Mark Zuckerberg on blast during the Facebook CEO’s testimony to the European Parliament, accusing him of “willful discrimination” against conservatives on the platform, and positing the creation of a “Social Media Bill of Rights” to protect free speech. “Perhaps you’re horrified by this creation of yours and what it’s led to, I don’t know. But what is absolutely true is that since January of this year, you’ve changed your modus operandi, you’ve changed your algorithms, and it has led directly to a very substantial drop in views and engagements for those who have got right-of-center political opinions.”...

A leaked internal video from Google portrays the company’s vision of “total data collection.” The 2016 video made by Google X’s Head of Design Nick Foster was obtained by the Verge, and discusses how users could choose a “life goal,” which Google then attempts to steer them towards through personalization. “It imagines a future of total data collection, where Google helps nudge users into alignment with their goals, custom-prints personalized devices to collect more data, and even guides the behavior of entire populations to solve global problems like poverty and disease,” declared the Verge, who reported that “the middle section...

Democrats and other supporters of the controversial internet traffic regulations are seeking to turn the tables on Republican opponents by using a legislative tactic, popularized recently by the GOP, to resurrect the rules the Federal Communications Commission struck down last year. ... Democrats are using the maneuver to keep the issue alive heading into this fall's elections, which will determine control of the House and Senate, said Daniel Lyons, an associate professor at Boston College Law School who specializes in telecommunications and internet legal matters. "It keeps the issue in the headlines, and it forces some members of Congress to...

Amazon is now under scrutiny from both sides of the aisle, as Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed President Donald Trump's criticism of the e-commerce giant in a tweet this week. "You know what Amazon paid in federal income taxes last year? Zero," the 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful said in a tweet Monday evening. The Vermont senator linked to a Forbes article, which pointed to CEO Jeff Bezos' rise in net worth as Amazon's stock benefited from a huge earnings beat last week. Bezos, the world's richest man by Forbes' estimates, added $9 billion to his own value as the stock shot...

MENLO PARK, CA—Giving his arms and legs a nice little stretch while reclining in his office chair Friday afternoon, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, confirmed that he had successfully completed another long day of deciding what people around the world should believe. The tech titan, worth $71 billion, went on to describe the weight that comes along with being the arbiter of moral fitness and objective truth, able to make or break nearly any website on the internet by lowering the organic reach of their posts or outright banning them, based upon Facebook’s opinion of the views expressed in their...

Facebook is not a privacy company; it’s Big Brother on PCP. It does not want to anonymize and protect you; it wants to drain you of your privacy, sucking up every bit of personal data. You should resist the urge to let it, at every turn. There’s a new menu item in the Facebook app, first reported by TechCrunch on Monday, labeled “Protect.” Clicking it will send you to the App Store and prompt you to download a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service called Onavo. (“Protect” shows up in the iOS app. Gizmodo looked for it on an Android device...

The internet has provided tools to improve the world that are, in a way, indescribable. For example, understanding the multitude of medical challenges people face becomes easier with the internet. Improving your language skills and understanding a foreign language is infinitely simpler. But there are severe challenges that come with the ease of the internet. Google and others cannot go unchallenged. This all began as something to explore for me when within a month I had a chance to spend an extended period of time with two different biochemists on two different continents. Both of these men are utterly brilliant...

Lawmakers put the finishing touches this week on military funding legislation that contains a provision that stands to significantly benefit Amazon. The amendment, Section 801 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), would help Amazon establish a tight grip on the lucrative, $53 billion government acquisitions market, experts say. The provision, dubbed the “Amazon amendment” by experts, according to an article in The Intercept, would allow for the creation of an online portal that government employees could use to purchase everyday items such as office supplies or furniture.

“Liberal, socialist elitists” are running the National Football League (NFL), ten-year NFL veteran Burgess Owens tells CNSNews.com. Interviewed by CNSNews.com on the Conservative Commados Radio Show, Owens, who won a Super Bowl with the Oakland Raiders in 1980, was asked how he thought Pete Rozelle, the NFL commissioner during his playing days, would have reacted if players had protested the National Anthem at games. Owens said that players were held to higher standards then, as the league was still in the process of branding itself as an “All-American” product:That was a time in which the NFL was being built. They...

"Yesterday morning, we received a very bizarre letter from Google issuing us an ultimatum," Shane Trejo, media relations director of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Michigan, wrote on The Liberty Conservative. "Either we were to remove a particular article or see all of our ad revenues choked off in an instant. This is the newest method that Big Brother is using to enforce thought control."

Stand up to the progressive left-guided mainstream and social media, by keeping on going to the videos and news sites of your choice One by one, they’re turning the lights off on the Internet. Not long ago the promised Information Highway for everyone, the World Wide Web is fast transforming over to the Misinformation Highway. An all-powerful Google is now flat-out dictating which videos you will be able to see. A pious Facebook the judge and jury of which topics will be permitted to trend

A customer dining at D.C.’s Oceanaire restaurant noticed an unusual line at the bottom of his receipt: “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill.” Brian, who asked The Washington Post to use only his first name to avoid conflicts with his employer, was surprised to see the additional charge. He snapped a picture and sent it to local blog Popville, which posted a picture of his receipt. The outraged comments started rolling in. “Just raise prices if you...

Two of the most powerful companies in the world are co-sponsoring a protest against a pro-life women’s health care clinic that provides free medical services and counseling to pregnant women — just not abortions.

[snip]Brazen story... ordinarily trigger a front-page news story or an outraged editorial — a bunch of rich individuals asking Congress to write them a law that would give them better negotiating power against other rich individuals. [snip]Bezos, Slim, and Buffett need Congress to help them negotiate with Google.

Elon Musk says he will cut ties with President Trump, should the US walk away from the Paris Climate Accord.The billionaire tech investor said Wednesday that if things go as rumored and the White House pulls out of the Paris Agreement, he will recuse himself from the President's Business Advisory Council.Musk broke the news first in a Tweet:Then in a follow-up confirmation that removed all doubt: This as multiple reports suggest President Donald Trump is leaning toward a decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Accord, a landmark deal to curb carbon emissions that was approved by 195...

Uninhibited by evident, even glaring hypocrisy, Mark Zuckerberg told a fresh crop of Democrats graduating from the Harvard romper rooms this week, “We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things.”He treated them with other nonsense and simplistic oration that he couldn’t help but inflict on the naive audience in promotion of Facebook, such as championing globalism and claiming that nationalism is “the struggle of our time.”Apparently he has too much time on his hands since he dropped his lawsuit against the Hawaiians who were peacefully complaining  and demonstrating against the “wall” he...

Facebook officials said they will not punish any employees who choose to take off work May 1 to protest President Donald Trump. Pro-immigration groups, socialist organizations, labor unions, and hundreds of thousands of workers are planning to walk out on their jobs on International Workers Day. “At Facebook, we’re committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where employees feel comfortable expressing their opinions and speaking up,” a representative told Bloomberg. “We support our people in recognizing International Workers’ Day and other efforts to raise awareness for safe and equitable employment conditions.” Facebook told staff about its policy April 14, specifically clarifying...