Free Republic

Twitter vowed to crack down further on hate speech and sexual harassment, days after CEO Jack Dorsey said in a tweet-storm that the company was "still" not doing enough to protect its users. The policy changes were specifically aimed at protecting women who unknowingly or unwillingly had nude pictures of themselves distributed online or were subject to unwanted sexual advances. They would also aim to shield groups subject to hateful imagery, symbols and threats of violence.

Turkey's descent into Islamist despotism distorts the NATO alliance: how can Turkey combat a external threat from without, Daniel Pipes asked, when a member state poses the same threat from within? No one tells us what we can say. We are a free people, and we will act in complete freedom. – Daniel Pipes, President, Middle East Forum (MEF) The purging of 120,000 government employees following last year's failed coup means that "more police counter-terrorism experts are in prison than ISIS members." A democratic Turkey is a must for NATO, both for the alliance's success and for Turkey itself. –...

What images should appear when you Google “white couple”? Probably two people of European descent. If you search those words today, though, you’ll find almost exclusively black couples. The results are similarly skewed for “white man & white woman” and “white couple with children”. Try it. Strange, a bit annoying, and vaguely political – just imagine the reaction if a query for “black couple” turned up only whites. I suspect that wouldn’t fly at Google. What results would you expect when Googling “American inventors”? Likely a mix of great innovators from our past and present, from a variety of backgrounds....

Former US Congressman Ron Paul has joined a growing list of independent political journalists and commentators who’re being economically punished by YouTube despite producing videos that routinely receive hundreds of thousands of views. **snip** The notion that YouTube would want to economically punish a former US Congressman for sharing his views on US foreign policy – a topic that he is unequivocally qualified to speak about – is absurd. Furthermore, *the “review requested” marking on one of Paul's videos reveals that they were initially flagged by users before YouTube's moderators confirmed that the videos were unsuitable for a broad audience.*

The AP Stylebook, published by The Associated Press, is intended to provide universal guidelines for journalists when it comes to stylistic things like punctuation, capitalization and using certain words over others. The 2017 edition of the stylebook directs writers to avoid words like "pro-life," "migrant," "refugee," "Islamist" and "terrorist." Rachel Alexander, an opinion contributor for The Hill, said on "Fox & Friends" this morning that this is an attempt to promote language that liberals tend to favor. Judge Releases Man Accused of Trying to Steal NYPD Cop's Gun She explained that the guide instructs writers to use "anti-abortion" instead of...

YouTube has deleted a video that showed Planned Parenthood executives admitting abortion is "killing," leading pro-life activists to accuse the site of censorship. The Center for Medical Progress released undercover footage taken from the National Abortion Federation's 2014 and 2015 conventions through its lawyers on Thursday. The video included remarks from Planned Parenthood Michigan Medical Director Dr. Lisa Harris urging pro-choice advocates to concede certain rhetorical ground to pro-life arguments. She said that abortion doctors "see the fetus the same way" that pro-life activists do, but that does not alter "why [she comes] to work everyday." "Given that we might...

Cardiff Metropolitan University is at the forefront of political correctness sensitivity. The University Bans Lecturers from Using any Sexist or Insensitive Words. The list of banned words is wider than you might think. Here are some examples: mankind, homosexual, housewife, manmade, and sportsmanship. And please, try to avoid words like “mother” and “father” unless you can say “mother and father” together. Yes, the article states that.(snip)

“What if technology could help improve conversations online?” That’s the lowkey Orwellian message that greets visitors to the website of Perspective, Google’s new AI system for detecting (and potentially deleting, hiding, or burying) “toxic” comments on the web. Perspective is still in early days of development, but in the future, you may have to adjust your speech in order to satisfy the lofty standards of Google. Otherwise, the company’s faceless AI might just have to “improve” you. Where’s Sarah Connor when you need her? The good news is that, for now at least, Perspective is about as effective as C-3PO...

The organization partnered with Facebook to help determine whether a certain story is “disputed” is financed by billionaire George Soros and a slew of other left-wing funders. The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) drafted a code of five principles for news websites to accept, and Facebook yesterday announced it will work with “third-party fact checking organizations” that are signatories to the code of principles. Facebook says that if the “fact checking organizations” determine that a certain story is fake, it will get flagged as disputed and, according to the Facebook announcement, “there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining...

(Reuters) — Web giants YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft will step up efforts to remove extremist content from their websites by creating a common database. The companies will share ‘hashes’ – unique digital fingerprints they automatically assign to videos or photos – of extremist content they have removed from their websites to enable their peers to identify the same content on their platforms.   “We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online,” the companies said in a statement on Tuesday....

The Facebook CEO published a post defending the social network's role in the election on Sunday. Just in case you missed it first time, Mark Zuckerberg has once again defended the role Facebook played in the presidential election. The social network's chief executive and co-founder responded on Sunday to accusations that Facebook played a role in promoting news biased towards Trump throughout the presidential election campaign. Zuckerberg expanded on points he made during the Techonomy conference last week with a post on Facebook, which he used "to share some thoughts" on "an historic election" that he acknowledged has been "very...

On October 3, 2016 Twitter deliberately “shadowbanned” (censored) 32 of Trump’s tweets, plus it deleted one other tweet. When Twitter shadowbanned Trump’s tweets, the general public can no longer see any of the tweets, and only users who replied or re-tweeted the tweet’s can see said censored tweet — or if one knows the URL/web address of the tweet, one can see said censored tweet.

Brady Dale writing at Observer.com September 29, 2016 A lot of weird stuff has been happening to data inside the internet’s walled gardens. It has been getting shut down by the people who own the sites we all depend on. There’s a protest going on at Facebook over the issue right now. One Turkish journalist is saying that his account has been blocked inside the country, at his government’s request; Palestinian journalists have a similar problem. YouTubers believe that their videos have been getting unfairly de-monetized by mindless robots. … A Union Square Ventures and Y Combinator backed startup called...

The White House mocked GOP nominee Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz for trying to prevent the Commerce Department from transferring technical oversight of the Internet to an international body. "It doesn't withstand scrutiny," President Obama's spokesman Josh Earnest said on Thursday. "It also strikes me as a curious position for a self-described small government conservative to shut down the government to ensure that the federal government can continue to control the Internet," Earnest said of Cruz. "It doesn't make any sense." Cruz is trying to stop the multi-year transition that will leave the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and...

Russia, China and Iran don’t have a First Amendment, and their governments regularly clamp down on free speech. So why would we want to end American protection of the open Internet and transfer it to Moscow, Beijing and Tehran instead? On Oct. 1, the Obama administration plans to end the U.S. Government contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. Doing so would kick off a transition that could irreparably harm the open Internet, leading to censorship abroad that could, quite realistically, lead to censorship right here in the United States. Under this transition of Internet...

A political action committee is looking to figure out whether it can safely use the Internet to support national political candidates, or whether the Federal Election Commission might seize the opportunity to impose the kind of regulations Democrats have been striving to attain. The request for an advisory opinion, filed on behalf of Citizen Super PAC, asks the FEC whether it would be permissible to email supporters of a candidate's campaign, or whether that would cross a line prohibiting coordination with candidates.

In a truly egregious move yesterday, Twitter suspended the account responsible for #WhichHillary, activist @GuerrillaDems. Twitter also removed #WhichHillary from trending status, which is odd, considering the hashtag received more than 450,000 tweets in less than 24 hours. Twitter now says the suspension of @GuerillaDems was a mistake. Although this may just be a coincidence, it isn't the first time Twitter has exerted political control. Many users think it is a demonstrable conflict of interest, in light of Twitter Executive Chairman Omid Kordestani's Sunday, 2/28 fundraiser with Clinton.

Google GOOGL +0.83% is removing the loophole allowing European users to sidestep the ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling that censors their search results. After the European Court of Justice ruled two years ago that people could ask for search results to be removed if they contained inaccurate or ‘outdated’ information, Google attempted to strike a compromise. It complied with the order – but only for European versions of its website. This meant that European users wanting to see uncensored results have only to log on to Google.com to get the unedited version; and plenty do. This state of affairs, as...

Just recently, an app that filters any mention of the Kardashian-Jenner clan on people’s newsfeed made its debut. Now, it seems that some people also wish to delete Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump from the Internet, as a new Google Chrome extension that promises to eliminate all references to the outspoken businessman has been created. Dubbed as the “Trump Filter,” the Google Chrome extension will filter all Trump-related articles while users surf the Internet. The extension is described as “part of the antidote for this toxic candidacy.” The extension will identify parts of a web page that contain Donald Trump...

A Kentucky school district is being urged to reconsider after censoring "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and other programs by removing all references to religion. The Alliance Defending Freedom weighed in Tuesday after Johnson County Schools officials agreed to modify its holiday programming in order to avoid a potential lawsuit, a move prompted by a complaint from a parent about the classic Peanuts play.