Free Republic

Facebook has deleted a post in which President Trump had claimed Covid-19 was "less lethal" than the flu. Mr Trump is at the White House after three days of hospital treatment having tested positive for the virus. He wrote the US had "learned to live with" flu season, "just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!" Twitter hid the same message behind a warning about "spreading misleading and potentially harmful information". Users have to click past the alert to read the tweet. "We remove incorrect information about the severity of Covid-19, and have...

On the first day of my political philosophy class at Shawnee State University in the spring of 2019, a biologically male student raised his hand and I called on him, unwittingly using the now-incendiary words, “Yes, sir.” As a professor of philosophy, I view the classroom as a place of dynamic discussion and exchange. And I work hard to foster an atmosphere of civility and rational discourse, a place where students can seek truth. This student approached me after class and said that he identified as a woman and demanded, from that point on, that I refer to him as...

Hollywood bosses have been censoring films to placate the film market in China, a report has suggested. The lengthy report says US film companies want to avoid losing access to China's lucrative box office market. It said casting, content, dialogue and plotlines were increasingly being tailored to appease censors in Beijing. The report, compiled by the free speech charity PEN America, claimed China was therefore influencing movies released in cinemas around the world. China holds the world's second largest box office market behind the US. According to the Hollywood Reporter, American films earned $2.6bn (£2bn) in China last year, with...

Having just written about two separate examples of the woke in Seattle getting rough with people they dislike, I wanted to highlight something about the underlying mindset driving some of this behavior. Yesterday, James Lindsay, one of the people involved in the grievance studies academic hoax, published an essay titled “No, the Woke Won’t Debate You. Here’s Why.” He attempts to explain some of the philosophical reasons why this might be true. In Lindsay’s view the answer isn’t as simple as hoping to avoid being embarrassed. It’s much deeper than that. So far as he is aware, there’s no single explanation published anywhere...

Last night Twitter suffered the largest security breach in its 14-year-history. Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates were among many prominent US figures targeted by hackers. Their accounts all tweeted a link to a Bitcoin account where the hackers promised followers they would pay back double whatever was sent to it. The Bitcoin accounts, which can be watched live by anyone, were shown to be in receipt of over a hundred thousand dollars before the tweets were taken down. Twitter have said it was a “co-ordinated” attack targeting its employees...

Big Tech companies are aggressively tamping down on COVID-19 “misinformation” — opinions and ideas contrary to official pronouncements. Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski, former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University, says YouTube removed a video of him talking about the virus that had racked up more than 1.3 million views. Wittkowski, 65, is a ferocious critic of the nation’s current steps to fight the coronavirus. He has derided social distancing, saying it only prolongs the virus’ existence, and has attacked the current lockdown as mostly unnecessary. Wittkowski, who holds two doctorates in computer science and medical biometry,...

A new study examines YouTube’s efforts to limit the spread of conspiracy theories on its site, from videos claiming the end times are near to those questioning climate change. Climate change is a hoax, the Bible predicted President Trump’s election and Elon Musk is a devil worshiper trying to take over the world. All of these fictions have found life on YouTube, the world’s largest video site, in part because YouTube’s own recommendations steered people their way. For years it has been a highly effective megaphone for conspiracy theorists, and YouTube, owned and run by Google, has admitted as much....

One of the largest glaring issues with how Silicon Valley is approaching censorship is the fact that the goalposts being set by firms are all over the board, with little industry-wide discussion on approach and limits, and other sensitivities for how such an important task is to be accomplished with transparency and due process. So what has censorship in the modern age for the Facebooks and Twitters of the world devolved into? Siloed decision making by secretive "boards" that have limited diversification of background and worldview, all pushing ever-changing directives out to technical teams which must implement these wishes into...

Apparently, now sharing Bible passages are a violation of Facebook’s ever-changing “Community Standards.”

Facebook is censoring pro-life group Live Action, claiming that its content is "false news" and using two doctors that perform abortions as fact-checkers.The social media giant marked Live Action as “false” for promoting in a video the perspective that abortion is "never medically necessary," a view, the group stressed, that is held by thousands of OB-GYNs across the globe.Live Action said last week it was notified that their page's reach will be reduced for the "repeated sharing of false news."The third-party mechanism that Facebook used last week to determine the group's content was "inaccurate" relied upon the viewpoints of Robyn...

YouTube has announced that it will no longer recommend videos that "come close to" violating its community guidelines, such as conspiracy or medically inaccurate videos. On Saturday, a former engineer for Google, YouTube's parent company, hailed the move as a "historic victory." The original blog post from YouTube, published on Jan. 25, said that videos the site recommends, usually after a user has viewed one video, would no longer lead just to similar videos and instead would "pull in recommendations from a wider set of topics." For example, if one person watches one video showing the recipe for snickerdoodles, they...

In his illustrious 50-year career, screenwriter Andrew Davies has forged a formidable reputation for creating strong female characters. But now he says he is not allowed to make his women anything but feisty – by the powerful female executives who run television. Davies, who is known for adaptations of classics such as Pride And Prejudice and War & Peace, says bosses want to see an image of themselves projected on screen, and veto any 'droopy, soppy' girls he wants to pen.

Emails leaked exclusively to Breitbart News reveal that a group of Google employees, with encouragement from the tech giant’s director of monetization, began plotting the downfall of this website shortly after the 2016 election. The group sought to strike at Breitbart News’ revenue by kicking the site off Google’s market-dominating ad services. Although their efforts ultimately failed, the discussion featured senior Google employees speaking frankly about their reasons for targeting the site. These included unfounded allegations of “hate speech” and “fake news.” In the leaked emails, Google employee Richard Zippel advised a fellow employee that Google would act against Breitbart...

Full Title: Producer: My Christian Film Got Rated ‘R.’ It Has No Nudity, Sex, Bad Language, Gore, Drugs. The Motion Picture Association of America adds its name to a list of increasingly brazen leftist media powerhouses who discriminate against conservative voices in the public square. Facebook: Graphic images of a woman smashing and eating a baby do not violate “community standards” but quoting a Bible verse on homosexuality does. Twitter: Conservative voices and alternative news sources frequently find themselves muzzled while profane rants against them are celebrated. Google: Discriminatory algorithms ensure that articles praising the Second Amendment, President Trump, traditional...

Time and Donald Trump do interesting things to a man. They make Al Gore glitter. It’s almost impossible not to be thinking of Gore now, with the words “Florida” and “recount” so prominent in the news, and it’s hard not to credit him with virtues absent in Trump and increasingly rare in politics these days. Grace in defeat, for one. For another: a commitment to democracy greater than a concern for self. Sure, the review of ballots that Gore’s campaign demanded in 2000, as he and George W. Bush waited to see who would get the Sunshine State’s electoral votes...

James Woods is one of my FAVORITE people to follow on Twitter. He tells it like it is… and it’s usually HILARIOUS. Well… it seems that Twitter has now locked James out. Because OF COURSE THEY HAVE. Even more obnoxious? What they locked him out for: Hey guys, @Twitter has locked @RealJamesWoods’ account. His statement: “You are a coward, @jack. There is no free speech for Conservatives on @Twitter.”#JamesWoods pic.twitter.com/zGVOnxP0D6 — Sara Miller (@Millerita) September 21, 2018 Wut? THAT is what he got locked out for? Jimmy’s timeline is still visible to everyone. The tweet they want him to delete...

On Friday, One News Now reported that West Virginia pastor Rich Penkoski is preparing to hold Facebook accountable for allowing an LGBT supporter to stalk, harass and defame him and his family online, using the social media giant. According to Steve Jordahl, a civil court has already found the woman guilty of defamation. “This is a woman who claims to be an LGBT supporter who has harassed, stalked, and defamed me and my family on Facebook for well over nine months,” Penkoski told One News Now. Jordahl said the woman “questioned the chastity of his wife and the intelligence of...

Hundreds of Google employees, upset at the company’s decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine for China, have signed a letter demanding more transparency to understand the ethical consequences of their work. In the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, employees wrote that the project and Google’s apparent willingness to abide by China’s censorship requirements “raise urgent moral and ethical issues.” They added, “Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment.” The letter is circulating on Google’s internal communication systems and...

I just called my Senators and Rep to complain about big tech censorship of dissident speech.

I did an Ixquick search, which uses Google, for information on Oregon Republican governor candidates. I got sites for democrats. I kept changing my search words but kept getting Kate Brown or democrat sites. I even put "Republican" in twice on each end of the search. I knew Ixquick used Google but just hid your ID. Well, done with Ixquick.