Free Republic

The bipartisan push to remove anonymity from the internet is ushering in an era of unprecedented mass surveillance and censorship.

Virginia's legislature has passed a bill prohibiting schools from teaching what it considers to be falsehoods about the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, including portraying it "as peaceful protest." The General Assembly approved the measure Thursday, as a first-of-its-kind legislation to combat false statements by supporters of President Trump. The bill says that school instruction must "Not describe, portray, or present as credible a description or portrayal of the actions precipitating or involved in the events of the January 6, 2021, insurrection as peaceful protest." Schools may also not "state, suggest, or present as credible a statement or suggestion...

X Freeze@XFreezeThe “Wikilaundering” scandal is finally blowing wide open and it’s worse than we thoughtA massive investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism just exposed the ugly truth: Wikipedia is corrupt to its coreYou do not get information. You get propaganda.... articles manipulated by the highest bidder, billionaires, PR firms, and woke activistsHere’s exactly how the rot works:📍 Shadow Network: London-based PR firms like Portland Communications run secret “black hat” editors and middlemen to bypass every rule📍 Reputation Scrubbing on Steroids: They delete scandals, human rights abuses, and even controversial Epstein files for powerful politicians...... while scrubbing migrant worker deaths...

@MJTruthUltra Tucker Carlson calls for Mark Levin to be Immediately FIRED from Fox News for saying Iran currently has Nuclear Tipped ICBM’s pointed at the United Staes “Iran doesn’t have nuclear tipped ICBM’s aimed at the United States. That is a lie. That is a provable lie. Why is he saying that? He hopes to whip his listening into such a frenzy of fear and rage..”

Editors say the decision raises serious questions about press freedom and readers’ access to primary sources. J. D. Vance delivering his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2025 THOMAS KIENZLE / AFP. A Belgian online news outlet has been reprimanded by the country’s press ethics body after publishing the full text of a speech by U.S. vice president J.D. Vance, sparking debate about censorship and media freedom. The controversy stems from a speech delivered on February 14th, 2025, at the Munich Security Conference, a major annual gathering of Western political and military leaders. Speaking the day after a deadly...

First they asked, “Have you ever pretended to hold more progressive views than you truly endorse to succeed socially or academically?” Among the students they interviewed, 88% said yes. Then they broke it down into specific questions: 80% said they’d submitted classwork that misrepresented their views to align with professors. 78% said they self-censor their own beliefs about gender identity.

This week’s major developments include a number of secondary explosions: government bureaucrats who censored free speech on internet platforms using NGOs as covers will be facing court action; the fallout from the boomeranging Epstein disclosures keep damaging the Democrats and their foreign allies; the media’s promotion of the moronic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez only served to highlight that she is ill-informed and too lazy to prepare for interviews; and DOGE and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent are making it very hard to keep hiding Democrat corruption. Censors Face the MusicThe CCDH (Center for Countering Digital Hate) is an NGO headed by...

Russian soldiers and military bloggers have railed against the Kremlin after it restricted access to the Telegram messaging app. Widespread disruptions to the app were reported on Monday and Tuesday as Roskomnadzor, the Russian state media regulator, said it would levy its strongest restrictions on Telegram’s operations yet. The internet watchdog said the move would safeguard Russian citizens against “criminal and terrorist” content, in Moscow’s latest crackdown on the free internet. Roskomnadzor, which has for years crusaded for a “sovereign internet” liberated from Western influence, has over the past six months imposed new limits on Telegram and WhatsApp at least...

A media ratings website is suing the Federal Trade Commission for investigating alleged efforts to blacklist conservative news outlets, in a clash that is effectively dueling accusations of censorship. NewsGuard Technologies sued the FTC in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, alleging the Trump administration was trying to censor it, “simply out of disagreement with NewsGuard’s First Amendment-protected journalistic judgments about the reliability of news sources.” “Under the guise of a supposed antitrust investigation, the FTC has demanded all documents (memos, emails, texts, reporters’ notes, subscriber lists, analyses, financial reports, and more) that NewsGuard has...

Another sterling week for the Trump administration, another interval of agony for his opponents. The attention of those less politically minded is focused on the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy -- always fodder for the would-be Colombos and Miss Marples -- and the Olympics. Yet this week saw some victories for the administration along with some serious unfinished business. The ousted dictator Nicolás Maduro seems isolated, depressed, and devoid of funds sufficient to hire teams of lawyers to defend him. Any claims he might have for immunity seem destined to fail. The evidence establishes he was born in Colombia;...

Pedro Sánchez’s government is pushing dangerous new regulations that threaten your internet freedoms. Announced just yesterday, these measures could turn Spain into a surveillance state under the guise of “protection.” Here’s why they’re a red flag for free speech and privacy: 1. Ban on social media for under-16s with mandatory age verification: This isn’t just about kids—it requires platforms to use strict checks, like needing IDs or biometrics. ⚠️ Danger: It sets a precedent for tracking EVERY user’s identity, eroding anonymity and opening doors to mass data collection. What starts with minors could expand to all, stifling open discourse. 2....

The House Judiciary Committee’s recent findings present a simple but unsettling conclusion. American speech is being curtailed in the United States, not because Congress has changed the First Amendment, but because foreign governments have learned how to route around it. Europe’s Digital Services Act, presented as a domestic regulatory framework, has in practice become a lever for global speech control. Its effects now reach deep into the American public square. To see how this happens, begin with a basic fact about the modern internet. Major platforms operate with global content moderation rules. They do so not out of ideology but...

A set of internal documents published by the Republican members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee (Judiciary GOP) has sent shockwaves through Brussels. Released under the title The EU Censorship Files, Part II, the investigation presents documentary evidence of a sustained strategy by the European Commission to influence public debate on social media and digital platforms, pressuring major tech companies to censor lawful content, alter their internal rules, and restrict certain political viewpoints. https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/2018683758006665352 The revelations go far beyond an abstract debate over content moderation. According to the material made public, the Commission has directly or indirectly intervened in at...

European users, institutions, and tech firms face a new social media option built around mandatory identity checks and EU regulation. European backers have formally unveiled W, a new social media platform designed to operate entirely under European law and infrastructure, positioning itself as a verified alternative to X. The service was introduced publicly in Davos, Switzerland, during events surrounding the annual World Economic Forum, and is intended for rollout across the European Union and other markets. All users will be required to complete identity and photo verification before participating. The launch is significant as Europe tightens enforcement of digital platform...

If Britain Bans X, How Far Will It Go To Block Free Speech? COMMENTARY By Ted NewsonJanuary 15, 2026 If Britain Bans X, How Far Will It Go To Block Free Speech?AP In what appears to be a rolling back on free speech and citizen journalism, Britain is fast-tracking a law that will ban non-consensual intimate deepfake images. This is likely aimed at the social media site X.com after its AI assistant Grok allegedly generated inappropriate images. In the scope of the global news cycle and a further ban potentially on the table, the move couldn’t be more poorly timed....

Italy’s communications regulator, AGCOM, has fined Cloudflare €14.2 million after the company declined to apply government-ordered blocks on its public DNS resolver. The case has become one of the clearest examples in Europe of how national censorship mandates can collide with global internet infrastructure. Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 service, widely used for privacy and fast DNS resolution, was ordered to participate in Italy’s anti-piracy system known as Piracy Shield. The program, launched in 2024, was designed to cut off access to live sports streams and other copyrighted material in near real time. The program has been a disaster. The company refused. Cloudflare...

BREAKING: Despite intense attacks from the UK government and regulators, Grok has skyrocketed to the #1 spot as the most downloaded app across the entire UK App Store – topping all categories! It’s currently holding strong at: • #1 Top Apps (Overall) • #1 Top Overall • #1 Productivity This massive surge comes right in the middle of heavy criticism and threats of potential bans or restrictions on X and Grok from UK officials, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer calling the recent AI image generation controversy “disgraceful” and “disgusting,” and Technology Secretary Liz Kendall backing Ofcom to take swift action...

The Government has urged online watchdog Ofcom to use its powers to block access to X, formerly Twitter, in a dramatic escalation in tensions with the tech billionaire Elon Musk. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall issued a statement telling the regulator that it had the “full support” of ministers to use its powers to block UK users from gaining access to the social media site.

The Trump administration announced Wednesday it’s taking U.S. taxpayer dollars away from 66 globalist organizations, nearly half of them affiliated with the United Nations and all of which are identified as “contrary to the interests of the United States.” Most notable is the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty underpinning all major international climate agreements, AFP reports. The treaty adopted in 1992 is a global pact by nations to cooperate to drive down planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of so-called “climate change.” A despairing European Union climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said the...

MEXICO CITY - A new proposal from Mexico's ruling party could send musicians to prison for performing songs that glorify drug trafficking. The law would bring prison sentences of up to three years for people who perform or produce songs or movies glamorizing criminals. "Society sees drug ballads as nice, pleasant, inconsequential and harmless, but they are the opposite," National Action Party lawmaker Oscar Martin Arce told The Associated Press on Thursday. The ballads, known as "narcocorridos," often describe drug trafficking and violence, and are popular among some norteno bands. After some killings, gangs pipe narcocorridos into police radio scanners,...