Free Republic

Meta’s Oversight Board expressed indignation at the social media giant for its January policy overhaul that axed fact-checking and eased restrictions on discussions about immigration and gender identity. The independent oversight board railed against the company for implementing the changes “hastily” with supposedly no transparency about “what, if any, prior human rights due diligence” was performed. Zuckerberg acknowledged that previous content moderation efforts had resulted in “too many mistakes and too much censorship.” President Trump had frequently criticized Facebook during his first term, culminating in his platform suspension following the January 6, 2021, Capitol events — a ban eventually lifted...

Under the banner of national security, the Biden administration fused behavioral surveillance with ideological profiling to create a system that was intrusive, biased, and unconstitutional. On April 16, Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Tulsi Gabbard declassified the Biden-era “Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism.” The release followed an April 2 declassification request from Stephen Miller’ legal organization America First Legal (AFL). While much of the document’s content had been publicly discussed in general terms, the newly declassified version reveals troubling new specifics. The declassified version features language that outlines how the Biden administration planned to operationalize counterterrorism efforts. It...

For years, a smug, self-righteous activist named Nandini Jammi made it her mission to silence conservative voices by labeling everything she didn’t like as “disinformation” or “hate”—including Revolver. We covered Nandini Jammi and her dark censorship empire way before anybody else caught on. While the left was busy fawning over her brand safety activism, we peeled back the curtain and showed you what was really going on—an evil censorship racket that shook down conservative companies with empty threats, fake outrage, and social media mob tactics. Here’s a look back at what we uncovered about Jammi’s operation—how she went from memeing...

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified a shocking plan by former President Joe Biden’s administration for dealing with domestic terrorists. Last Wednesday, Gabbard released a June 2021 document titled “Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism” (henceforth “the Plan”). But despite the release receiving over 6.3 million views on X by Monday morning, the major media has ignored the document. While Americans are very familiar with many Biden era policies, the newly declassified document reveals that the actions were part of a coordinated action from early in the administration across a wide range of government agencies to target...

The left-wing cofounder of a group that received gushing coverage for its efforts to “defund” conservative media will step away from the advocacy organization at the end of next month, The Post can reveal, following a legal challenge and attempts to rebrand in the wake of President Trump’s return to the White House. Nandini Jammi — whose Check My Ads Institute seeks to yank advertiser funding from right-wing figures and outlets purportedly spreading “disinformation” — announced on her LinkedIn “with enormous pride” that she was “stepping down.” The move comes on the heels of a funding shortfall amid impending legal...

First Trump officials were trying to get Europe to accept chlorinated chickens and hormone-infused beef from the United States. Now, it seems they are trying to foist the toxicity of our social media platforms and a laissez-faire approach to harmful content onto Europe, as well. Evidence suggests the Trump administration is targeting content moderation laws in the United Kingdom designed to curb hate speech and misinformation as a part of trade negotiations. Last week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged to Parliament that “a review of online safety rules [is] on the table in trade talks with the United States,”...

Congresswoman Harriet Hageman discusses the significance of Elon Musk’s DOGE and the secrets of USAID, including its sponsorship of BLM and Antifa. In this broad scope interview she explains to Winston how she thinks Mark Zuckerberg rigged the 2020 election. She tells of her introducing the Censorship Accountability Act, her political journey, including her defeat of Liz Cheney in Wyoming and the border security situation between the US and Mexico. Is Harriet Hageman even more MAGA than President Donald Trump? All this and much more, recorded at the second Alliance For Responsible Citizenship conference in London. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:52...

Today the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice prevailed in its second monopolization case against Google. In United States et al. v. Google, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets. According to the Court, Google “harmed Google’s publishing customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.” “This is a landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “This Department of Justice will continue taking bold legal action...

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents from the Biden administration Wednesday, revealing how “domestic terrorism” was used as a pretext to attempt to curb gun rights and target “misinformation.” Former President Joe Biden prioritized tackling purported domestic terrorism, and the newly released documents shed additional light on his administration’s strategy. IMAGE As promised, I have declassified the Biden Administration’s Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism. Read it here: https://www.odni.gov/index.php/newsroom/dig/4064-dig-strat-impl-plan-ct-biden

Conservative critics have long accused the department of helping to censor the American right... The only office within the US State Department that monitors foreign disinformation is about to be eliminated, two State Department officials have told MIT Technology Review. The Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub is a small office in the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy that tracks and counters foreign disinformation campaigns.

William Shatner just tweeted the following:“It’s called Presentism and it was used wreak havoc on history several years ago when statues were torn down, books were banned and things renamed to prove how progressive the world had become. Just listen to my opening monologue on Star Trek TOS on Paramount+. They intentionally garbled it on every episode because I say ‘where no man has gone before’ That’s Presentism at its finest hour.”https://x.com/WilliamShatner/status/1909959257753358797

While all presidents tussle with the press, President Donald Trump has taken things to another level at the beginning of his second term. Trump, still in his first 100 days in office, has kicked the historic Associated Press out of the Oval Office and off of Air Force One, seized control of the White House press pool rotation to bring in friendly outlets, and now may take over coveted seating assignments in the Brady Press Briefing Room. All three moves generated howls of outrage from the White House Correspondents' Association, an 800-member group that previously self-policed access. "The White House...

European Union regulators are preparing to hit Elon Musk's X platform with a huge fine which could surpass $1billion for breaking disinformation laws, insiders have reportedly revealed. The move would likely to ratchet up tensions between the EU and United States, with tech billionaire Musk a close adviser to President Trump. The social media platform could also face forced product changes for failing to abide by the landmark law to combat illicit content and disinformation, sources told the New York Times. The penalties are expected to be announced this summer, the sources said, and will be the first to be...

PRAGUE, August 4, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Moscow's new diplomatic assertiveness was on display for the world to see during last month's G8 summit in St. Petersburg. And one controversial topic that dominated the run-up to the summit has remained in the spotlight -- Russia's repeatedly stated intention of following its own democratic path, dubbed "sovereign democracy." The concept was formulated by Vyacheslav Surkov, the deputy chief and prime ideologue of President Vladimir Putin's administration. Surkov began floating the new ideology during speeches to activists of the pro-presidential Unified Russia party in February and May. Sovereign Democracy As outlined by Surkov...

Soros: The Chinese Model Of Suppressing Individuals Could Become The Envy Of The World Courtney Comstock Apparently, Soros is considering the possibility that people might some day want to be censored and live in a socialist society like China's. He said yesterday at the Traveller’s Club in Paris, according to Dealbook: “The world does need order, and that order needs maintenance. The idea that markets can correct their excesses turned out to be false. “Perfect order and global governance are not realistic expectations. However, it is a sad fact that Western democracies provide less successful leadership than China.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association on Monday pushed back against the White House’s plans to exert control over the briefing room seating assignments for journalists. In an email to members, the association — which is made up of an independent group of journalists covering the Trump administration — said it was aware of the reported efforts from the White House to take over the briefing room’s organization chart. The seating has long been set by WHCA. “If the White House pushes forward, it will become even more clear that the administration is seeking to cynically seize control of the system...

If you think America is just an idea, then you’ll gladly sacrifice the rights of Americans for the ‘rights’ of foreigners. Lately, it’s become fashionable for Never-Trumpers like David French to denounce the president’s new policy of revoking the visas of foreign nationals who agitate for terrorist groups like Hamas. It’s un-American, we’re told, to hold guests to a certain standard or to remove hostile foreigners from our country. This past week, French posted on X that “we can absolutely and totally dispense with the idea that Trump’s Republican Party defends free speech. We’re witnessing one of the most comprehensive...

The encrypted-messaging service Signal is the application of choice for dissenters around the world. The app has been downloaded by more than 100 million users and boasts high-profile endorsements from NSA leaker Edward Snowden and serial entrepreneur Elon Musk. Signal has created the perception that its users, including political dissidents, can communicate with one another without fear of government interception or persecution. But the insider history of Signal raises questions about the app’s origins and its relationship with government—in particular, with the American intelligence apparatus. Such a relationship would be troubling, given how much we have learned, in recent years,...

During the first two months of Trump's second term, I have noticed that the sheer volume of protests has far exceeded what took place in DC during the first months of his first term. I noticed something else, too: the crowds are far older than any time in the past. What does this tell me? Well, for one it says that young people are not the ones taking to the streets of our nation's capital anymore. Trump gained significant ground on the younger demographic in the most recent election. While MAGA was considered to be a fringe political movement populated...

The U.S. Agency for International Development coordinated closely with a State Department program to block what it considered “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” according to newly released government documents. America First Legal, a conservative legal group, obtained more than 200 pages from the State Department through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit about the Global Engagement Center, or GEC. The documents also show the controversial Global Engagement Center—which a congressional report concluded was federally-funded censorship—has cooperated with private journalism organizations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, spanning the last year of the first Trump administration and early years of the Biden administration, the...