Free Republic

One minute you are contemplating your next vacation, the next you click on Facebook and see adverts for hotels and cheap flights. Coincidence? Surely. But what about that smart speaker in your kitchen? It doesn’t just play music and provide an on-demand weather forecast. It hears about the groceries that need replenishing, the cat’s trip to the vet, and, of course, your vacation plans. Now imagine what such a listening device could do in the workplace. The whispered conversation about difficulties with your latest project is automatically reported to your manager. The half hour spent discussing child care arrangements is...

The freshman Queens socialist enlisted her man to talk about the issue of “combating racism as a white person.” “I think it’s helpful and important to talk to other white people about racism, and I think a lot of people, they don’t want to be racist,” Roberts, 30, offered as AOC sat beside him. “They don’t think that they’re racist, but they also don’t know some of the things they believe or say are and can be racist.”

If your name is Karen, Becky, or Chad, you may have noticed a growing trend of people using your name as an insult. Increasingly, “Karen” in particular has emerged as the frontrunner for the average “basic white person name” — a pejorative catchall label for a wide range of behaviors thought to have connections to white privilege. And the recently trending Twitter hashtag #AndThenKarenSnapped has further shifted the “Karen” meme from its nebulous origins toward becoming a mainstream trope. Where a similar insult like “OK Boomer” stereotypes a specific generation, calling someone a “Karen” draws on associations people have built...

There are 26 letters in the English Alphabet. At least, there were that many when I was shuffled through public grade school. Yet every literate human being on Earth (and there are billions) are capable of randomly typing a paragraph that has never been typed by literate people in all of human civilization. I will attempt one now... It was decided that Clarence Dickerson was to fondle a blonde girl while luxuriating in front of a roaring fire on a cold winter's night in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Clarence wasn't much for smarts but he did have a book of Jack...

Slow as hell, can't get pages to come up, are we facing another attack on the site?

We all get robocalls. Sure, there are apps to download to reduce the number of robocalls, but they do not solve the problem. The best solution is to ignore and do not answer any name or number you do not recognize. You can add them to your blocked calls list, but that is pointless. Because as you probably know, these scammers and spammers hijack telephone numbers to display on your Caller ID. If you're like me; you routinely get calls from your area code and prefix with the last 4 digits being different. I'm not sure why they think this...

Kaput. Looks like widespread Kaboom!

Conference goers now have to be wary that robots will identify them everywhere they go. Corporations can now rent Chinese-made CloudMinds robots that can identify everyone on the conference floor. (To learn more about CloudMinds and China click here & here.) CloudMinds mission is to “make helpful robot services possible and to make them safe, secure and affordable.” While their hidden mission is to help governments identify everyone. According to CloudMinds “About Us” page, their so-called values are to convince employees, moms, dads and their children to trust rentable emotion and facial recognition robots. We make helpful robot Their rent-a-robot...

Alexis Isabel proved to be more than your average teen when, at the age of 16, she founded Feminist Culture, a Twitter account created to spread awareness and educate the world about feminism. The overwhelming success of her Twitter account led to the creation of her site Feminist Culture, bringing in a diverse group of writers and editors to discuss hot-button issues. Alexis Isabel (also known as @lexi4prez), was recently recognized as MTV’s Social Star of 2016, and has been featured on multiple publications including The New York Times and International Business Times. The Tempest: So, what inspired you to...

Email marketing service Mailchimp has terminated the account of Stefan Molyneux, host of the philosophy show Freedomain, after a complaint from Nandini Jammi, co-founder of activist group Sleeping Giants. Mailchimp appears to have made the decision largely based on this complaint from Jammi which alleges that Molyneux is a white nationalist who promotes eugenics and race science. Molyneux denied these allegations but Mailchimp decided to terminate his account anyway and thanked Jammi for “bringing this to our attention.” Some existing customers of Mailchimp are shocked that the company appears to terminate its customers’ accounts based on as little as a...

... In response to my Quillette article, a group of graduate students in the Allen School filed a grievance against me with their union. The university agreed to several of their demands, including that, “A group of (mostly senior) faculty will review the introductory programming courses to ensure that they are inclusive of students from all backgrounds.” A working group was formed and it produced a set of recommendations. These included: A relaxation of grading on coding style. Allowing students to work together in a group for part of their grade instead of requiring them to complete all graded work...

Rod Rosenstein Led Task Force that Spied on Attkisson’s Computers A former federal agent has stepped forward to admit illegal spying on Attkisson’s computers, and has implicated colleagues. In a federal lawsuit filed this week, Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein has been implicated in yet another improper government spy operation. In the new complaint, Attkisson v. Rosenstein et.al., investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson names former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein and four other Justice Department officials as the government agents who of illegally survielled her electronic devices. According to the complaint—filed in United States District Court in Baltimore, Maryland—Rosenstein led...

There were no champagne corks popping, no crystal balls dropping in Wang Yi's new year. The pastor of Early Rain Covenant Church was in prison, spending his second January 1st in a dark cell, charged with a crime Americans commit every day: worshipping Jesus. The actual allegations were much more subtle -- things like "illegal business activities" or "inciting subversion of state power." But in China, government officials need no excuse. Christians, like Uyghurs, Falun Gong, and any other men and women of faith, are fair game. "Where are you taking my husband?" a woman pleads on a cell phone...

Just when it seemed as though the transgender movement was reaching a fever-pitch and it was becoming impossible to stand up to the zealous mob of trans-enthusiasts, it appears some celebrities may have found the secret to shutting them down and evading the dreaded “cancel culture” imposed on anyone who dares speak truth or reason. Perhaps this culture battle is not all but lost after all. Back in December, famed author J.K. Rowling tweeted her support for Maya Forstater, a former tax expert who lost her job at think tank Center for Global Development for declaring that men and women...

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...

Democrats have not been able to find one credible witness who would vouch for the utopian socialism they peddle to the American people We are going to take care of all people who are NOT willing to work. – part of the Socialist Democrat platform I have made peace with the fact that social media censors like Twitter and Facebook have shadow-banned me. Google has not allowed any advertising on my website.

With Christmas right around the corner, you might be tempted to just chuck that shopping list and just get your nephews some video game gift cards. Before you do, you should know about the latest game that lets players fanaticize about killing white people. “This Land Is My Land” came out on Nov. 20th, just in time for Thanksgiving. You get to play an Indian chief who has to murder all the white people in the game, so you can take back your land. Modern graphics and gameplay ensure this process is as gruesome as possible. Players get to sneak...

I am looking for a new browser for android which autohides the search bar to give you a full screen. This used to be a common feature. Are there any browsers which have that? I mostly use brave, and chrome now and again since I cant get rid of it.

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. I think many readers of this article will respond with outrage, and many will see it says things they already knew to be true—and I think these two groups will largely overlap. The most powerful obstacle to confronting a destructive addiction is denial, and collectively we are in denial about pornography. Since it seems somehow relevant, let me state at the outset that I am French. Every fiber of my Latin, Catholic body recoils at puritanism of any sort, especially the bizarre, Anglo-Puritan kind so prevalent in America. I...

Experts say deepfakes will be used to swing the 2020 election. deepfake video featuring an actor made to look and sound like the comedian Joe Rogan surfaced last week, stunning for its audio and visual accuracy. And Rogan was a great choice: He’s put out hundreds of hours-long video podcasts. There is a lot of material to work with. If you’re not yet aware of what a deepfake is in the first place, it’s a way of using artificial intelligence to create fraudulent audio or video that sounds and/or looks like a particular person. In this case, we’re seeing a...