Free Republic

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...

Brownstone Institute has been tracking a little-known federal agency for years. It is part of the Department of Homeland Security created after 9-11. It is called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency or CISA. It was created in 2018 out of a 2017 executive order that seemed to make sense. It was a mandate to secure American digital infrastructure against foreign attack and infiltration. And yet during the Covid year, it assumed three huge jobs. It was the agency responsible for dividing the workforce between essential and nonessential. It led the way on censorship efforts. And it handled election security...

What happened in Brazil this past week — a magistrate suspended Twitter and threatened telecommunication companies, as well as Apple and Google — did not happen in a vacuum. To briefly sum up the order handed down: Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered that Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) be completely de-platformed, citing government speech rules against hate and “disinformation.” Any Brazilian citizen caught using a VPN to skirt the legal order could face fines that equal about $9,000. Moraes has also attempted to freeze Starlink accounts in the country, Musk’s satellite and internet service. What is happening...

Susan Wojcicki, former YouTube CEO, died at 56 after living with lung cancer. Wojcicki led YouTube from 2014 to 2023. She is survived by her husband, Dennis Troper, and their children. Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube, died "after two years of living with cancer," Alphabet CEO Sunder Pichai wrote on X, adding that he was "unbelievably saddened by the loss." She was 56. "She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it's hard to imagine the world without her," Pichai continued. "She was an incredible person, leader and friend who had a tremendous impact...

Another step towards implementing a Social Credit system.. Financial privacy is a right under the constitution, as is free speech. Under the guise of “credit review”, Stripe is now rolling out a requirement that appears to target conservative or "anti-vax" Substack authors. Stripe is requiring that these authors provide all of their current and historic financial records associated with the bank account into which Stripe deposits Substack subscriber payments (after taking 10% off the top for Substack and 3% for Stripe). Stripe already has information concerning this bank account (including deposits from Stripe), as we have been doing business with...

House Oversight Committee Republicans are kicking off an investigation into what they they called a “taxpayer-funded censorship campaign” at the Department of Homeland Security. Since 2020, the federal agency has been under fire for working with big tech companies to censor certain viewpoints mainly related to election integrity. The GOP launched its investigation after Monday's report by The Intercept dove into how the Feds had begun pressuring tech companies on a range of issues, including COVID-19, the vaccine for it, and Ukraine. The Center Square obtained a letter from the group, led by ranking member Rep. James Comer, R-Ky. The...

"Nickmercs, a Faze Clan member who has 6.7 million followers on Twitch and two million on Twitter, replied to a tweet from eSports broadcaster Chris Puckett that showed a clash between anti and pro LGBTQ+ demonstrators outside a school voting to recognise June as Pride Month. "They should leave little children alone. That's the real issue," Nickmercs tweeted in response. The replies erupted in backlash from several users including Puckett himself. "Who is this 'they' and what terrible act is everyone afraid of?" he asked. "I think/hope the goal of most of 'them' is to reduce child suicides. This is...

Vivek Ramaswamy violated the “hate speech,” “misinformation,” and “violence” policy on LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft Corporation.Vivek, as you know, is a hateful White Supremacist with a history of unhinged ranting and violent threats to everybody. He wields machetes (oops, no, that is a college professor), calls for violent protests in the streets (oops, no, that is Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal), rants about chasing public officials out of restaurants and all public spaces (oops, no, that is Congresswoman Maxine Waters), and holds speakers at colleges hostage (oops, no, that is the woke college students in San Francisco).Well, anyway. Maybe he...

It may be a while before you see Tucker Carlson unleashed on a TV near you. You also may never hear the full truth regarding his falling out with FOX News. Breitbart dropped a bombshell report on Thursday revealing that Fox News is scheming to keep Tucker off the air through the 2024 election. Breitbart also revealed this pertinent piece of information: Tucker remains under contract with the network through 2024 despite losing his TV Show. This confirms Megyn Kelly’s comments yesterday that Tucker was never officially fired from FOX News. Former Top Fox News host and insider Megyn Kelly...

As Twitchy readers know, AOC recently spoke with Jen ‘Circle Back’ Psaki about using government regulation to stifle the speech of people like Tucker Carlson, who she claims clearly engages in ‘incitement of violence’. What does this incitement to violence look like? Telling the public what liberals are doing. That’s it. That’s why she hates Tucker Carlson. Unsurprisingly, AOC was quite pleased to hear that Tucker and Fox News were parting ways, and the congresswoman turned the camera on herself to spread her speech-squashing satisfaction on the perfect platform for such pronouncements: Chinese-owned TikTok. She summarized her thoughts by saying...

A Catholic mother who has been praised by JK Rowling claims she had her personal devices seized in a police raid and was quizzed by cops over a series of 'malicious' posts on the far-right chat board KiwiFarms. Caroline Farrow, a journalist and mother-of-five, shared a lengthy thread online detailing her experience with Surrey Police after two police officers reportedly 'forced' their way into her home to arrest her last night. While in the middle of preparing a roast dinner for her priest husband Robin and five children on Sunday, two police officers rang her at home and allegedly demanded...

SoundCloud has de-platformed journalist Andy Ngo's podcast "on the grounds of being dedicated to violating" the site's rules. However, the latest episode of the podcast was uploaded more than one year ago and there was no option in the notification email for Ngo to appeal or even seek further information. Ngo's podcast, "Things You Should Ngo," hosted heterodox ideas and stories. Ngo interviewed academics and thinkers from "the Intellectual Dark Web." Over the weekend, SoundCloud's Trust & Safety Team informed Ngo via email of the permanent ban for "violating" the site's Terms of Use and Community Guidelines, which state that...

All you need to know about CNN's continuing campaign against President Trump was contained within a short statement by one of its political "analysts." On this morning's New Day, analyst Josh Rogin: Took mocking delight in the silencing of President Trump via Big Tech's de-platforming of him; andAccused President Trump of being a killer.Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

By now every person awake, as opposed to “woke,” knows the dangers of Big Tech. Through algorithmic manipulation, de-platforming and other noxious off-shoots of the tyrannical cancel culture these companies are changing history, reversing freedoms hard won since the Magna Carta, while having an unconscious numbing effect on our brains that eventually would render us a race of drones. Something has to be done. The federal government seems to be able to do no more than hold hearings. Those that might actually want to do something, like Sens. Hawley and Blackburn, are thwarted by the Democrats who, though they pay...

Some House Democrats have urged cable companies to cancel Fox News, Newsmax TV, and One America News Network ahead of a Wednesday hearing on extremism in the press.In 1801, Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States. In his Inaugural Address, he urged our fledgling nation to stand strong against those who would restrict the right to free speech. He even described those “who would wish to dissolve this Union” as “monuments of safety with which the error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” As president, Jefferson was an ardent defender...

With the looming threat that the financial industry may shut its doors to the gun industry, a Utah man is hoping that his cryptocurrency geared toward purchasing firearms will take off. Since Democrats took full control of the government last month, a proposed rule that would protect businesses such as the firearms industry has been scuttled, opening the possibility that companies will see their financial services cut off. Rob McNealy, a Second Amendment supporter, created the Universal Settlement Coin (TUSC), a cryptocurrency that focuses on providing the firearms industry with a tool that would allow gun stores and firearm-related manufacturers...

Over the course of the past week Gab has been deplatformed by one of our banks, a business we were working with to source new server hardware, third-party infrastructure analysis software, and even our accountant.This isn’t anything new for us. We’ve been deplatformed by 25+ service providers including both app stores, PayPal, dozens of payment processors, hosting providers, email services, and more.When this happens I rejoice and praise God because I know that He is working to separate the wheat from the chaff. This deplatforming inevitably reforms Gab into an even more resilient community, business, and platform. We don’t just...

That is the question. To be precise, that is the $50,000 question, or whatever amount Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, is making per hour. To brin: a verb meaning to break under the torture of censorship and/or cancellation, or, as Hamlet put it, “to take arms against a sea of troubles /And by opposing end them.” Should we struggle against dorseynization and zuckerberging? Or should we comply with the ruling party orders and brin into submission? We all know that “net neutrality” has nothing to do with the internet or neutrality. “LGBT” has nothing to do with sexual preferences. “Black...

Parler chief executive officer John Matze is "confident" that his social media platform will be back online in the near future after his team was able to launch a static website and recover the company’s data over the weekend in a series of positive developments. "I’m confident that by the end of the month, we’ll be back up," Matze told Fox News during a telephone interview on Sunday night. Parler registered its domain with host sharing website Epik last week, following Amazon Web Services' decision to shut Parler down for failure to moderate "egregious content" related to the Jan. 6...

A half-century ago, progressives used to push limitless free expression, blasting conservatives for their allegedly blinkered traditionalism. They boasted of obliterating once-normal boundaries in art, music, and literature to allow nudity, profanity, sexuality, and anti-American boilerplate. Now? The left is Victorian -- increasingly puritanical, regressive, and hypersensitive. Even totalitarian censorship and book-burning have weirdly become part of their by-any-means-necessary methods. University of California, Berkeley, professor Grace Lavery was so outraged by author Abigail Shrier's latest book, "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters," that she went beyond the usual calls to ban the book. Lavery advocated burning Shrier's book....