Free Republic

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the administration of President Joe Biden is set to launch an initiative aimed at addressing the issue of domestic terrorism. Under this initiative, the DHS intends to provide educational resources, including videos, to help individuals identify potential threats related to domestic terrorism. The focus of these materials will be on promoting awareness and understanding of the signs associated with radicalization. President Joe Biden recently gave a graduation commencement address at Howard University, a Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) member, in which he claimed that “white supremacy” is the greatest terrorism threat to...

Future Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino advocated for content moderation and censorship on behalf of advertisers while Musk defended importance of free speech. Twitter CEO Elon Musk joined a marketing convention last month to talk with NBC Universal’s Linda Yaccarino about the future of marketing at Twitter. Musk, who announced this week that Yaccarino would take over as Twitter CEO, had sparred with her in an on-stage interview during the POSSIBLE Miami: Marketing Conference & Expo over free speech and content moderation.In one exchange, Yaccarino asked Musk how far he’d be willing to go to let advertisers “influence” how Twitter curates...

A comedian was heckled over her jokes about Dylan Mulvaney not having top or bottom surgery after a year of 'girlhood' - before they stormed out screaming: '**** you transphobe.' Chrissie Mayr was performing at Hyena's Comedy Club in Dallas, Texas, in early May when she made a joke about the transgender influencer, 26, who has faced a huge backlash for her Days of Girlhood series and failing Bud Light campaign. Mayr's set continued to poke fun at the LGBT+ community, as she later described bisexuals as 'just fun at parties.' Throughout the video, Mayr showed the group of women...

The Department of Homeland Security listed pro-life mothers as potential “radicalization suspects” in a violence prevention training guide just days after President Biden took office, documents obtained by a conservative legal watchdog show. DHS’s Office of Terrorism and Violence lists profiles of various domestic extremists in an internal memo dated Jan. 29, 2021 — including a “middle-aged pro-life advocate” — and asks participants to make “real-life decisions” to confront each. “This is Ann, a resident of Elkville in rural America,” one profile reads. “Ann has always been religious but since the death of her mother, she’s become increasingly devout. She’s...

On the heels of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announcing Tuesday that he's planning a new program to air on Twitter, "NBC News NOW" guest host Tom Costello brought in former CNN host Brian Stelter for a chat about it all, NewsBusters said. (snip)Costello continued with a jaw-dropping question: “Will anybody be able to police what Carlson says? Or is this the point? It's just a free-for-all?”Stelter didn't appear shocked by the "police" reference: “I think this is the point. It is a free-for-all. It's what Elon Musk wants to provide. This move by Tucker may cement the idea...

What constitutes hate speech? According to the United Nations, “hate speech refers to offensive discourse targeting a group or an individual based on inherent characteristics (such as race, religion or gender) and that may threaten social peace.” The UN also says “hate speech is a growing international threat.” What is a hate act? According to California’s new Department of Hate (CA vs Hate), “A hate incident is a hostile expression or action that may be motivated by bias against another person’s actual or perceived identity.”

Northwestern University has long been a school hostile to free speech. My alma mater was ranked 197 out of 203 universities for free speech in a major survey by FIRE. (Fortunately, my other alma mater, the University of Chicago, was ranked number one for free speech). This month showed why Northwestern developed a reputation for speech intolerance and a lack of ideological diversity. Northwestern University’s Associated Student Government suspended the funding for the College Republicans due to objections to posters for an event featuring writer and critical race theory critic James Lindsay. The justification was a poster featuring a skull...

A new “disinformation office” has been quietly established by the Biden administration. This office will have the authority to arrest and prosecute citizens of the United States who publish content online that is deemed to be “false” by so-called fact checkers.According to the announcement made by Director Avril Haines on Thursday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has established a new office to oversee the efforts being made by the intelligence community to combat “disinformation” in the United States.Haines made the announcement during a hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC)...

SAN DIEGO – The man whose livestream caught two Navy ships nearly colliding in the San Diego Bay has been ordered to take the cameras down. The Navy Criminal Investigative Service says the camera’s livestream shows military activity in the area, but the camera owner says he has the right to film. “It might be the San Diego Web Cam today, but if you don’t stand up and call foul, we don’t know what’s it going to be tomorrow,” said Barry Bahrami who runs a group called San Diego Web Cam which provides livestreams across the city. It was Bahrami’s...

Thousands cheered King Charles III with ‘God Save The King” as his gilded carriage passed through London. The coronation had all of the pomp and circumstance that people expected from the fifth longest monarchy in history (Japan is the longest). The ceremony included one time-honored tradition that some of us could have done without: the arrest of peaceful protesters. It was all part of “Operation Golden Orb” and follows a long, unbroken British tradition of quashing free speech. London’s Metropolitan Police made 52 arrests during the coronation, including many anti-monarchy protesters who were wearing yellow T-shirts and shouting “Not My...

Earlier this week, the Florida legislature passed a bill that may become a model for the nation. House Bill 931, sponsored by State Representative Spencer Roach, requires universities to host public-policy debates and bans the use of political litmus tests in hiring and admissions. Both provisions address the increasing ideological homogeneity on college campuses. In the past three decades, university faculty and administrators have become overwhelmingly liberal. This orthodoxy of opinion is bad for academic research, student learning, and universities’ reputations in the eyes of the public. The bill is inspired by two pieces of model legislation. Its first part...

The new Foreign Malign Influence Center oversees efforts that span U.S. military, law enforcement, intelligence, and diplomatic agencies. WITHIN THE FEDERAL government, offices dedicated to fighting foreign disinformation are springing up like daisies, from the Pentagon’s new Influence and Perception Management Office to at least four organizations inside the Department of Homeland Security alone, as well as ones inside the FBI and State Department. To oversee the growing efforts — which arose in response to concerns about the impact of Russian meddling in the 2016 election but have now expanded — the director of national intelligence has created a new...

The Twitter Files gave us a window into how government agencies, civil society, and tech companies work together to censor social media users. Now, key nations are attempting to enshrine this coordination into law explicitly. Around the world, politicians have either just passed or are on the cusp of passing sweeping new laws, which would allow governments to censor ordinary citizens on social media and other Internet platforms. Under the guise of preventing “harm” and holding large tech companies accountable, several countries are establishing a vast and interlinked censorship apparatus, a new investigation by Public finds. Politicians, NGOs, and their...

Two trend lines extend into the future. One tracks government's increased oppression, surveillance, and social control. The other tracks people's rising spiritual faith, desire for personal freedom, and determination that government should leave them alone. This is our reality. It also exposes the chink in totalitarianism's armor. The greater the government's coercion, the more convinced a growing share of the population becomes that illegitimate government must go.*snip*Talk of WWIII brings thoughts of troop movements, electric grid collapse, and nuclear conflagration, but unlike the wars of last century, this one is first and foremost for control of individual minds. WWI fashioned...

A new pandemic prevention initiative by the World Health Organization will rely on “social listening surveillance systems” to identify “rumors and misinformation,” War Room can reveal.The initiative – Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) – seeks to “guide countries in pandemic planning” while “incorporat[ing] the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.”Internal documents from the United Nations (UN) agency, however, reveal a variety of invasive tactics deployed to suppress the spread of alleged “misinformation.” The WHO is pushing for member states – including the U.S. – to adopt these suggestions when...

Tucker Carlson has something new in common with Breitbart, Bill O’Reilly, Dan Bongino and Steve Bannon: he’s lost to Sleeping Giants. Sleeping Giants — the social media campaign I co-founded in 2016 — is now the common denominator in the fall of every major media figure in hate speech and disinformation. Our campaign to make bigotry and hate unprofitable now has a 100% success rate. Not too shabby, eh?

Has anyone else noticed what seems to be a disturbing trend among Right of Center journalists & pundits? There was a time when what I'm about to write would come off a pure tinfoil hattery, but... well, welcome to 2023. First we start with James O'Keefe. Back in February he was forced out by the board at Veritas back in February. The "reason" was a claim over how much O'Keefe had been spending in his fundraising efforts. While their claim that James was spending significant money was verified by James, the return on investment made it worthwhile. I know that...

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey joined 21 other Republican attorneys general in filing a legal brief urging the Colorado Supreme Court to hear an appeal by a Christian cake artist who lost a First Amendment case in a lower court. Last month, Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips and the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a petition with Colorado’s highest court to overturn a state Court of Appeals decision. It found Phillips violated Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act when in 2012 he refused to make a blue and pink cake for attorney Autumn Scardina who stated in a phone conversation it was to celebrate...

In response to a new law that requires porn sites to verify users’ ages, Pornhub has completely disabled its websites for people located in Utah. As of today, anyone accessing Pornhub from a Utah-based IP address doesn’t see the Pornhub homepage, but instead is met with a video of Cherie DeVille, adult performer and member of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, explaining that they won’t be able to visit the site.

A 12-year-old student was allegedly sent home from school after he refused to change his T-shirt that said, "There are only two genders." Liam Morrison, a seventh-grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, said he was taken out of gym class on March 21 and met with school staff who told him people were complaining about the statement on his shirt and that it made them feel "unsafe." His comments were picked up by popular Twitter account LibsofTikTok. "Yes, words on a shirt made people feel unsafe. They told me that I wasn't in trouble, but it sure felt...