Free Republic

nlike the other media watchdogs, NewsGuard is a for-profit company, making money in a variety of ways that include licensing its rating.. Part of President-elect Donald’s Trump plan to rein in censorship, which he disclosed on Nov. 9, involves tweaking section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Section 230 gives social media companies liability immunity for user posts, though Trump wants it to apply only to those with “high standards of neutrality,” not just those who appear to routinely take down posts that lean conservative. Without calling out by name Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or a legacy media,...

Many news outlets have published Robert F. Kennedy Jr. profiles in the past 18 months, but The Washington Post’s in June was the only one to warrant a 20-page response from the Trump HHS nominee (This story is the first in a four-part series this month by Just the News on self-described watchdogs who push for censorship.) “If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country,” President-elect Donald Trump said in a video posted to social media just day after winning reelection on Nov. 5. “Today, I’m announcing my plan to shatter the left-wing censorship...

The media is unquestionably one of the most powerful and influential voices in our culture. Journalism used to be a simple matter of reporting the facts and, where there was controversy, presenting both sides of the story. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. From the top national networks to local newspapers, we are faced with the challenge of sorting through commentary and conjecture in order to get to the truth. We encourage you to make our nation’s journalists a subject of prayer. Ask the Lord to provide the television, radio and print mediums with staff members and executives who...

Colorado has agreed to pay over $1.5 million after violating the First Amendment rights of a graphic designer who took her case to the United States Supreme Court. The Court ruled in June that the state could not compel Lorie Smith and her design studio, 303 Creative, to create art that violates her religious beliefs. As a Christian, Smith believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Though she wanted to design wedding websites, Colorado’s discrimination laws would have required her to create same-sex wedding websites. Smith, who was represented by lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom,...

Colorado officials have agreed to pay over $1.5 million to cover attorney fees for graphic designer Lorie Smith, who successfully challenged the state’s antidiscrimination law at the Supreme Court. The settlement, announced Tuesday, comes months after the high court ruled in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis that Colorado violated Smith’s First Amendment rights by attempting to compel her to create wedding websites for same-sex couples against her religious beliefs. Earlier this year, a federal district court issued a final judgment requiring state officials to cease efforts to compel Smith’s speech, a resolution that brought an end to years of legal...

Actress and filmmaker Justine Bateman is applauding the return of President-elect Donald Trump to the White House as a liberating force for all those who value freedom of speech and expression. She said it feels like a cloud has been lifted with Trump’s runaway victory. “I feel good. I feel great, in fact,” Bateman told Fox News Digital in an interview. “I feel like there was this kind of suffocating cloud that was kind of over us… Regular people who had questions about decisions that were being made were threatened subtly or obviously into silence. And I feel like that’s...

Then “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” exploded — on college campuses, in corporate boardrooms, online. Every subculture, no matter how esoteric, began braying for recognition (or “centering,” in DEI language). Two-spirit indigenous people? Incarcerated women with HIV? Nonbinary semi-professional athletes? They all had a laundry list of grievances, and demanded that governments provide the salve. This new movement rests on two absurd ideas: that certain groups require extra help in perpetuity because of harms they incurred in the past — what dissenters have aptly termed “the soft bigotry of low expectations” — and that inequality of intergroup outcomes can only arise...

This earns President Trump a space on Mount Rushmore. --Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Six minute thirty-six second video.)

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr utilized Media Research Center analysis to put Big Tech and so-called media ratings firm NewsGuard on notice. Carr sent a letter Wednesday to the respective CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple accusing them of “improper conduct” in silencing Americans’ exercising free speech on political, religious and scientific issues. Carr specifically ordered these tech giants to acquiesce to surrendering any documents related to their work with “the Orwellian named NewsGuard” given its history of targeting right-leaning websites by bullying their advertisers. Moreover, Carr excoriated the CEOs for participating in “a censorship cartel that included not...

~Sixty-six days from America's uniquely unique peaceful transfer of power, the winning side is having a grand old time watching Trump troll a discredited and impotent not-so-mainstream media. The central criticism of every appointment - that this guy is not part of the club, not from the ranks of the uniparty ruling class - is, in fact, the minimum entry qualification if you're serious about pulling the US back from the looming cliff edge. If Merrick Garland and Lloyd Austin are what it means to be a sober respectable "public servant", Trump might as well hand out Cabinet positions from...

Massive police repression in Germany as war against free speech and basic human rights ratchets up under left-liberal government.. After a 64-year-old pensioner retweeted a meme of Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck, in which Habeck was described as an “idiot,” Bavarian police raided the man’s house and arrested him. The crime has even been recorded as a “politically motivated right-wing crime.” The man is accused of distributing a photo of Habeck via retweet, where Habeck is described as an “idiot.” The Bamberg prosecutor’s office indicates that this constitutes a federal criminal offense of “hatred.” “At a time that cannot currently...

The @latimes owner is replacing its editorial board with one with diverse political viewpoints.

German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said that Europe must enact strict speech regulations on Elon Musk’s X platform to fight so-called “disinformation”. Habeck, the likely candidate for chancellor for the leftist Green party in the upcoming elections, laid out his vision for Germany and Europe in a speech to the Neuhardenberg Castle Foundation on Saturday, including more internet censorship in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory. “We cannot put democratic discourse in the hands of Elon Musk and Chinese software,” Habeck said, per Welt. Therefore, he argued, strict EU regulations must be applied to platforms such as TikTok and X.

The Western District of Louisiana’s US District Court has ruled in favor of the State of Missouri, allowing additional discovery in the significant Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, which scrutinizes government collaboration in social media censorship. This decision comes after the Supreme Court, in June, overturned a prior injunction, then-named Murthy v. Missouri, which had prohibited entities including the White House, CDC, FBI, CISA, and the Surgeon General’s office from pressing social media platforms to suppress speech protected under the Constitution. [link to Court's Order] [snip] The depth of the Biden Administration’s involvement in these censorial activities likely would have remained...

None offered—-video

Link at X.com. Shenanigans at Prattville Christian Academy.Response from the school:

Below is an election campaign video (AI-generated) that was released by the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) last month for the recent elections. The government is now trying to prosecute the AfD for using it. Many thanks to Schwabe for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling: [AfD campaign ad with English subtitles at link] The following excerpt (also translated by Schwabe) about the government’s actions is from an article posted by the Austrian portal Freilich Magazin: The [government] media institute [MABB] asserts that the concept of “impairment” includes disturbances and damage to...

The left loves it when professional athletes get political — as long as they do it for the right candidate. On Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers held on for a 30-24 victory over the Dallas Cowboys at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. During post-game interviews on the field with NBC’s Melissa Stark, defensive end Nick Bosa took the opportunity to display a quick non-verbal message to fans as he appeared and pointed to his white and gold MAGA hat before walking away. The intent was clear as Bosa wanted fans to know which candidate he was supporting in next...

The NFL is taking its time before making a decision on whether to discipline Nick Bosa for flashing a “Make America Great Again” hat in support of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy during NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” postgame show.

Justin Trudeau is creating a new arm of the state with sweeping powers aimed at criminalising opinions deemed ‘unacceptable’ by progressives. (skip) Anyone in Canada can seemingly snitch to this Commission, about any online content whatsoever – indeed, it encourages them to – and many will be more than happy to oblige.The Commission also has the power of a superior court of record, and can act in that manner. However, the members of the Commission are not defined with regard to the necessity of any professional competence (such as legal training). Worse: it says explicitly in the bill that their...