Free Republic

As we see Google increasingly becoming both politically correct in what it provides as search results (and I have not found other search engines to be much better), as well as (it seems to me) favoring pages that provide brief, cursory info (likely due to mobile devices), then I want to create a custom search engine for conservative (mainly political/ideological) issues, which Google enables one to do. And which is relatively easy to do, and here it is as of now, https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=011383487679067898861:gug5bh6z5ol (look for search bar in top left corner). That is the public URL, though Google provides a code...

Twitter has locked the accounts of two users with more than 60,000 collective followers after The Guardian reported they could be bots designed to push misinformation about climate change. The Guardian's story, penned by Oliver Milman, centers on an unpublished draft study, which hasn't been peer-reviewed, but claims that a quarter of all tweets about climate come from bots. It then cited a tool called Botometer, to identify Twitter users @sh_irredeemable and @petefrt as likely bots.

I was at TheLayoff.com website using NordVPN. Interestingly enough they claim anonymity but in reality you cannot post any comments if you are connected through NordVPN. You get a real nasty little message. So if anyone is posting there beware, it is NOT secure.

Attorney General William Barr recently raised questions about whether major technology companies should remain largely immune from litigation regarding its user-generated content, adding that the technological landscape has changed much in recent decades. Barr stated his concerns during a Feb. 19 Justice Department workshop on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The act, which was passed in 1996, states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Online companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter are protected by Section 230...

Love 24-hour news without an agenda? NewsNet is a 100% free with an antenna news network in 18 markets and streaming free online around the nation. Now you can also watch the 24/7 news network for free on Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TVs. When NewsNet first launched, the team behind the service said, “After its launch in early 2019, NewsNet will be available over-the-air on affiliates across the country. If you live in a community with a NewsNet affiliate, all you’ll need to receive our 24/7 news programming for free is a TV antenna!” NewsNet is also available live...

When Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Bernie Sanders supporter, defended so-called Bernie Bros on Twitter and asked for examples of the Vermont senator’s backers “being bad,” U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise shut him down with just six words. “I can think of an example,” Scalise tweeted back. Scalise, a Louisiana congressman and the House Republican minority whip, was one of several people injured during a 2017 shooting at a practice for the annual congressional baseball game in Alexandria, Va.

Attorney General William Barr took aim Wednesday at a key legal protection for the tech industry, calling into question whether it is still needed as a small number of key tech players have reached a massive size and scale. Besides questions of anticompetitive behavior, Barr said at a Department of Justice workshop, the agency is considering what a concentrated tech market means for a legal immunity originally created to help small start-ups thrive. Barr convened the workshop to discuss Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says tech companies cannot be held legally liable for content posted by third-party...

Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign is hiring hundreds of workers in California to post regularly on their personal social-media accounts in support of the candidate and send text messages to their friends about him. The effort, which could cost millions of dollars, is launching ahead of California’s March 3 primary and could later be deployed nationwide, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It is one of the most unorthodox yet by the heavy-spending billionaire and blurs the lines between traditional campaign organizing and the distribution of sponsored content. Most campaigns encourage their...

The propaganda department in virus-stricken Hubei Province has engaged over 1,600 censors to scrub the internet of “sensitive” information relating to the coronavirus outbreak, according to an internal document obtained by The Epoch Times. The internal report, dated Feb. 15, detailed the agency’s efforts to ramp up censorship measures. It was drafted after a speech given by Chinese leader Xi Jinping via video link on Feb. 10 to “frontline responders” of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, where the virus first broke out. The revelations come as the Chinese regime tightens information controls over the worsening outbreak,...

http://www.mayopete.io/

On Tuesday, the Internet Accountability Project (IAP) will file an amicus brief in the Oracle v. Google Supreme Court copyright case. In a nutshell, the brief explains why IAP believes it is time for the Supreme Court to course correct on Google’s outrageous interpretation of the “fair use� doctrine under U.S. copyright law. But the case is bigger than one single legal doctrine and goes to the very heart of why Google is anathema to conservatives and everything we stand for. In fact, the case is the poster child for what we at IAP call “the Great 21st Century Internet...

Wildly inaccurate facts and spurious arguments are unavoidable features of social media. Yet no matter how infuriatingly wrong someone is, or just how much counter-evidence you have at your disposal, starting arguments on the internet rarely gets anyone to change their mind. Nearly a century-and-a-half ago, British philosopher John Stuart Mill explained, in a few clear sentences, why certain arguments simply won’t go anywhere. As historian Robert Saunders notes, Mill’s analysis neatly applies to heated and futile internet debates.

Today, February 12th, marks the day that 2,411 aborted children were given a proper burial after their medically preserved remains were found in the garage and vehicle of deceased Indiana abortionist Ulrich Klopfer last year. The memorial took place at Southlawn Cemetery in South Bend, Indiana, and included remarks from the state’s attorney general, Curtis Hill. The children’s remains were found to be two decades old, but were unable to be individually identified. No reason has been given as to why Klopfer stored the preserved and packaged remains of more than 2,200 aborted children in the garage of his home...

Default-hijacking browser extension pulled from Office Pro Plus installations Microsoft has U-turned on plans to automatically switch browser search defaults to Bing when users install Office 365 Pro Plus.In January, Microsoft let slip its plans to install a browser extension for Chrome that makes Bing the default search engine when users installed or updated Office Pro Plus, a key part of enterprise subscriptions to Office 365. The move was buried in documentation, rather than being delivered in the usual enthusiastic blog post, suggesting perhaps the company knew it would not go down well.The stated rationale was to let users, er,...

SALINE, MI - Four Saline High School students have filed a federal lawsuit claiming the school district should not be able to discipline them for sending racist messages to fellow students in a Snapchat group.The four unidentified students filed the lawsuit Tuesday, Feb. 11, in U.S. District Court in Detroit, claiming the district suspended two students, who have since returned to classes, while expulsion has been recommended for two others.“The school is acting outside the scope of its authority, has no legal right to impose the discipline carried out, and has violated our clients’ constitutional rights by their reckless and...

A pensioner in Sweden has been sentenced to a total of SEK 12 000 in fines for thought crimes after commenting on an article on facebook. The article in question was published on the Swedish news site FriaTider, which is about a Somalian citizen who was allowed to stay in Sweden despite having been convicted of attempted rape and sexual harassment. After his conviction, the man had continued to sexually harass women while bragging that it was his “right” to “have sex with Swedish women”. That appeared to have upset the woman, who is in her 70s, prompting her to...

"The team at 'The Daily Show' released the tool today that is specifically designed to deliver personal insults to users who tweet at the bot. The comments, which sound like they came directly from the former vice president, range from calling users a 'rinky-dinkn' toad licker' to 'a scone-eating hippie armpit'."

Four US Senators, including Ted Cruz, penned a letter on February 6 to Jack Dorsey asking him to ban Iranian leadership from using Twitter as part of the US sanctions against Iran. Republican senators led by Ted Cruz in a letter Thursday suggested Twitter may be violating U.S. sanctions by letting Iranian leaders maintain accounts, which they asked company CEO Jack Dorsey to ban. The big picture: Twitter has become a major political target for Cruz and other Republicans, who claim the company and other Silicon Valley giants are biased against conservatives and the Trump administration. "While the First Amendment...

A fierce behind-the-scenes dispute between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and Facebook erupted into public view Friday, as the speaker’s office demanded that Facebook remove a video posted online by President Donald Trump. The video in question showed Pelosi’s viral State of the Union moment ripping up the text of Trump’s speech Tuesday night, but was edited to make it appear that she ripped the speech even as Trump saluted a Tuskegee airman in the audience. In fact, Pelosi’s speech-ripping gesture came at the end of the president’s speech, and her office said it was in response to the totality...

Twitter locked the account of investigative journalist James O’Keefe last month after he and Project Veritas released undercover footage showing Bernie Sanders staffers praising Stalin’s gulags and promising that “cities will burn” if Donald Trump is re-elected. According to Project Veritas, “Twitter’s end game is likely similar to that of their Silicon Valley friend Google; in the words of Google’s Head of Innovation Jen Gennai ‘Prevent the next Trump situation.’” Twitter claims it locked O’Keefe’s account because of “privacy violations,” after O’Keefe posted a publicly available FEC paystub of one of the Sanders’ staffers who praised violence and gulags. Project...