Free Republic

The debate over free speech and content policy on Twitter– like on other social media sites— is often centered on issues relevant to political and cultural debates in the United States, where the company is headquartered. Yet this discussion of hypothetical censorship obscures the fact that company policies today are already used to silence important voices— journalists reporting from Kurdistan, who provide key information on political and military developments there at great personal risk.  While Twitter is a safer platform for Kurdish reporters and supporters of the Kurdish cause than sites like Facebook— which ban pages and accounts for posting photos of the...

Illinoispaytoplay.com (IP2P) has learned that Daniel S. Mahru, former business partner of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, made a deal with the Department of Justice (DoJ) for his silence. IP2P is the first to report that on, October 4 2012, Daniel S. Mahru will receive probation at his sentencing hearing. IP2P has also learned that this is being done to insure Mahru will not speak of crimes, of which he has knowledge, that implicate Barack Obama, Valarie Jarrett, Allison Davis, Tony Rezko and others. (Remember Tony recently saying he committed crimes for which Fitzgerald did not charge him.) IP2P is also investigating...

The clock tower at Southern Illinois University has played Christmas carols for nearly 15 years. But this year, someone complained – and that led university officials to briefly silence the holiday tradition until they could add a more diverse selection of music. “We got a complaint about not being inclusive in the music,” university chancellor Rita Cheng told Fox News Radio. She backed off comments she made to a local television station that claimed the music was indeed removed because it was “religious” and “offensive to non-Christians.” “No one really complained about it being religious,”

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—The Schwarzenegger administration has removed appointees from two oversight bodies that must sign off on its plan to sell California state office buildings, replacing potential critics of the move with people who support it. The appointees—to building authorities in San Francisco and Los Angeles—were replaced quietly in recent weeks as the state began taking bids on the properties, and their removal likely quashes any dissent or independent financial studies that might have emerged as the property sales move forward. In both cases, the replaced board members had questioned whether the administration's plan is in the best long-term interests of...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf cites freeing Pakistan's media as one of his proudest achievements, but under emergency rule his regime is stripping those liberties away for fear independent news reports will further fan opposition. Authorities have blacked out TV networks and threatened broadcasters with jail time, but so far have spared the Internet and most newspapers. Most people in Pakistan, where illiteracy is rife, get their news from TV or radio. Shortly before the government suspended the constitution and the freedoms it guarantees, cable operators pulled the plug on domestic and international news channels — including the...

The top-of-the-line iPod music player from Apple Computer can hold four solid weeks of music. But what if you just want a little peace and quiet? As it turns out, Apple sells that too - sounds of silence for 99 cents. Steve Halberstadt of Raleigh, N.C., made such a purchase last week after discovering that Apple's iTunes store, the Web's leading downloadable music outlet, had added "The Whitey Album," a 1995 release by Ciccone Youth, a jokey side project of the rock band Sonic Youth. The album's second track album, "Silence," consists of 63 seconds of exactly that. (The band...