Free Republic

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 The Guardian's story, penned by Oliver Milman, centers on an unpublished draft study, which hasn't been peer-reviewed, but claims that a quarter of all tweets about climate come from bots.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.

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...

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...

One minute you are contemplating your next vacation, the next you click on Facebook and see adverts for hotels and cheap flights. Coincidence? Surely. But what about that smart speaker in your kitchen? It doesn’t just play music and provide an on-demand weather forecast. It hears about the groceries that need replenishing, the cat’s trip to the vet, and, of course, your vacation plans. Now imagine what such a listening device could do in the workplace. The whispered conversation about difficulties with your latest project is automatically reported to your manager. The half hour spent discussing child care arrangements is...

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...

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...

Conservative actor James Woods finally returned to Twitter late on Thursday after taking a 10-month break from the platform and wasted no time doing what he does best: trolling. In his first tweet, Woods took aim at socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) writing, “I’ve tried so hard this past year to live without the wealth of knowledge available on Twitter, but this kind of blazing insight can be found nowhere else, so… I’m back! #AOCStillAMoron”

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday denied multiple appeals to rehear a decision upholding the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) repeal of the Obama-era net neutrality rules. The 2015 net neutrality rules classified internet service providers as common carriers, similar to telecommunications providers, who are not allowed to discriminate against various forms of traffic. The FCC under Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai repealed those rules in late 2017 and also barred states from passing their own net neutrality regulations. Pai's action faced legal challenges but was upheld by a district court and then by the D.C. Circuit in October. The...

Leave it to a company that collects more than 150 million plate reads per month to bring public surveillance to our front door. Rekor Systems “Open ALPR program” will allow homeowners to turn their video doorbells into license plate readers. A Rekor Systems press release revealed their plans to turn 22 million smart homes into neighborhood license plate reader networks. “Research firm Berg Insight reports that 63 million American homes will qualify as “smart” by as early as 2022. With the launch of our downloadable and cloud-based products, anyone can access affordable license plate reading in minutes — as well...

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the social media giant will continue to support free expression and encrypted content on its platform in a new interview. "This is the new approach, and I think it's going to piss off a lot of people. But frankly, the old approach was pissing off a lot of people too, so let's try something different," Zuckerberg said Friday at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Utah, CNN reported. "Increasingly we're getting called to censor a lot of different kinds of content that makes me really uncomfortable," Zuckerberg continued. Zuckerberg said the company's...

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday released a plan to fight disinformation and to hold tech companies accountable for their actions in light of the 2016 election. “Disinformation and online foreign interference erode our democracy, and Donald Trump has invited both,” Warren said in a Tweet Wednesday. “Anyone who seeks to challenge and defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election must be fully prepared to take this on – and I’ve got a plan to do it.” Warren proposed to combat disinformation by holding big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google responsible for spreading misinformation designed to...

Meanwhile, be aware in the coming media swamp of diversions, that the Democrats and Media would do anything to illegally remove Donald Trump from office Warning: President Donald Trump removal-obsessed Democrats have reached new totalitarian heights. Deliberately, all Big 3 networks ABC, CBS and NBC—the same Big 3 who gave LIVE saturation coverage to the Democrats shut-door ‘Impeachment Trial’—blacked out Trump defense lawyer Pam Bondi’s presentation yesterday afternoon of Ukraine corruption related to Joe Biden, son Hunter and Burisma. That CNN and MSNBC aired Pam Bondi’s report at the Senate trial was a convenient way to make it appear as...

@YouTube just took down @JudicialWatch 's live stream of the impeachment trial for violating "community standards"! What on Earth is going on over there!

In an interview with the New York Times' editorial board, former Vice President Joe Biden made his most stringent call yet for cracking down on free speech on the internet. After being asked by the Times about previous comments Biden has made regarding Facebook's refusal to remove negative ads targeting his campaign, the Democratic front-runner attacked both the social media platform and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. "I've never been a fan of Facebook," Biden says. "I've never been a big Zuckerberg fan, I think he's a real problem." Biden and Facebook have been feuding for months, as Reason has previously...

President Trump retweeted a tweet from the Trump War Room that includes this article from the Washington Examiner that names the whistleblower in the title of the article. Trump included Ciaramella’s far left attorney Mark Zaid in his tweet.

By now it’s no secret that social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and Google are censoring conservative – especially leading up to the 2020 election. But what one Twitter user captured video will blow you away. It starts off with a tweet that President Trump retweeted on Pelosi’s son’s ties to Ukraine. He quoted the tweet – which was an OANN segment and said “Wow Crazy Nancy, what’s going on? This is big stuff! ” Later, Twitter user by the name of “Melissa A.” captured a recording showing Twitter actually removing 10 thousand “likes” and over 4 thousand...

The wife of a Google whistleblower, who exposed meddling in the 2016 election, died Friday night just days after she was seriously injured in a car crash. ~~ SNIP ~~Epstein, a psychology professor at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, concluded that Google's search methods 'gave' millions of votes to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.

The United States of America no longer has a free press as of December 2019. Press freedom was already in danger, as Mark Levin noted, as journalists became political activists in the Obama era, and feuded with the president in the Trump era. But press freedom could have thrived in a more openly partisan marketplace of ideas. In the end, press freedom was killed by the press itself, in the decision not to report the name of the so-called “whistleblower” in the impeachment crisis. His name — which Breitbart News published after it was first revealed by RealClearInvestigations — is...