From the article: [6] FReeper Conservatives
“Free Republic” conservative individuals go by the name FReepers. They have been around since the early days of the Bill Clinton administration, and came into being as a conservative back-lash against his most outrageous policies. Such as…
NAFTA
Replacement of the International Space-station with the ISS.
Paying Russian soldiers salaries.
They formed a chat-room on the internet and there they would post articles and comment on them. They formed clusters of activists and were instrumental in uncovering such things as the looting of Air Force One on EBay by the Clinton’s, and gluing down of the “W” on all the key-boards in the White House.
FReepers are true and real “grass roots” conservatives.
They became such a force to be reckoned with that there was a mainstream media backlash. Many of which forbid any of their articles to be reposted on the FR website. Today, most websites have buttons that allow a person to easily repost an article on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other such venues, yet Free Republic postings are still banned.
Shared articles permitted to liberal websites.
Shared articles prohibited to conservative websites.
The organization itself is a loose collection of individuals from many different conservative camps. The active participation ebbs and flows over the years, but there is a core constituency that are very politically astute. Roughly speaking there is a community of “lurkers” who regularly read the postings but do not contribute or comment. This group is like an iceberg and represents the bunk of the FR readership.
This organization is also considered a “thorn in the side” of the liberal mainstream media, and is only permitted to exist as long as they can direct traffic to liberal-friendly mainstream media outlets. To this end, there are paid trolls that frequent the site in shifts.
The objective of the FR trolls is to limit conservative dialog to the site; box it in. Make it limited so that there isn’t any traceable “spill over” onto the Internet.
Trump tweet on conservative censorship of search data by Google search engines.
This is so that the Google algorithms do not notice traffic to other smaller conservative websites. It serves to keep small conservative bloggers, websites, and associated traffic way… way down in the search hierarchy. Instead of a Conservative post being on the top three pages of a Google Search, they can end up on page 50 to 60 in a given search.
(This is) Based on their internet connectivity to other websites.
They gamed the system that way. You can read about this in more detail in these other articles.
Tech giants plotting to suppress ALL conservative posts
How Google’s search algorithm spreads false information
Report: Google is biased against conservative websites
Google search algorithms are not impartial.
If Google Is Biased, So Are Its Algorithms
Evidence That Google’s Search Results Are Biased
By limiting small conservative websites from getting any internet traffic, they effective “box them in” in such a way that they are practically invisible to any given search. They have to compete against liberal posts, blogs and articles that allow linking to other liberal social media like Facebook, twitter, etc.
Social media share buttons help establish prevalence in Internet search engines. Trolls on Free Republic have a role to minimize small conservative, articles, posts and blogs from ever being recognized by the search engine. This is accomplished by limiting their internet connectivity.
Every time a person reads a Washington Post article, and then clicks on the “share on social media” button, the article makes an impression on the Internet. When a person reads a complete, wholly copied article on Free Republic, there is no impression made.
So from the Google algorithm, it appears that the liberal Washington Post article has more popularity and value (worth) than a conservative article posted on Free Republic. This is a significant factor in relevance placing in the search results.
To accomplish this suppression of conservative articles and blog posts, the FR Trolls do so using the following techniques…
Demand full text transcripts from conservative blogs or sites, not excerpts.
Ridicule posters that have a conservative ideology.
Spread lies about posted links (i.e. pop-up ads, or paywall, etc.)
Make derogatory statements regarding a particular poster.
The trolls are easy to spot, as they are usually the first to post on a conservative themed blog or article. They are also the first to say anything negative. Whether it is intentional redirection to just nasty comments.
Today, FReepers represent a good cross-section of everyday conservative thought. They tend to be part of a wide and deep demographic and thus serve as an accurate biometic to measure the pace and mood of the conservative audience. The website itself provides a good cross-section of conservative thought, intermixed with articles regarding other subjects (known as “chat”).
Known conservative lurkers to Free Republic include;
Rush Limbaugh
Donald Trump
William F. Buckley (Deceased)
The website can be found here; www.freerepublic.com
I thought the story was that the ‘W’s were stolen, not glued down...
Thanks for posting that.
And you forgot to mention FR’s most famous early activity, the exposure of Dan Rather’s fraudulent reporting of the National Guard Memo - Freeper ‘Buckhead’ being the first one to demonstrate that it was an exact duplicate of a Microsoft Word document that had been ‘aged’ by multiple passes through a fax machine and/or copier.