Free Republic

How the UK’s Online Safety Act Impacts AmericansSUMMARYThe United Kingdom’s Online Safety act went into effect on July 25th.X has warned that the OSA, which allows the UK to fine American companies at 10 percent of their annual global revenue, threatens free speech worldwide.The OSA’s provisions allow the UK government to force a company’s business partners, including advertisers and payment processors, to boycott them.American employees of non-compliant tech companies to face criminal charge and up to two years in jail in the UK.The Online Safety Act went into force in late July. Framed in the media as a child safety...

There’s a reason why the J6 Committee deleted the records of their activity, an angle missed by most. When you understand what they hid and why they did it, you then understand why current Speaker of The House Mike Johnson will not go near the subject. The J6 Committee used interfaces with the NSA database and pre-existing portals with aligned DHS Social Media databases (including Twitter, see prior “Twitter Files”), as research and evidence gathering mechanisms for their investigations. The J6 targets were identified through a collaboration between the legislative research group and the FBI. [That’s unlawful by the way...

Megyn Kelly is joined by Graham Linehan, comedy writer and co-creator of Father Ted, to discuss the backsliding in the culture of free speech, the details surrounding his arrest, his decision to sue the police over the arrest, and more.

End Wokeness @EndWokeness BREAKING: Shabana Mahmood named as UK Home Secretary, in charge of borders, police, immigration

‘The IT Crowd’ creator Graham Linehan arrested by UK cops over ‘anti-trans’ posts on X: ‘like a terrorist’ “The IT Crowd” creator Graham Linehan has said he was arrested by cops in the UK over three “anti-trans” social media posts shortly after arriving at London Heathrow Airport. The Irish comedy writer, who was flying to Britain on an American Airlines flight from Arizona, accused police of treating him like a “terrorist” when they detained him moments after he stepped off the plane on Monday. Linehan, 57, who has become a strident critic of the transgender rights movement, said he was...

This week, the British people were told again, “It doesn’t matter:” their views on the government's immigration policies, and their desire to be safe in their own communities, are simply irrelevant It doesn’t matter.That was the message—those precise words, blunt, unequivocal, brooking no dissent—that Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered to the British people last summer in the aftermath of the brutal murder of three little girls at a dance class, in Southport. Six more were left in critical condition with stab wounds, as well as two teachers. Decades of anger at the effects of the multicultural experiment, an experiment conducted...

James Burnham began his intellectual odyssey as a disciple of Leon Trotsky, but he became disillusioned with Marxism in the late 1930s. The Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 especially drew Burnham’s ire. Trotsky rationalized the invasion using Marxist ideology: Soviet socialism was spreading; therefore, it must be good. Burnham disagreed, arguing that the invasion was simply Soviet imperialism — a confiscation of land by Stalin. After seven years as one of its leading American thinkers, Burnham left the Marxist movement. Burnham’s experiences with Marxism scarred him. He began to recognize that “only by renouncing all ideology can we begin...

Online Safety Act draws fire for stifling free expression. Children are suffering psychological harm from unfiltered social media platforms that expose them to disturbing adult content as well as online predators. The United Kingdom’s initiatives to police the internet to protect children have attracted opposition by those claiming the Online Safety Act (OSA) is a Trojan horse being abused to regulate free speech. Finding the balance is proving to be an ongoing challenge. Protecting Children OnlineThe explosion of social media platforms in recent decades has created unprecedented threats to children from unfiltered exposure to pornography, internet predation, self-harm, suicidal...

Bernadette Spofforth lay in jail on a blue gym mattress in a daze, finding it difficult to move, even breathe. “I just closed down. But the other half of my brain went into Jack Reacher mode,” she said, referring to the fictional action hero. “Every single detail was in this very vivid, bright, sharp focus.” She remembers noticing that you can’t drown yourself in the toilet, because there’s no standing water in it and the flush button is too far to reach if your head were in the bowl. She’d end up being detained for 36 hours in July 2024....

Censorship-mad UK is going after US Tech companies.There’s an ongoing struggle in the Donald J. Trump administration to keep UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s censorship push from encroaching in US citizens’ liberties. (snip) BBC reported:“According to Preston Byrne, managing partner of law firm Byrne & Storm, Ofcom has provisionally decided to impose a £20,000 fine ‘with daily penalties thereafter’ for as long as the site fails to comply with its request.‘Ofcom’s notices create no legal obligations in the United States’, he told the BBC, adding he believed the regulator’s investigation was part of an ‘illegal campaign of harassment’ against US...

Lucy Connolly has today been released from prison after being jailed for writing a 'racist' tweet during last summer's riots. The mother had spent more than nine months behind bars after admitting making the inflammatory post on X in the wake of the Southport attacks in July last year. Connolly, who is the wife of Tory councillor Ray Connolly, pleaded guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred and was handed a 31-month sentence in October.

Animal Farm's 80th anniversary reminds us of Orwell's enduring influence. Dive into the narratives that have shaped our understanding of power and truth.This year, Animal Farm celebrates its 80th anniversary - a remarkable milestone for a book that has remained in print and in the public imagination since 1945. And George Orwell’s influence is felt not only in literature but in politics, journalism, and culture - his clear-eyed observations of poverty, totalitarianism, and the corruption of ideals resonate today as much as they did in the mid-20th century. From his earliest reporting on life in the streets and workhouses...

The United Kingdom has a problem with the U.S.: It's that pesky Bill of Rights and our refusal to surrender our rights to Britain's censorship and due-process-busting domestic spying schemes. Enter, stage right: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I reported earlier this week that 4chan's notorious internet pranksters hired a couple of big-name law firms, after Britain threatened the American-based company with a £20,000 fine, followed by hefty daily fines, if the group failed to impose Britain's censorship rules on 4chan's users everywhere in the world — including in the U.S. 4chan's representation called the actions of Britain's Office...

EXCLUSIVE: The Reform UK MP is calling for a change of government amid the ongoing issue of migration.Lee Anderson hit out at Sir Keir Starmer in a bombshell chat with the Express – dubbing the Prime Minister "evil". The Reform UK MP for Ashfield exposed the Prime Minister's plan on migration during an interview in Canary Wharf, the location of recent protests after asylum seekers were moved into the Britannia International Hotel. Speaking with Express Investigations Editor Zak Garner-Purkis, Mr Anderson said: "This Keir Starmer, in my opinion, is evil. If you speak out, he'll put you in prison. And...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. wants all Americans to use “wearable” technology to track their health as part of his “MAHA” agenda. The Kennedy-clan strongman revealed his agency’s plan Tuesday for a massive push for Americans — who have an obesity rate of 40% — to use wearable data-collecting technology such as FitBits, Oura Rings, and Apple Watches, to promote healthier lifestyles. “We’re about to launch the biggest advertising campaign in HHS history to encourage Americans to use wearables,” Kennedy said in a House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing on Tuesday. ...

Zarqawi Associate Charged with Lying to FBI Friday, June 25, 2004 By Catherine Herridge and Anna Stolley A Lebanese national with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search), the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, was picked up in Minnesota and charged Friday in a New York court with lying to the FBI about his ties to terrorists, Fox News has learned. According to a federal complaint obtained by Fox, Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi (search), attended jihad training camps in Afghanistan in 1988 and ‘89, where he first met Zarqawi — who is believed to be directing the current attacks against U.S. and...

It’s official: Nowhere in Britain is safe from the woke speech police. First they stomped their jackboot on universities, where it’s now a risky business to express conservative opinions or even to state biological facts, including such sinful utterances as: “Men are not women.” Then they came for the workplace. Crack an off-color joke or voice a dissenting view and you might be made to take an “awareness-raising course” — or what the Soviets called re-education. Now the Woke Inquisition is feverishly eyeing yet another zone of British society for one of its joyless crackdowns, this time laying down its...

The British government has reportedly tasked a specialist police unit to surveil social media for anti-mass migration opinions as it braces for another potential summer of unrest. Rather than address the concerns of the public, such as removing the mostly young male illegal migrants from the taxpayer-funded hotel accommodations in communities across the country, the UK Home Office has formed the National Internet Intelligence Investigations to “maximise social media intelligence” about anti-mass migration sentiment on social media, according to The Telegraph. The team will work out of the Covid lockdown-enforcing National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC) in London. It comes amid...

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of 'trying to police opinions' by assembling an elite team of police officers to monitor growing anti-migrant sentiment online. Detectives are set to be drawn from forces around the country as the Government scrambles to crack down on potential violence by flagging up early signs of civil unrest on social media. It comes amid fears Britain could face another summer of disorder just 12 months after a wave of riots sparked scenes of chaos following the Southport murders. Earlier this month, demonstrations first flared up outside The Bell Hotel, in Epping, Essex, after an...

If you have any doubt that the European Union is devolving into a soft totalitarian state, think again. I have been sounding the alarm bells about the developments in Europe for as long as I have been writing at Hot Air, and some of you may have thought me an alarmist engaged in hyperbole. I am alarmed, of course, but by real threats to freedom. The latest assault on freedom--not just in Europe, because the EU and Great Britain are using their criminal and regulatory powers to suppress speech in the US as well as other countries--comes with the breaking...