Free Republic

once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks. The GOP offensive started during the 2020 election as public critiques and has since escalated into lawsuits, governmental inquiries and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in stopping almost all coordination between the government and social media platforms.

Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr is calling the Biden administration's "digital equity" plan for all internet services and infrastructure an "unlawful power grab." Biden’s plan hands the Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure in the country. Never before, in the roughly 40-year history of the public Internet, has the FCC (or any federal agency for that matter) claimed this degree of control over it. Indeed, Biden’s plan calls for the FCC to apply a far-reaching set of government controls that the agency has not applied to any technology in the modern era, including Title II...

Nextdoor: one big ‘Karen’ clambake of angry menopausal harpies.. Social media giant Nextdoor, which I refer to as one big “Karen” clambake of angry menopausal harpies, announced it will lay off 25% of its staff in a financial report posted Tuesday. Cue the violins… millions of people won’t care at all – or will celebrate. The most toxic of all of the social media organizations, Nextdoor is the hyperlocal “neighborhood” website which claims, “it’s where communities come together to greet newcomers, exchange recommendations, and read the latest local news. Where neighbors support local businesses and get updates from public agencies....

Former President Barack Obama helped draft the new White House artificial intelligence policy that President Joe Biden rolled out earlier this week, according to aides familiar with the situation. … Ahead of its debut, Obama -- who has long had interest in AI -- assisted the Biden team with the plan, an Obama aide told ABC News. Obama held meetings with AI industry leaders, where he pressed them and made them aware of not just the national security concerns AI poses, but also other issues with AI such as bias and discrimination, the aide said. Obama also met with congressional...

It's been two years since Google first debuted Project Green Light, a novel means of addressing the street-level pollution caused by vehicles idling at stop lights. At its Sustainability ‘23 event on Tuesday, the company discussed some of the early findings from that program and announced another wave of expansions for it. Green Light uses machine learning systems to comb through Maps data to calculate the amount of traffic congestion present at a given light, as well as the average wait times of vehicles stopped there. That information is then used to train AI models that can autonomously optimize the...

Orwell could not have imagined the swiftness in which the Left has exerted control over our body politic... In George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” he portrays English society – renamed Oceania – as a futuristic version of the 1940s Soviet Union. In this invented society that Orwell calls IngSoc – English Socialism – the populace has even less freedom than the Soviets permitted its citizens and life consists only of drudgery, loneliness and hideousness. The novel grips the reader with fear and loathing of a totalitarian future enabled by technological advances and prompts one with the question: “Can it, will...

Today in insanity, James O'Keefe's O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) recently released nearly 20 minutes of police bodycam footage, obtained through FOIA requests, which showed New Jersey school board officials calling the police on citizens who they claimed looked “Trumpish.” “The police colluded with school officials to scan license plates of school board meeting attendees who looked different,” OMG head James O’Keefe said. Because, you know, the Left doesn’t like those who look “different.” Or think different. In fact, progressives want to persecute anyone who looks “Trumpish.” And they are actively doing so to Trump and his supporters. One might state,...

Even things like the consumer’s “preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes” are tracked, shared, and sold. Vehicle manufacturers are now tracking and storing some very personal data inside the car’s internal computers, including things like if you have sex inside the car and even your unique genetics. As highlighted by popular YouTuber Louis Rossman, a staunch right-to-repair advocate, highlighted how vehicles are becoming more and more invasive in what they are collecting on drivers and passengers. (snip) Mozilla did not mince words when giving their judgment on Nissan’s privacy policy. The group wrote: We’re not...

The controversial ultra-low emission zone was expanded to cover the whole of Greater London this week. Now, the Metropolitan Police has revealed the force received 159 reports of ULEZ cameras being stolen and 351 reports of cameras being damaged between April and August. More than 500 crimes relating to stealing and damaging ULEZ cameras have been committed in the last five months, the Metropolitan Police have revealed. A crime can include more than one offence and the number has almost doubled in the past month because by 1 August, the Met had recorded 288 crimes. The ULEZ was expanded to...

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has purportedly partnered with AI tech firm Fivecast to deploy social media surveillance software that, according to its proprietor, can detect “problematic” emotions of social media users and subsequently report them to law enforcement for further action. According to a post on pjmedia.com, “Outlet 404, through FOIA requests, uncovered various Fivecast marketing documents elaborating on its software’s utility for law enforcement.” 404’s report on said documents stated: Customs and Border Protection (CBP), part of the Department of Homeland Security, has bought millions of...

Americans may be urged to drink no more than one or two beers weekly as part of stricter new alcohol guidelines. President Biden's alcohol czar, George Koob, the director for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), told Dailymail.com that the USDA could change its Alcohol laws to match Canada, where people are advised to drink that drink per week. He said: "If there are health benefits, I think people will start evaluating where we're at (In the US)." Currently, the US recommends that women have up to one bottle of beer, a small glass of wine, or...

Fourteen major American cities are part of a globalist climate organization known as the “C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group,” which has an “ambitious target” by the year 2030 of “0 kg [of] meat consumption,” “0 kg [of] dairy consumption,” “3 new clothing items per person per year,” “0 private vehicles” owned, and “1 short-haul return flight (less than 1500 km) every 3 years per person.” C40’s dystopian goals can be found in its “The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World” report, which was published in 2019 and reportedly reemphasized in 2023. The organization is headed and largely funded...

Google has partnered with the United Nations, World Health Organisation and others in a new global censorship tool that was introduced last Monday, according to LaToya Drake, head of Google News Lab.Google News Lab is “a team within the Google News Initiative whose mission is to collaborate with journalists to fight misinformation” and other things. And, the Google News Initiative (“GNI”) “works with publishers and journalists to fight misinformation.” The GNI and its Lab seem to be one and the same thing with the Lab simply being a page on the GNI website.Below are the short descriptions from GNI’s ‘About’...

State governments have historically generated revenue to maintain roads, traffic lights, and the like by adding a tax at the pump. Owing to the federal government-prodded transition to electric vehicles (EVs) to combat something called “climate change,” states stand to lose out on this source of revenue as EVs obviously don’t require gasoline to operate. Utah’s novel solution is to charge a “per-mile fee” for EVs with a government GPS tracker attached to monitor movement. Via the Utah Department of Transportation: "Utah roads are maintained using taxes from gasoline sales. As vehicles become more fuel efficient and the number of...

It doesn’t matter whether you know the government is specifically spying on you. It’s damaging enough to believe that it might be. “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” Writing in 1928, John Shedd wasn’t really talking about ships. He was talking about life. And in American life, we no longer feel safe even in the harbor. Years ago, my girlfriend and I went to see a movie. What we saw, I’ve no idea, but I do know we had a terrible time, and it had nothing to do with what was on the...

Since Theodore Roosevelt broke Standard Oil and Woodrow Wilson created the Federal Reserve, our government has invaded our once “free enterprise” system with consistently disastrous results. I caught a song on the radio yesterday, from one of my favorite vinyl efforts by the Doobie Brothers, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits. A great album, fitting for a generation that took to the vices of drinking and smoking cigarettes among other things… The same generation found such habits are hazardous for one’s health, and are a lot harder to get rid of than they were to attain. Governments are like...

Chinese President Xi Jinping said China must build a "solid" security barrier around its internet under the supervision of the ruling Communist Party, in his latest call to safeguard online data and information. China must persist in managing, operating and ensuring access to the internet in accordance with the law, Xi said in instructions delivered to officials attending a two-day cybersecurity meeting in Beijing that ended on Saturday (Jul 15). "We must adhere to the Party's management of the internet and adhere to (the principle of) making the internet work for the people," state-run Xinhua news agency cited Xi as...

#1 Mark Zuckerberg privately told Facebook execs to be cautious about mRNA vaccines because "we just don't know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people's DNA and RNA." He then censored scientists, doctors, and mRNA vaccine-injured individuals. ... #2 On March 15, 2020, Mark Zuckerberg emailed Tony Fauci and said, "I also wanted to share a few ideas of ways we could help you get your message out." Zuckerberg proceeded to censor scientists, doctors, and citizens who opposed Fauci's school closures, lockdowns, and mandates. ... #3 Mark Zuckerberg banned numerous vaccine injury support groups with hundreds of thousands of...

One day after a federal judge temporarily barred key Biden administration officials and federal agencies from communicating with social media platforms about censoring specific online content, Mark Zuckerberg launched Threads — Meta’s new social media platform intended to compete with Twitter. “But have no fear all, hope for censorship isn’t lost,” journalist Kim Iversen told viewers of “The Kim Iversen Show,” “because yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg‘s Twitter knockoff, Threads, was unveiled and it immediately began censoring users.” Iversen reported the app was released with much fanfare, but she said she doubts it will become a real competitor to Twitter for several...

A national mass surveillance system boosted by artificial intelligence (AI) took root in another state. The town council of Jackson, Wyoming, agreed in a close vote last month to install the 30 solar-powered license plate recognition (LPR) cameras along their streets and traffic lights, which feeds into a centralized surveillance system managed by the private company Flock Safety. The town is the first in the state of Wyoming to install the cameras. Council members who agreed to the measure expressed reluctance with their decision. Councilman Jonathan Schechter indicated his belief that the cameras marked a negative trend down an undesirable...