Free Republic

When we last checked in on the Freedom Convoy in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was starting to play rough with the loud crowd camping out on the lawn at the Parliament building in Wellington. The protesters were being soaked with water from the sprinkler system and loud music was blaring at them around the clock. By that point, though, many people had gone home, leaving only a few hundred of them at the protest site. It seems that the harassment of the protesters and the refusal of any members of Parliament to come out and discuss their complaints...

Instagram is still plagued with disturbing eating disorder images that appear to violate the photo app’s rules — months after parent company Meta claimed it was cracking down. Despite a rash of bad press and Congressional scrutiny around the app’s toxic effects on teens, recent searches on Instagram have revealed accounts with names like “theprettiestareskinniest” and “be_skinnyb—ch” that feature images of emaciated bodies and which appear to encourage eating disorders, an investigation by The Post reveals.

The federal government has ordered a tougher crackdown on unruly airline passengers, directing states to prioritize prosecuting rowdy fliers as millions of Americans travel for Thanksgiving. US Attorney General Merrick Garland issued the directive in a memo Wednesday, saying disorderly travelers are interfering with critical jobs of crews on airlines “that help ensure safe air travel.”

Two major scientific journals have recently retracted articles on Uyghur DNA by Chinese researchers due to ethical concerns. The International Journal of Legal Medicine and Human Genetics retracted the two articles that were published in 2019 on Sept. 7 and Aug. 30 respectively. The scientific journals are owned by academic publisher Springer Nature. Both articles study more than 100 DNA samples from Uyghur minorities in China’s Xinjiang region in order to recreate their faces and heights. They have been questioned on whether they obtained the subjects’ full consent for the collecting of samples for the study. The Chinese communist regime...

Beijing has rolled out new regulations that could destroy various industries in China, including entertainment, tech, private education, and gaming.Xi Jinping is cracking down on celebrities, as well as Western influence in Chinese culture. He wants to reform capital markets so they will not be places where the rich can get rich quickly. The CCP leader is also not fond of videos games and has ordered that children be limited to one hour per day—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday only. The Bitcoin miners have also become targets for elimination, as they waste state resources. And, although tech companies have been the...

Last week, Reuters reported based on two anonymous sources that Amazon Web Services, which controls 40 percent of web hosting in the world, “plans to take a more proactive approach to determine what types of content violate its cloud service policies.”“Over the coming months, Amazon will hire a small group of people in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division to develop expertise and work with outside researchers to monitor for future threats, one of the sources familiar with the matter said. It could turn Amazon, the leading cloud service provider worldwide with 40% market share according to research firm Gartner,...

For months, Chinese authorities have been cracking down on the country’s powerful internet sector, targeting an array of companies over issues from anti-trust to data security. Now, online celebrity fan clubs are the latest to feel the heat. The regime’s top internet regulator, in a bid to rein in what it described as China’s “chaotic” celebrity fan culture, on Aug. 27 barred platforms from ranking celebrities’ popularity and restricted sales of fan merchandise. Restrictions are now slapped on celebrities’ public relations firms, social media accounts of fan clubs, and entertainment programs, with the Cyberspace Administration of China on Friday highlighting...

Chinese bourses have halted 42 initial public offerings (IPOs) amid a regulatory probe into four intermediaries in the deals. It marks the latest move in the Chinese regime’s escalating crackdown on the private sector.The Shenzhen Stock Exchange suspended more than 30 IPOs, including public share sale plans by the electronic carmaker BYD Co’s chip unit, on Aug. 18, according to exchange filings. Meanwhile, the Shanghai Stock Exchange has pressed the pause button on eight IPOs targeting the city’s tech-focused STAR Market since Aug. 19.Among those hit was Chinese electric car maker BYD’s chip unit. BYD Semiconductor had in May filed...

China has passed a sweeping data protection law that is set to impose strict control measures on the private sector’s handling of personal data, building on an already expansive crackdown on the country’s tech sector that has rattled global stock markets.The personal information protection law, passed through the Chinese Communist Party’s ceremonial legislature on Aug. 20, will require organizations and individuals to have a clear and reasonable purpose to “collect, use, process, transfer, trade, provide, or publicize other people’s personal information,” according to the text released by the National People’s Congress. It also requires companies to obtain individuals’ consent before...

The Delta variant is spreading rapidly in California and nationwide, but happily so are crackdowns by public and private employers aimed at limiting the ability of their unvaccinated workers to infect others with COVID-19.

President Duterte gave anti-vaxxers two choices: get anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin or leave the country since they don’t want to join the country’s COVID-19 vaccination program. “Ito ‘yong ayaw magpabakuna. Kayong ayaw magpabakuna, ipabakuna ko ‘yong itong sa bakuna ng baboy, ‘yong Ivermectin. Iyon ang ibakuna ko sa kanila (These people who don’t want to get vaccinated. If you don’t want to get vaccinated, I will vaccinate you with the vaccine for pigs, the Ivermectin. That’s what I will put in you),” the President said in his taped public address on Monday night. The parasitic drug Ivermectin is being used experimentally...

Every month 30 million people use Gab’s services to get access to the free flow of information online. Gab is the home of free speech in a world where Big Tech oligarchs have censored, deplatformed, and demonized tens of millions of good, honest, and decent people with whom they disagree politically. Tonight Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a “Republican,” issued a despicable and false statement smearing Gab as an “anti-semitic platform that quote “has no place in Texas.” This is the same Gov. Abbott who just five days ago said he was “taking a stand against Big Tech censorship.” Gov. Abbott’s...

National Guardsmen arrive as the Capitol goes into lockdown during the dress rehearsal ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration in Washington, on Jan. 18, 2021. (Rod Lamkey/Pool via Reuters) Leading American constitutional lawyer, Glenn Greenwald, wrote about the growing power of police and security agencies against domestic “terrorism,” which could replicate “many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago.” Greenwald points to recent events that demonstrate this strong trend, “an orgy of censorship from Silicon Valley monopolies with calls for far more aggressive speech policing.” ‘An orgy of censorship’ And they...

President Trump announced new restrictions for American travelers going to Cuba, barring them from purchasing rum and tobacco or staying in Cuban government-funded hotels. The Treasury Department announced regulatory changes under the new rules that restrict importing Cuba-origin alcohol and tobacco products and prevent travelers from attending or organizing certain professional meetings or conferences in Cuba, as well as public performances, clinics, workshops, competitions, and other exhibitions in the country. Trump also applied new sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua as part of an ongoing crackdown against communism.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised to crack down on large social events in Brooklyn after The Post reported three banquet halls in Borough Park appeared to be hosting Hasidic Jewish wedding parties on just one night this week after Mayor Bill de Blasio warned that a similar gathering there led to an “uptick” in coronavirus cases. “In the case of New York City, if there’s any evidence, or plans of weddings that would violate the law, they should forward those complaints to the NYPD or the mayor. If the mayor is not doing any enforcement actions, then the state will,” Cuomo...

Earlier I wrote about the Chinese government’s concern over the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment building around the world because of the coronavirus pandemic. A recent think tank report said the backlash could be the worst China has faced since Tiananmen Square in 1989. But it’s not just the external backlash that has China worried. The government is also trying to crack down on internal dissent from people who are understandably angry that their relatives died in the outbreak. Some had even tried to organize lawsuits but the police were quick to shut down those efforts. The Chinese authorities are...

DR. AI FEN According to China’s Ministry of Public Security, police investigated more than 5,100 instances of “fabricating and deliberately disseminating false and harmful information” between January 20 and February 21. The actual number as of today is unknown as are details of most of the cases. However, a group called Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) has collected information on 897 such cases between January 1 and March 26. What they found was government censorship of social media which resulted in some people having their social media accounts deleted and others being put into administrative detention. From our incomplete list...

The arrests have raised questions about whether the crown prince was on the verge of taking full power from his father, King Salman. The scope of a new roundup of Saudi royals widened on Saturday with word that a fourth senior prince has been detained under orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to two Saudis close to the royal family, in a sign that he is determined to crack down on even whispers of dissent. The wave of arrests has ensnared a former head of army intelligence, Prince Nayef bin Ahmed, as well as at least three other...

Despite what Google describes as a “shift towards censorship” from big tech companies over the past three years, Democrat presidential candidates have said that they will use the power of the law to force even more censorship from Silicon Valley. Responding to a query from the far-left website Vox, Democrat candidates including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg all pledged to force big tech companies to crack down on “hate” even further.

SHANGHAI — The video app TikTok on Wednesday reversed its decision to block an American teenager who posted a clip in which she discussed the mass internment of minority Muslims in China, and acknowledged that its moderation system had overreached in shutting her out of her account. The incident raised fresh concerns about whether TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, muzzles its users in line with censorship directives from Beijing — an accusation the company has denied. TikTok said the teenager, Feroza Aziz, 17, had been barred from using her personal device to access the app,...