Free Republic

Political elites worldwide have criticized big tech companies for banning President Donald Trump from their social media platforms. At present, the president has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit, and Instagram. Twitter permanently removed Trump’s account, saying that his recent posts were in violation of the “Glorification of Violence Policy.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Twitter’s ban on Trump “problematic,” and said that freedom of opinion is an essential right of “elementary significance,” her spokesperson, Steffen Siebert, said on Jan 11. “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined...

San Francisco (AFP) – Snapchat on Wednesday stopped promoting posts by US President Donald Trump, saying they incite “racial violence.” “We are not currently promoting the president’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform,” Snapchat said in response to an AFP inquiry, referencing the youth-focused social network’s section for recommended content. “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover.”

A teenage girl and her boyfriend have been charged in Lycoming County in what state police have described as a murder-for-hire scheme. Dillian Mikel Weaver, 19, of Williamsport, and Angelina Grace Peluso, 16, of Trout Run, are accused of wanting to kill her stepfather, Howard Blackburn. State police said they were angry because of his reaction to catching them in bed. There was no killing because an individual recruited to participate went to police. Weaver and Peluso were charged Friday with criminal solicitation to commit first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and criminal use of a communication device. They...

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 Long Island teen was fatally stabbed at a strip mall near his high school as dozens of other students pulled out their cellphones to record the melee rather than to help him, police said. Khaseen Morris, a 16-year-old senior at Oceanside High School, was stabbed once in the chest Monday afternoon during an apparent dispute over a girl. He later died at a hospital after many of the 50 to 70 teens who gathered nearby recorded the bloody attack and made no attempt to stop it, Nassau County police said at a news conference Tuesday. “Kids stood there and...

Teen Vogue posted a Snapchat story Saturday that instructs teenagers on how to obtain abortions, including how to navigate parental consent. Teen Vogue’s Snapchat story was featured on Snapchat’s Discovery page among a variety of other outlets’ stories — usually, 24-hour-lasting snaps displaying news and pop culture content that can cost advertisers around $50,000 a day, according to Wallaroo Media. The publication built on a June Teen Vogue article by writer Nona Willis Aronowitz in her column Down To Find Out, entitled “How to Get an Abortion If You’re a Teen.” Neither Snapchat nor Teen Vogue responded to multiple requests...

A student accused of opening fire at a Colorado school reportedly told investigators that he targeted peers who made fun of him for his gender identity, court documents show. Alec McKinney, 16, and Devon Erickson, 18, allegedly decided to carry out the shooting after exchanging messages on social media the day before the May 7 attack at STEM School Highlands Ranch near Denver, the documents show. The shooting resulted in the death of 18-year-old Kendrick Ray Castillo; eight others were injured. The police records, which were unsealed Thursday, show McKinney telling officers in an interview that he intended to “shoot...

A failure to grasp how technology and social media is being used to coerce, control, blackmail and track the movements of children as young as 11 by “county lines” drug gangs has seen an epidemic of child criminal exploitation spiral out of control in the UK. “For the past seven or eight years we have been warning the government, the authorities, teachers, anyone who would listen, that technology is the central organising feature of the county lines business model,” said Sheldon Thomas, a consultant on gang behaviour through his organisation Gangsline. (snip) ...Snapchat is used heavily as a recruitment channel,...

The sexual assault case against actor Kevin Spacey reportedly includes a Snapchat video of him touching the front of the alleged victim’s pants, according to a Massachusetts State Police investigative report. Spacey is facing a count of indecent assault on a person over the age of 14 for allegedly groping the teenage son of former WCVB news anchor Heather Unruh at a Nantucket bar in 2016. The State Police report, which has been filed with a criminal complaint in Nantucket District Court, gives the first detailed account of Spacey’s alleged actions at The Club Car bar and restaurant two-and-a-half years...

“We are horrified that a former teenage employee would conduct themselves in that way and make such a video of which we are investigating its authenticity,” said Richard Stula, the president of Teddy’s Bigger Burgers. The company initiated a “complete sanitization” and is replacing equipment and utensils at the fast-food restaurant after the video was shared with them several days ago, Stula said in the statement. “We will then send a corporate team in to inspect and complete a thorough audit of the location before it is allowed to re-open..."

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -- Teddy's Bigger Burgers has closed its Mapunapuna location for cleaning and fired an employee after a video posted on social media shows what appears to be a rat being cooked on the eatery's grill. The video was posted on Snapchat several days ago, and subsequently shared with the company. "We are horrified that a former teenage employee would conduct themselves in that way and make such a video of which we are investigating its authenticity," said Teddy's President Richard Stula, in a statement to Hawaii News Now. He said in addition to terminating the employee, Teddy's has...

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, apologized on Thursday after its map feature mislabeled New York City as “Jewtropolis.” Snap said that the incident was due to vandalism of data from OpenStreetMap, a service that allows users to edit and submit information to build its maps. "Snap Map, similar to other apps, relies on third-party mapping data from OpenStreetMap, which unfortunately has been vandalized,” a Snap spokesperson said in a statement. “This defacement is deeply offensive and entirely contrary to our values, and we want to apologize to any members of our community who saw it. As soon as we were...

A “Snapchat queen” who had her boyfriend killed and uploaded footage of him bleeding to death onto the social media app is facing years behind bars. Fatima Khan posted the video of dying 18-year-old Khalid Safi with the caption “That’s what happens when you #### with me.” The 21-year-old office worker, nicknamed “The Snapchat Queen” by her own lawyer, was addicted to the app and loved showing off to her friends online. Before Safi’s death, Fatima posted stories bragging about her luxury vacation in Qatar while ignoring his messages. She also branded him a “lowlife” before recruiting 19-year-old Raza Khan,...

Facebook JACKSON COUNTY, Ga. - Three women have been charged after they made a Snapchat video in a room with a dying woman and titled it "The End," police say. Jorden Lanah Bruce, 21, of Jefferson; Mya Janai Moss, 21, of Colbert; and Lizeth Jocelyn Cervantes Ramirez, 19, of Jefferson were all charged with exploiting an elderly and disabled person. “One of them was smoking a vape pen. They were using profanities and (making obscene hand gestures) at the camera,” a Jefferson Police Department detective said. The three woman worked at the Bentley Senior Living Facility in Jefferson, police said....

A Myrtle Beach teen is behind bars after police say he raped a girl, and later, with the help of three others, used guns to taunt her. Horry County police arrested 17-year-old Joshua Hughes Tuesday evening in connection with the incident. On June 8, an officer spoke with the 16-year-old female victim at a local hospital. On the night of June 6, Hughes picked her up from her Murrells Inlet home following their conversation on Snapchat, according to an incident report... Shortly after the rape, the two other males, along with a fourth suspect, began to bang on the door,...

Even millennials are getting sick of Instagram. More than half of users between the ages of 18 and 24 revealed they are “seeking relief from social media,” according to a survey. The poll, taken in December, found that 34 percent of young users reported having deleted social-media accounts entirely. Forty-one percent of respondents said they waste too much time on social media, and 35 percent agreed that people their age are too distracted by their online lives. The most popular apps to quit permanently are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as the dating app Tinder. Snapchat, on the other...

Thanks, Obama. The former president appeared at a sports analytics conference hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Friday. But if you were not an attendee at the event, don’t expect to hear much about what Barack Obama shared. Officials managing the 12th annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center put strict rules in place that extended beyond barring the media from divulging Obama’s insights. An e-mail sent to those heading to the venue for the “conversation with Obama” read like a line from the movie “Fight Club”: The first rule of seeing the...

With mom, dad and grandma signing up in increasing numbers, Facebook is losing younger users in the United States at a faster pace than previously estimated, researchers said Monday. A report by eMarketer said Snapchat is drawing youths away from Facebook at a quicker clip than Facebook-owned Instagram. Facebook is still growing in the US market, according to research firm, mainly due to increases in usage by older age groups. The report is the latest to highlight Facebook's problem with attracting and keeping young people, who have long been a core user base for the world's biggest social network. The...

If you know a high school student, or you are a high school student, and you haven’t reckoned with how that little device in your hand can wreck your life inside of a minute … it’s time to recognize just how dangerous social media can be. Today’s story, the latest in a long line of terrible ones, comes from Indiana, where a junior at Plainfield High School made the decision on Sept. 28 to post an inappropriate photo on Snapchat, and ended up altering several lives for the worse. Ben Slaton and his family recently talked to the Indianapolis Star...

The Saudi government said Al Jazeera's Snapchat channel was breaking local laws related to published material and cyber crime, according to Snap. Officials requested the removal of the channel from the app's Discover section, a Snap spokeswoman told CNNMoney on Monday. "We make an effort to comply with local laws in the countries where we operate," the spokeswoman said. ... The Qatar-owned news outlet has been in the crosshairs of several governments in the region during a prolonged diplomatic dispute in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain broke off relations with Qatar in June over...