Free Republic

The debate over sexuality in America has moved far beyond what behaviors are okay and what is off-limits. Buried beneath, there is a deeper misunderstanding of what it means to be human. The argument in our culture is about whether anything physical—i.e., our bodies—has anything to do with the way we should live our lives. John Piper got to the heart of this issue earlier this month, discussing transgenderism and Laverne Cox' assertion to Time magazine that biological gender "doesn't necessarily mean anything inherently." (Of course, if you're a naturalist, the case could be made that your "inherent" sexual desires...

Despite President Obama’s claim Thursday that he’s “never surprised by controversies that are whipped up in Washington,” the administration and its fans are struggling to tamp down widespread criticism of the deal that traded one soldier — who fellow infantrymen say deserted them — with five top Taliban prisoners held at the U.S. prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It’s a fair bet, given President Obama’s triumphant announcement in the Rose Garden featuring Bowe Bergdahl’s parents, that those in his inner circle severely miscalculated how such a presentation would go over with Americans. As they scramble to respond, they’ve made...

....Many citizens are understandably uneasy when it comes to Bowe Bergdahl. Just when you think the situation can’t get any worse, another shoe seems to drop. Did the White House really do “the right thing” when it traded five Taliban leaders for a suspected deserter? Tweeter @CuffyMeh can’t help but be reminded of another big swap that didn’t end well:

The Secret Service is purchasing software to watch users of social networks in real time, according to contract documents. In a work order posted on Monday, the agency details information the tool will collect -- ranging from emotions of Internet users to old Twitter messages. Its capabilities will include “sentiment analysis,”

Saudi authorities are cracking down on social media, the Saudi Gazette reports Monday, and are in the process of reviewing the Anti-Cybercrime Law to allow legal proceedings to be filed against social networking sites for allowing accounts which promote adultery, atheism, and homosexuality. The Saudi Anti-Cybercrime Law was enacted by royal decree on March 26, 2007. According to the Gazette, the law—like many cyber-security laws enacted since the rise of the internet—aims “to ensure information security, protection of rights pertaining to the legitimate use of computers and information networks.” But it also functions as a “big brother” over the Saudi...

In the early days of the internet, there was much talk of how the web would connect us all, thereby furthering knowledge and fostering community. Yet for all its advocates’ and early adopters’ optimism about its potential to enable us to organise, think and influence one another, freed from institutional supervision or what the newcomers frequently described as “mainstream media bias”, one thing has remained consistently problematic: comments posted under articles or blogs (or “below the line” in internet-speak). ~snip~ One of the great questions for the future of the net is: to what extent this extraordinary freedom will be...

This week, a picture emerged of Islamist terror group Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau holding a machine gun in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. On that paper was scrawled: "#WeSurrender." Thus came to an end the Great Hashtag War of 2014. Led by the bravery of First Lady Michelle Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Democratic women of the United States Senate, the West tweeted Boko Haram into submission. When Obama released the H-bomb of twitter -- a sad duck-faced picture of herself in an empty room holding a sign reading #BringBackOurGirls...

In January, the Obama administration put together a "working group" to analyze how huge swaths of Americans' data are being gathered and stored and what sort of privacy issues need to be addressed. The group's report was just released this week. Before you ask: No, it's not about the National Security Agency (NSA) sweeping up huge amounts of metadata from phone and online communications by Americans, even though that’s the big data conversation many Americans want to have right now. Such data gathering is vaguely mentioned in the full report, but primarily the 85-page study (pdf) is about consumer privacy...

If an Islamic terrorist is apprehended in Detroit or blows himself up in Stockholm, it doesn’t usually take long to trace their career progression back to Britain. The CIA despairingly refers to “Londonistan”, but the phrase doesn’t quite do justice to Britain’s ability to incubate terrorism all over the country. For various reasons – chiefly our being quicker to accept asylum-seekers than expel villains – Britain has ended up as a kind of finishing school for jihadis.

The founder of Russia’s leading social media network—a wunderkind often described as Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg—has left his post as CEO and fled the country as cronies of President Vladimir Putin have made steady inroads into the company’s ownership. The slow-motion ouster of Pavel Durov from the network known as VKontakte, or “In Contact,” is the latest sign that independent media outlets in Russia have become increasingly imperiled. Although months in the making, the loss of Durov’s leadership in VKontakte means that the space for free speech on the Russian web could shrink even further. …

This is the power of social media. This is the power of personal video cameras. This is the power of citizen journalists. And the next time Senator Feinstein calls for “licencing” only “legitimate journalists,” that the 1st Amendment only extends to people who work at the New York Times, Washington Post, or MSNBC, remember this moment. This is how the bullies with the power, the cronies and their allies, are turned back. Dianne Feinstein First Amendment Is A Special Privilege This is not about a rancher owing the Bureau of Land Management money. This is about a federal government which...

Just ten days after becoming CEO of web company Mozilla, Brendan Eich resigned after drawing the ire of LGBT advocates. In 2008, Eich donated money to the Proposition 8 campaign, an effort around legislation to make same-sex marriage illegal in California. When he was announced as the new Mozilla head, members of the LGBT community and even Mozilla employees expressed their dissatisfaction through social media and called for Eich’s resignation. Many have since spoken out against the backlash calling it unfair. On Monday’s “NewsOne Now,” Roland Martin was joined by a panel of guests to discuss the news, whether the...

What do the forced departure of Brendan Eich from Mozilla and #CancelColbert have in common? They are both examples of Fakectivism. Fakectivism is social media activism by small numbers of people that is integrated into the news cycle because it matches the media’s political agenda.Every Tea Party member knows that media coverage of actual protests is unequal. Twenty students, most of them volunteers at an environmental non-profit, protesting Keystone will get media coverage that a thousand Tea Party members protesting ObamaCare won’t receive.The same is true of online protests.Many of the real life protests covered by the media are fake....

Everyday, our feeds on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are flooded with the same old crap. Girls are going crazy taking pictures of EVERYTHING throughout their days, and subjecting their friends to this garbage on all the social media sites. These following 20 [sic] pictures are the most commonly posted, and the reason Zuckerberg gave us an 'unfriend' button.

FireChat is one of the most interesting new communications products to arrive in the past year. Mostly because it’s not another take on standard messaging. By which I mean it’s not another WhatsApp clone. FireChat is a hyperlocal chat tool that allows smartphones to connect to each other directly, without the need for WiFi hotspots or cellular networks. As long as two devices (or a bunch of devices in a small space) can connect to one another, using Bluetooth or their WiFi radios, they’ll be able to chat. (Typically, every communication your smartphone gets from another smartphone comes through an...

A woman abandoned as a newborn 27 years ago in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, fast-food restaurant bathroom has been reunited with her birth mother after a social media blitz, local media reported on Wednesday. Katheryn Deprill, left in the Burger King bathroom only hours after she was born, met her birth mother on Monday in a lawyer’s office, she told WFMZ television in an interview. Deprill said her birth mother, who she did not identify, recounted getting pregnant after being raped while on a trip abroad and giving birth in her childhood bedroom at the age of 17. Her parents did...

Recent events in Turkey, and prior events in Egypt and Libya got me thinking about the amazing power of social media. On Thursday, Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to eradicate twitter, adding “The international community can say this or that – I don’t care. They will see the power of the Turkish Republic.” The next day a "digital coup" occurred and Twitter Use in Turkey Jumped to New High. With the above in mind, I propose ... The Law of Social Media: Arrogant fools who think they can control social media quickly discover social media controls them. The...

Even if you weren’t one of the 28.2 million Americans watching the 2014 Grammys last month, you probably caught wind of the controversy over Beyoncé’s raunchy performance of her song “Drunk in Love,” featuring her husband Jay-Z. Perhaps it was her lingerie-like outfit or her chair dancing or the part where Jay-Z grasped her rear, but this was one of those moments when parents find themselves putting their hands over their children’s eyes—or flipping to another channel. Beyoncé, a mother of a 2-year old, raked in tons of media attention for that performance. Some of the publicity was negative. The...

"Al-Qaeda unveils new magazine aimed at Western jihadis Advert for 'Resurgence' magazine uses words of Malcolm X in appeal to disaffected Muslims in US and Europe, as it turns focus away from Middle East" SNIPPET: "Al-Qaeda is starting an English language magazine as part of a fresh effort to recruit and inspire Western jihadis to launch attacks in their own countries, according to security analysts. A video posted on YouTube uses the words of Malcolm X to justify violent struggle, before announcing the name of the magazine, Resurgence." SNIPPET: "However, the new magazine appears to be the first English language...

<p>Los Angeles gang members have joined the fray in Syria. The gang-bangers are reportedly fighting alongside the regime forces.</p> <p>MEMRI posted the transcript.</p> <p>A video-clip recently posted on the Internet shows two Armenian Power gang members from Los Angeles fighting in Syria. One of them, Wino Ayee Peeyakan, also posted a picture of himself in Hizbullah garb on his Facebook page.</p>