Free Republic

CBS12 gets answers for firearms dealers and gun store owners claiming social media giant Facebook is banning them as users. This week, two different gun store owners told CBS12 the same story: after the Orlando terror attack, they were personally suspended from Facebook and their business pages were suddenly unpublished. Andy Hallinan, the owner of Florida Gun Supply in Inverness, Florida, first made headlines for turning his gun store into a "Muslim-free" zone. He told us that, this week, he experienced problems on Facebook. "I woke up this morning to my phone just lighting up. People couldn't access my Facebook...

Loring Wirbel has resigned as co-chair of the Colorado Springs chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado after facing mounting criticism for a Facebook post that said people voting for Donald Trump should be told "I will have to shoot you before election day."Wirbel told The Gazette Thursday night that the post wasn't meant to be taken seriously."It was intended totally as a joke," Wirbel said. "They are taking that stuff out of context. It's smear politics."However, Wirbel said he could see how the post was offensive.Daniel Cole, executive director of the El Paso County Republican Party, was...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overheard confronting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over incendiary posts on the social network, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, amid complaints from her government about anti-immigrant posts in the midst of Europe's refugee crisis. On the sidelines of a United Nations luncheon on Saturday, Merkel was caught on a hot mic pressing Zuckerberg about social media posts about the wave of Syrian refugees entering Germany, the publication reported. The Facebook CEO was overheard responding that "we need to do some work" on curtailing anti-immigrant posts about the refugee crisis. "Are you working on this?" Merkel asked in...

SURF CITY, N.C.(WECT) – Surf City Police Chief Mike Halstead has retired effective immediately following a Tuesday emergency meeting called about a Facebook post he made. Major Ron Shanahan will take over as interim chief. Town leaders and Halstead have agreed on severance pay following his decision to retire. According to Town Manager Larry Bergman, Surf City Mayor Zander Guy called the emergency meeting in reference to Halstead’s post he made to his personal page on Sept. 3. Bergman said he spoke with Halstead about the post after it was brought to his attention. He said he reminded him “that...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - A Lexington man was accused of breaking into a Lexington gym Monday. Managers said one of the ways they identified him was through Facebook. (snip) Gym management said they caught Sipe on surveillance cameras checking doorknobs throughout the facility. While inside, officers said he made several calls on the phone and used the computers. "What he did do, which is wonderful, is set up on Facebook and leave his Facebook page open and tell his buddies on instant message that he's breaking into workout anytime trying to steal whatever he could find," Cowden said. Before leaving,...

Indian Facebook users are seeing a pop-up message regarding internet.org service. The missive of the message is to gauge if people are interested in free internet service. The problem with the message is that it doesn’t let you say ‘no.’ Here’s a snippet of Quart’z article on Facebook’s heavy-handed approach: The prompt asks users to “show your support for free basic internet services in India,” a sentiment that is difficult to disagree with. Indeed, that must be why Facebook does not provide the option to disagree. The only possible responses are “Not now” and “Yes, I’m In”. Facebook exerting its...

'Now My family Is Pain-Free And In Heaven': Chilling Facebook confession of father who 'shot dead his daughter, 19, to relieve her of debilitating migraines... then killed his wife and sister' Randy Janzen wrote 'chilling confession to fatal shootings on Facebook' Said his torment over daughter Emily's migraines had led him to kill her 'Now she is migraine free and floating in the clouds,' he apparently wrote Added he had shot his wife so she wouldn't have to hear Emily had died And he gunned down sister so she did not 'have to live with this shame' Shortly after post...

A Maaco body shop worker will be suspended for leaving a profane, threatening message telling a customer's husband to "get her in check" after her she posted a scathing review on Facebook, the company said Friday. Ella May Rudd posted the recording she says was left on her husband's phone, triggering a torrent of withering comments from social media users and an apology from Maaco Franchising LLC of Charlotte, North Carolina. "I'm a strong woman," said Rudd, 32, a stay-at-home mother of two young boys. "I walked into Maaco and confronted" the employee "myself after he left that voicemail. I...

On Friday, C.J. Pearson, a 12-year-old conservative from Georgia who posted a viral video supporting Rudy Giuliani, discovered that his personal Facebook page was locked. In an exclusive interview with Examiner.com on Saturday, Pearson said he received a message from someone about 6 a.m. Friday. That's when he learned his account and page had been locked for "suspicious activity." He jumped through all of Facebook's hoops, but wasn't able to recover his account. So he created a new profile to take its place. His public page was not affected, he said, however, he can no longer administer the page....

Debora Vailes re-posted on her personal Facebook page a photograph of a little girl crying because of the shortcomings of Common Core. Later that day, her school principal, Dr. Dana Nolan, after discovering the post, gave Deborah Vailes her first written reprimand and ordered her to refrain from expressing any opinion about public education on social media and to remove her anti-Common Core post from the social media site – ASAP. (The school district refers to written reprimands as a “documented conferences.”) Dr. Nolan further informed Deborah that she could not to discuss her opinion in public – on any...

Frankfort, Ky. (CBS CLEVELAND) – A man indicted on arson and burglary charges allegedly set fire to a woman’s home after she rejected his advances on Facebook. Frankfort police say the “disturbing” reason that James Graham, 37, broke into a 22-year-old single mother’s Franklin County home and set it on fire on Nov. 28 is because she “rebuffed” several uncomfortable comments he posted to her Facebook wall, WLEX-TV reports. Investigators say Graham set Joanie Yount’s Hillview Drive home on fire in November, although she and her 3-year-old son were not home at the time.

A member of New York Firearms posted both a statement and a picture that claims the city of Watervliet, New York is asking for their Facebook profile and password when registering their pistol. The post, made Wednesday evening, recounting this story: I had the form filled out with all my references, notarized, photos taken, driving record, and safety course. I went in and the officer took my folder in the back and came out and told me I have a lot more work to do and hands me a new packet including the main form except this one is on...

Shoving an unneeded messenger app down the throat of your entire user base is a guaranteed way to upset people and leave them feeling disillusioned, asking questions like “why do I suddenly need this?” While there’s no indication that Facebook harbors malicious intent, the company is collecting enormous amounts of data about the users of its applications, states iOS forensics specialist and security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski. This should come as no surprise considering that most mobile apps run some sort of analytics on user behavior, although Facebook’s apps ─ according to Zdziarski – have more spyware type code in...

Bay Area law enforcement officials are turning to Facebook and Twitter to combat prostitution by posting names and photos of men arrested on solicitation charges. Police departments that have taken to shaming "johns" on social media include Oakland, Richmond and Fresno. The move has garnered some controversy, with lawyers and legal experts worrying that defendants who might be ultimately innocent could see their reputations tarnished because of the postings, SFGate reported.

For many years I resisted joining Facebook. I looked at it with disdain, as nothing more than a do-it-yourself surveillance network, a government spy’s treasure trove, which, of course, it is. I finally decided it could also be a useful tool in sharing my columns and networking with fellow patriots. I knew I wouldn’t stupidly post information about myself that I didn’t want everyone and their dog to know, like photographs of my lunch and when and where I’m away from home at the moment (hello, house burglar!), so I broke down and joined last October. I quickly learned how...

CALLAHAN, Fla. — A Florida mom is fuming after her 4-year-old son was kicked out of preschool because of something she posted to her own Facebook page. Ashley Habat doesn’t think her 4-year-old son should be punished for what she wrote. Habat said her son, Will, was late for school on picture day at his private Christian preschool.

My colleague Kashmir Hill just reported that Facebook conducted their news feed manipulation four months before the term “research” was added to their data use policy, she writes: However, we were all relying on what Facebook’s data policy says now. In January 2012, the policy did not say anything about users potentially being guinea pigs made to have a crappy day for science, nor that “research” is something that might happen on the platform. Four months after this study happened, in May 2012, Facebook made changes to its data use policy, and that’s when it introduced this line about how...

Pennsylvania man Anthony Elonis has historically enjoyed saying outrageous things on Facebook, such as how he would like to murder his estranged wife; shoot up an elementary school; sneak into an amusement park he was fired from to wreak havoc; slit the throats of a female co-worker and a female FBI agent; and use explosives on the state police, the sheriff’s department, and any SWAT team that might come to his house. Elonis has never actually done any of these things, but he did spend the last three and a half years in prison for saying that he would.

Is it time for you to delete your Facebook account permanently? This guy thinks so, and his arguments may just convince you. You should take a moment to hear what he has to say and then decide for yourself.

Hate it when people rant on Facebook? Well, one New Jersey mom has actually been banned from doing just that. A judge has ordered one unidentified woman not to go on Facebook to rant about her children or ex-husband. This comes after the woman attempted to kidnap her two kids and take them to Canada. (Via The Star-Ledger) The case goes back to 2011. The social media restrictions were placed on her as a condition of her probation after her ex-husband's family and local officials found her posts disturbing. According to New Jersey's The Daily Journal, those posts involved her...