Free Republic

Back in the day, when I was managing editor at the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., I enjoyed the end-of-year ritual of voting in the Associated Press’s poll of the Top 10 news stories.When I started participating in the year 2000, my list would include many of the same stories that made the final AP list, although often with differences in ranking. But by the time I retired in 2018, my view of the news had sharply diverged from the AP’s consensus view. I’d become something of a gadfly by then, questioning what seemed to be an ever more...

The lawsuit alleges Twitter defamed the computer store owner in an attempt to justify its censorship of The New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden selling access to his father.On Monday, attorneys for the owner of the Delaware-based computer shop who serviced Hunter Biden’s laptop filed suit in a Florida federal district court against Twitter for defamation. John Paul Mac Isaac’s lawsuit alleges Twitter defamed him by labeling him a hacker in an attempt to justify its censorship of The New York Post’s bombshell story exposing the younger Biden selling access to his father.Three weeks before the 2020 presidential election,...

Facebook has restricted “distribution” of Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson’s page due to the “repeated sharing of false news.” The censorship comes just over a month before the presidential election. “Your Page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news. People will also be able to see if a Page has a history of sharing false news,” read Facebook’s notice. Facebook did not specify which post or posts had led to the decision.

Americans increasingly believe social media companies like Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR) are censoring political speech despite a lack of any hard evidence of such bias. According to a recent survey of 4,708 U.S. adults conducted by the Pew Research Center between June 16 and June 22, 73% of respondents say that it is somewhat or very likely that social media sites purposely censor political viewpoints they find objectionable. The survey results come at a fraught time for social networks like Twitter and Facebook as they attempt to clamp down on misinformation and foreign interference ahead of the 2020 elections,...

WASHINGTON — A pair of documentary film organizations sued the Trump administration on Thursday over its requirement that foreigners disclose their social media accounts — including pseudonymous ones — when they apply for visas. The lawsuit, which raises novel issues about privacy and surveillance in the social-media era, challenged a rule the State Department put into effect this year. The requirement grew out of President Trump’s campaign promise of “extreme vetting” and his early executive orders that barred travel into the United States from several Muslim-majority nations. In particular, the lawsuit argues, forcing people from authoritarian countries to disclose the...

James Bond fans have heaped praise on writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge for championing women's empowerment after the first full trailer for the latest installment was released on Wednesday. The new promotional clip sent viewers into meltdown as lead actress Lashana Lynch was unveiled as fierce agent Nomi - rumoured to be the first female 007 - alongside James Bond actor Daniel Craig, his love Madeleine (Lea Seydoux) and his aid Paloma, played by Ana de Armas. And with the theme of feminism present in the film, excited social media users lauded Fleabag's Phoebe, 34, for bringing female characters to the forefront...

'That's why I'm not on Twitter anymore' Democratic congressional candidate Valerie Plame (N.M.) blamed social media, specifically Twitter, on Monday night for why she interacted with an anti-Semitic website in 2017. Plame appeared on CNN's Cuomo Prime Time to discuss her official campaign launch as she runs for New Mexico's open Third Congressional District seat. After talking about her new campaign ad, host Chris Cuomo pressed Plame in a series of questions about sharing articles from the fringe site UNZ Review in September 2017, including one accusing "American Jews" of "driving America's wars." "You have retweeted or shown interest in...

On Tuesday Facebook released the results of a study on bias within and by the platform against conservative perspectives and activity on the platform. It was led by former U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and his team at corporate law firm Covington & Burling LLP.The report confirmed what many had already been experiencing firsthand in the years since social media has become central to global communications, business, governance, and interactivity – that many voices on the right felt subject to arbitrary purposefully targeted restrictions on their ability to operate freely within the terms of services of the platform.Senator Kyl and...

Republicans were clutching their pearls on Monday night after President Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, showed up to the State of the Union address in a fitted white dress — with many considering it a show of solidarity with female Democrats and women from the suffrage movement. The move was mostly done by female lawmakers on the left, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but women from both sides of the aisle had been asked to participate. Tiffany was the only female member of the Trump family who wear white. “Welcome to the resistance,” joked one Twitter user...

Not long after making headlines for taking aim at the “old, white men” of the NFL and accusing them of having a “slave mentality”, LeBron James has caused another stir, this time on social media. The NBA icon posted a photo of himself on Instagram captioned with lyrics from a song by American rapper 21 Savage, writing: “We getting that Jewish money. Everything is Kosher.” The LA Lakers star soon found himself under heavy fire for perpetuating a stereotype about Jewish people. Host of YouTube show Pittsburgh Sports Live Mike J. Asti wrote on Twitter: “Current NBA Commissioner Adam Silver...

A group of civil rights organizations is pushing technology companies to create policies to more effectively address hate speech and extremist groups. The six organizations, joined by 40 other organizations who echoed the call, wrote in a report that they want the platforms to take more firm stances against “racism, sexism, xenophobia, religious bigotry, homophobia and transphobia,” and enforce policies against hate speech and extremist groups more strictly. The groups, which include the Center for American Progress, Color Of Change, Free Press, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the Southern Poverty Law...

NSFW: https://twitter.com/svershbow/status/1048286595017834496 This person - Sophie Vershbow -- is the Social Media director for Penguin/Randomhouse. Their contact into: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/about-us/contact-us/

Representatives from thirteen states and Washington, D.C., are converging in Washington for a meeting about a possible antitrust lawsuit against top tech companies over alleged bias against conservatives, according to BuzzFeed News. BuzzFeed reported that the meeting is set to take place Tuesday at 10 a.m. between top Department of Justice officials and the attorneys general from Alabama, California, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and D.C. Representatives from Arkansas, Arizona, Missouri, Texas, and Washington state are also expected to attend, according to BuzzFeed. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who will attend with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, originally invited 24...

Hollywood stars took to social media to send messages of doom, gloom, and resistance to President Donald Trump in honor of Independence Day. “To every country on the 4th of July. We’re sorry about our president. He doesn’t reflect all of our views — and we hope you know that the majority of us are ashamed,” wrote former Netflix talk show host Chelsea Handler. “We will rally each other and come back to the world one step at a time. #novemberiscoming #alsosorryabouthotdogs.” Left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore offered a politically-charged message to his six million Twitter followers, “Happy Resistance Day!...

As humans, we live to connect. Which is why it’s amazing that it’s this very connection we seek that is now about to tear us apart. For the past five years or so I’ve watched an endless parade of outrage mobs on social media, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Twitter has now become part of a destructive, almost unstoppable evolutionary process. Twitter now triggers the group survival mentality in all of us – in which the desire to expel a person from the group (call it a ritual sacrifice) is done to stave off your own inevitable targeting...

In reaction to NBA Hall of Famer Kevin McHale receiving backlash on Twitter from media members and other users for attending a President Donald Trump rally in Minnesota Wednesday. Whitlock said Twitter is the “headquarters for left-wing insanity” and called it “headquarters for fake news.”

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China said it will begin applying its so-called social credit system to flights and trains and stop people who have committed misdeeds from taking such transport for up to a year. People who would be put on the restricted lists included those found to have committed acts like spreading false information about terrorism and causing trouble on flights, as well as those who used expired tickets or smoked on trains, according to two statements issued on the National Development and Reform Commission’s website on Friday. Those found to have committed financial wrongdoings, such as employers who failed...

The typical explanation for Chicago’s gang violence is as follows. Young gang members in small, disorganized cliques shoot each other over petty personal feuds that they play out on social media with the hope of gaining street notoriety and possibly fame as a rapper. This type of killing came into vogue in 2012 when a rapper and Gangster Disciples gang-member Lil Jo Jo was killed after making a music video threatening to kill members of rapper Chief Keef’s Black Disciples clique. Lil Jo Jo’s video was a response to Keef’s “3hunna” music video in which he disses the Gangster Disciples....

The press' credibility problem took a turn for the worse this year. Chalk it up to bias, sloppiness, or sheer panic in response to the election of Donald Trump, but the bottom line for 2017 is that there was a shocking decline in the quality and reliability of political journalism. Instead of adjusting adeptly to Trump's easy relationship with the truth and his tendency to abuse members of the news media, a significant number of political journalists and commentators tripped over themselves to repeat every bit of gossip, thinly sourced claim and half-cocked rumor. These stories fell short of the...

Germany is set to start enforcing a law that demands social media sites move quickly to remove hate speech, fake news and illegal material. Sites that do not remove “obviously illegal” posts could face fines of up to €50 million (£44.3 million; $60 million). The law gives the networks 24 hours to act after they have been told about lawbreaking material. Social networks and media sites with more than two million members will fall under the law’s provisions. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be the law’s main focus, but it is also likely to be applied to Reddit, Tumblr and...