Free Republic

Dr. Lourdes Ashley Hunter was still reeling from President Trump’s announcement banning military service by transgender people when she received an email asking if she would help organize a protest against the policy. For Hunter, who identifies as transgender, the ban felt personal, so she was happy to help set up a protest in Washington, D.C. The local organizer offered to connect Hunter, executive director of the Trans Women of Color Collective, with a woman named Mary Smith from the activist group “ReSister.” For the next two days, Mary Smith worked with Hunter on Facebook Messenger to organize the protest....

A pair of Twitter users whose posts exposing offensive tweets by baseball players went viral over the weekend say their aim was not malicious but to give fans a fuller picture of whom they’re cheering for, and to expose the sport’s “toxic” culture. In exclusive interviews with The Associated Press, both users said they weren’t looking for the years-old tweets from Milwaukee Brewers reliever Josh Hader or Atlanta Braves pitcher Sean Newcomb, but when the posts came across their timelines, they felt obligated to share them.

Facebook has spotted a series of pages and accounts suspected of working to politically manipulate users, the social media giant announced Tuesday. The social network is ramping up its efforts to stop election meddling heading into the 2018 U.S. midterms. The company said it spotted dozens of “inauthentic accounts” on both Facebook and Instagram as part of its investigation. Facebook hasn’t tied the accounts to the Internet Research Agency — the Kremlin-linked troll factory that leveraged the platform to spread misinformation before the 2016 presidential election — and doesn’t know who is behind the coordinated accounts. “It’s clear that whoever...

Another day, another athlete exposed for terrible behavior on social media. Atlanta Braves left-hander Sean Newcomb apologized on Sunday after a series of his homophobic and racist tweets were found. The tweets in question were made in 2011 and 2012 when Newcomb was a freshman at the University of Hartford.

Big SM looking to guide its users to correct thinking It really isn’t any surprise that social media giants are taking heat this last week for the ill thought-out actions of constraining free speech on their platforms. Taking punitive action against individuals under the guise of saving users the pain of glimpsing an offensive meme, comment or video, Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube has been deleting, locking and hiding content of targeted accounts. Not only have they demonetized accounts of popular personalities like Diamond and Silk, the black female duo leading the pack of Trump supporters, but they have refused...

Blow the whistle! Pass the word, and when it comes to fighting the social media- endorsed Democrats, NEVER GIVE UP! Blame the dark now descending on the Internet world on the current Media Blackout on all Conservative voices from now until Midterm elections are over. Until Midterms are over the masses will be kept looking for the light and stumbling in the dark. The lights are going off all over the Internet. The ability of Internet surfers to track down their favorite Conservative news sites, websites and blogs will be like finding the proverbial needle in a hay stack.

Cracking down on hate, abuse and online trolls is also hurting Twitter’s standing with investors. The company’s stock plunged Friday after it reported a decline in its monthly users and warned that the number could fall further in the coming months. The 20.5 percent plunge comes one day after Facebook lost 19 percent of its value in a single day. Twitter says it’s putting the long-term stability of its platform above user growth. That leaves investors seemingly unable to value what the biggest companies in the sector, which rely on their potential user reach, are worth. Twitter had 335 million...

If you’re reading the alternative media (also known as the real media) constantly, you’re probably aware of the fact that world’s tech giants are currently engaged in an unprecedented campaign of censoring free speech on their platforms. The whole thing about censoring dissenting views is as old as internet, and even older, provided there was anything prior (just kidding), but since Donald Trump got elected back in 2016, with a little help from the armies of Keks shooting memes and various red-pills right and left via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the same corporate behemoths have decided that enough is enough,...

Facebook missed projections on revenue and global daily active users this quarter after struggling with data leaks and fake news scandals. The company reported its second-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday. Shares were down as much as 20 percent. At the current after hours prices and given its market cap at the close Wednesday, Facebook is poised to lose more than $123 billion in market value. Earnings per share: $1.74 vs. $1.72 per a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate Revenue: $13.23 billion vs. $13.36 billion per a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate

Nearly every day, we see a new story of a reputation damaged, a feud ignited, a livelihood dashed against the rocks, all because of Twitter, or some other social media sandbox where we all gather to trade articles, opinions and occasionally venom. Any assessment of Twitter’s value (or menace) is seen through the lens of the observer, so here’s my paragraph: As a radio guy, I share countless opinions at @markdavis on matters large and small. I thoroughly enjoy the occasional back-and-forth with people who share my views and sometimes more intriguingly, with those who don’t. On the receiving end,...

A Pew Research Group study examining Facebook trends found that users of the social media platform were more likely to react using the "anger" emoji to political posts following the 2016 presidential election, a shift from more positive reactions months before. The study released Wednesday found that in the months leading up to the election, from Feb. 24, 2016, to Election Day, users of the platform were more likely to respond to political posts from members of Congress with the "love" emoji, using it a total of 7.3 million times. The "anger" emoji, by comparison, was used 3.6 million times...

High-profile journalists are saying they might leave Twitter after tweets attacking them and family members. The latest controversy is underscoring how the popular social media platform has become toxic in the current political climate. CNN reporter and commentator Chris Cillizza tweeted on Sunday that he was “about done” with Twitter, after tweets mocking his child’s peanut allergy. “We are talking about a 9 year old. Feel free to hate me. But don’t mock my son’s peanut allergy. Classless and indefensible,” Cillizza wrote. MSNBC Anchor Chuck Todd also offered support to Cillizza and criticized the abuse. “Every time I think Twitter...

Racist, homophobic and misogynistic tweets that Milwaukee Brewers reliever Josh Hader sent in 2011 and 2012 surfaced as he pitched in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game at Nationals Park, turning his appearance into an embarrassing stain for Hader and a public-relations nightmare for Major League Baseball. After Hader surrendered a three-run homer in the eighth inning, several Twitter users — starting, it seems, with an account named MLB Insider Dinger — found and retweeted messages Hader sent as a 17-year-old. The tweets included numerous uses of the n-word and an allusion to “white power” next to an emoji of a closed...

Facebook on Tuesday removed a page for inciting violence against Republicans after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) brought it up in a hearing. Gaetz said his office previously brought the page to Facebook's attention and the social media giant dismissed concerns. But he presented the page to Facebook's head of global policy management directly during the House Judiciary Committee's hearing examining how social media companies filter content. During the hearing, the Florida Republican highlighted content posted on a page titled "Milkshakes against the Republican Party" that called for "crazed shooters" to target the GOP's congressional baseball team and attack the NRA....

Twitter suspended at least 58 million accounts in the last quarter of 2017 according to numbers reviewed by the Associated Press. The new figure comes after the company confirmed that it separately booted another 70 million fake accounts from its platform between May and June. Twitter has been aggressively cracking down on fake accounts that have long plagued its platform. Analysts have speculated that Twitter in the past has been reluctant to kick off such users out of fear of hurting its user growth numbers. The companies stock initially took a brief hit after news of its move to remove...

Facebook is struggling with a difficult challenge — how to crack down on conspiracy theories and hoax sites on its platform. On one side are groups that say the company should better police user content. They are pushing Facebook to take down videos and posts from organizations such as Alex Jones’s Infowars. That website has pushed hoaxes alleging the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged and that John Podesta, campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid, was a part of a child-sex ring. But on the other side are Republican lawmakers and conservatives more focused on another issue:...

BELTON, Texas (KWTX) Investigators have identified three teenagers who were involved in flinging a cat into Lake Belton after a short video of the incident went viral on social media. The video, which first appeared on Snapchat, was posted on Twitter Monday night by a user who tagged both Belton police and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Belton police identified the three teens involved in the incident and then referred the case to the Bell County Sheriff’s Department for further investigation, sheriff’s Maj. T.J. Cruz said Wednesday. “The case has been assigned to an investigator with the...

Twitter has sharply escalated its battle against fake and suspicious accounts, suspending more than 1 million a day in recent months, a major shift to lessen the flow of disinformation on the platform, according to data obtained by The Washington Post. The rate of account suspensions, which Twitter confirmed to The Post, has more than doubled since October, when the company revealed under congressional pressure how Russia used fake accounts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. Twitter suspended more than 70 million accounts in May and June, and the pace has continued in July, according to the data. The...

So I went to amazon today to look at some stuff. And in the middle of the home page, I see a commercial or promotion, whatever you want to call it, promoting someone who works for the Amazon company who is massively confused.

Parents who share pictures of their children on social media are putting their human rights at risk, the United Nations has warned. The UN's special rapporteur Joseph Cannataci said that "strong guidelines" were needed to preserve the rights of children whose parents upload video and images of them. During a mission to the UK to assess the privacy situation he also found that kindergarten-age children were being surveilled using CCTV at school and in their bedrooms. At a press conference on Friday he suggested there could be a rising number of cases involving children who argue their rights have been...