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Screenshot / DownDetector Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all suffered outages Monday afternoon. The social networks slowly began coming back online for some users after a 6-hour outage. “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products,” Facebook wrote in a brief statement. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.” The cause of the problem was not immediately known.

Abbott held a news conference Friday regarding his legislative proposal to ban social media platforms from censoring Texans. Abbott says “too many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech.” Abbott joined Sen. Bryan Hughes in Tyler, Texas to discuss Senate Bill 12. “Conservative speech will not be cancelled in the state of Texas,” Abbott said. “(This bill) would allow any Texan who has been cancelled, censored or de-platformed to file a lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook or any of these other companies.” But Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott waded into controversy by branding Gab, a minimum-moderation...

Full title: Judicial Watch Obtains Records from EPA Showing Obama Agency’s Illegal Use of Social Media Platform for Propaganda ‘I don’t want it to look like EPA used our own social media accounts to reach our support goal’ – EPA Director of Web Communications (Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch obtained 900-pages of documents from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which reveal the agency’s use of the mass-sharing Thunderclap social media platform to covertly promote its policies in violation of federal law. The documents show that EPA staffers, via the Thunderclap platform, recruited outside groups to lobby in support of the...

<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>

Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Iran’s Support for Terrorism Worldwide Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa 2172 House Rayburn Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Mar 4, 2014 10:00am

Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."

Bryce the dog is back in Highland Park with family and friends after quite an adventure. Last week he chased a truck down the street, was hit, broke his leg and limped off – stunned. He disappeared. His owner, Amy Silverman, started searching. “I came home,” she recalls, “and immediately went to Facebook and said, ‘Social media I need your help. We lost our dog. Here’s a picture of him.’”

IRGC and the spiritual vacuum of Latin American leftists The following is a glimpse of the kind of thing I often see while researching the activities of the IRGC (writ large) in Latin America. Communism fails to provide for the spiritual needs of leftwing political activists, and the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to have done a pretty good job of inserting themselves and the Khomeinist version of Shiism into that void. (Either that or the IRI is throwing lots of money around and the leftists are whores, which is certainly possible, but for the moment I'll take the more...

"Gunman who took hostages at Louisiana bank posted chilling Facebook messages" SNIPPET: "The gunman who took three hostages at a Louisiana bank Tuesday -- killing one of them before being shot and killed by police -- recently posted chilling messages on Facebook, including a cartoon strip about hostages.   In a post on Sunday, 20-year-old Fuaed Abdo Ahmed displays a cartoon strip that focuses on an apparent hostage situation." SNIPPET: "Ahmed's final post, made Tuesday just hours before the hostage standoff began, is of a photo of a man with a sword attacking a tank.Under the photo is a quote...

The NSA has been graphing American’s social networks and plotting them as they do organized crime since at least 2010, according to the latest published Edward Snowden leak. The highly secretive intelligence agency has been mapping out American citizens’ social connections – identifying associates, determining locations, and logging who they talk to – by taking advantage of loosened rules previously meant to restrict surveillance actions. As far back as November, 2010, the agency authorized spies to conduct ‘large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness,’ the New York Times revealed Saturday. Mapped out:...

Kenyan police and soldiers have pinned down the remaining gunmen who opened fire at a shopping centre earlier today, killing 30 and leaving at least 50 others injured. A security source at the scene in the capital Nairobi confirmed moments ago the attackers have been isolated. The source said: 'The attackers have been isolated and are pinned down in an area on one of the floors - the rest of the mall seems to be secure.' No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is looking increasingly likely the Somalia terrorist group al-Shabaab may be responsible. A statement released...

SNIPPET: "Mullah Krekar, the Norway-based Islamic extremist, is under investigation by German police for seeking to establish a Europe-wide terror network, Sweden's Expo magazine has reported.   The Germans have asked Sweden to interrogate a 28-year-old man from Västerås, who was in contact with Krekar in 2010.    "The German police have requested that we interrogate him, and they want it done in a court of law," Prosecutor Ronnie Jakobsson told the magazine.    Although the man is not suspected of any crime, German police believe that he has information about an Islamist terror network they suspect Krekar and another...

The Muslim terrorist group Qa’adat el-Jihad claimed responsibility Saturday for a terrorist bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria. The bombing in Bulgaria last week killed five Israelis, one a pregnant woman. The Lebanese paper El-Nashra reported that the group, which has ties to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility in an email to the Arab press.

Somali militants attack UN base in Mogadishu, killing 15 Al-Shabaab says its fighters were responsible for suicide attack on compound that killed 15 people including UN personnel

No, this is not the Onion. The New York chapter of the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations is submitting testimony on “hate crimes.” The hate group announced in a press release last week: “On Friday, the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) submitted written testimony for a public hearing on that state’s hate crimes law hosted by ranking member of the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, State Sen. Brad Hoylman.” Hamas-CAIR is submitting testimony on hate crimes? This is Shariah in action. Why aren’t the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) or Stop Islamization of...

<p>Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center published results of a public survey of gay tolerance in 39 countries worldwide. The numbers are fairly unsurprising: While a high proportion of respondents in Western Europe and North America answered "yes" to the question "Should society accept homosexuality?" few respondents in the Middle East and Africa agreed with them.</p>

SNIPPET: "A genuinely inspiring issue of AQAP's flagship English language publication. This is what pages 1, 2, & 3 look like:" SNIPPET: "The remaining pages were rendered intentionally blank by person or persons unknown."

(image from article) A new report on world international terrorism activities released by the State Department asserts that there were "no known operational cells" of Al Qaeda or Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere during the year 2012. This is despite the report acknowledging Iran's increased presence in the hemisphere along with the country's "marked resurgence" of sponsored terrorism. The State Department released the "Country Reports on Terrorism 2012" late last week which details the United States' assessment of terrorism and counter-terrorism activities in countries around the globe. The Department detailed Iran's "marked resurgence" of terrorism saying: .......

AFP - Al-Qaeda's military chief in Yemen warned Americans in an audio message posted online Sunday that the Boston bombings revealed a fragile security as he urged Muslims to defend their religion.

A U.S. attorney in Tennessee is reportedly vowing to use federal civil rights statutes to clamp down on offensive and inflammatory speech about Islam. Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, was quoted by the Tullahoma News this week suggesting that some inflammatory material on Islam might run afoul of federal civil rights laws. "We need to educate people about Muslims and their civil rights, and as long as we’re here, they’re going to be protected," Killian told the newspaper. Killian, along with the FBI special agent that runs the Knoxville office, are set to speak next...