Free Republic

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Free Republic is a moderated Internet forum and activist site for conservatives, primarily within the United States. It presents articles followed by comments from registered members. Due to copyright restrictions (see below), posted articles are often excerpts from originals.

For each article, the forum's main page typically shows its headline, plus the first hundred words of the article as posted to Free Republic. Users can see the full article at its original source by clicking a hyperlink beneath the headline.

Registered members post a continuous flow of new articles to the forum.

History

Founded in September 1996 as a sole proprietorship owned by James C. "Jim" Robinson[2] of Fresno, California, Free Republic opened to the general public in February, 1997. Robinson filed for LLC status on September 11, 1998 [3]. Free Republic gained popularity during the Clinton impeachment controversy in 1997 and 1998, a time when it was linked on the Drudge Report as "Whitewater Archives," when protests and write-in campaigns were organized through the website. Many were also introduced to the site through an impeachment rally in Washington, attended by some five hundred participants, called the "March for Justice," broadcast live on Halloween 1998 (a Saturday) by the C-SPAN channel. Featured speakers were Alan Keyes, Bob Barr, and Larry Klayman. Ann Coulter, Lucianne Goldberg and Matt Drudge also attended. Other Free Republic events over the years have also been televised by C-SPAN.

Drudge dropped the link to Free Republic by February, 1999, "because they were doing racist stuff over the [Clinton love child][4]." Drudge currently does not link.

Forums

Format and policy

Free Republic forums are open to registered users (account registration began on November 28, 1997 [5]) for discussion about news stories excerpted and linked from their sources, political events, conservative principles and the elimination of government corruption and abuse. Other frequent subjects are Prayer Requests, including a daily "Pray for President Bush[6]" thread, "Caption This Photo[7]" and "A Day in the Life of Pres. Bush (photos)[8]." Free Republic has an official policy which allows authorized moderators to remove postings identified as blatantly violent, racist or bigoted. Postings deemed to support "Liberal" points of view may also be "moderated" per official policy, expressed in 2004 by the owner as: "we feel no compelling need to allow [liberals] a platform to promote their repugnant and obnoxious propaganda from our forum. Free Republic is not a liberal debating society[9]."

From 1996 to 2000, the bulletin board was virtually unmoderated. This policy was central to the websites Fair Use defense in the Copyright Infringement litigation [see below] wherein it stated "(t)he website operated by the defendants, www.freerepublic.com, permits anyone who wishes to post news articles or other items and to post commentary about the article as well . . . no censorship is made and all views are permitted[10]."

The first moderator other than the sysop himself was the "Sidebar Moderator"[11], which was registered on May 9, 2001[12] An "admin moderator" was registered on September 1, 2001[13], with the power to remove enjoined articles and objectionable posts and ban registered users. There are an undisclosed number of other anonymous, lesser empowered moderators.

In 2007, Robinson effected what has been called the "April Purge" to remove members who supported the presidential campaign of Rudy Giuliani:

     Over the past few weeks, chaos has reigned in the “Freeper” community as members sympathetic to the former mayor's candidacy claim to have suffered banishment from the site. They were victimized, they say, by a wave of purges designed to weed out any remaining support for the Giuliani campaign.... [14]

Influencing polls

Media web sites, including newspapers, television networks, and America Online, run occasional "polls" that do not use the sampling methods of formal opinion polls but instead invite everyone to respond. Some Free Republic forum messages, usually captioned "FReep this poll!", urge Free Republic members to vote en masse in these polls. "Whenever a poll is posted on Free Republic.com, everybody goes and votes the right way, and there's nothing wrong with that," says Marinelle Thompson, FReeper and founder of gun rights group Second Amendment Sisters. "We just do it for a laugh. It doesn't really mean anything." The voting can have an impact, "Online polls are silly -- everybody knows that," says liberal political analyst William Rivers Pitt, "But it can have a real effect if it's brought out as news that actually means something." The polls can also be manipulated said Vlae Kershner, SF Gate News Director (and poll writer), "People are finding a way of getting around our system that only allows one vote, and they're voting hundreds of times. It's not thousands of people voting one way; it's one or two people voting hundreds of times."

Social organization and events

Freepers counter-protest at an anti-war demonstration at Arlington National Cemetery on October 2, 2004.

There are local chapters within Free Republic, organized through ping lists, e-mail, and Free Republic mail.

Some are only "ping list" groups, members who include their names in a list to be "pinged" on news articles of a certain nature. Some cover presidential events (daily picture, prayer, and speech threads), some focus on neoconservative principles such as the Second Amendment, the pro-life movement, or opposing gay rights.

The more active chapters organize live protests, which they call "Freeps." Often these are counter protests, responses to protests by opposition groups.

At the original Freep in 2001, [15] a number of Freepers paid $20 each to attend a conference at which conservative politicians and others spoke regarding issues such as; the rights of man, the problems with the news media, and striper lakes. The evening concluded with a presentation, from the South Carolina Secretary of State Jim Miles, of a Confederate flag flown from the South Carolina statehouse, to Bob Johnson, from Los Angeles, for spearheading the Free Republic Network.

Freepers at the March for Justice II rally at the Upper Senate Park on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Thursday, April 7, 2005.

In 2005, Free Republic staged a "Freep" in Washington, D.C., to show support for the American troops and in opposition to the antiwar protest of September 24, 2005. Free Republic also began staging counter-protests at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington in opposition to the antiwar group Code Pink. Walter Reed is home to many soldiers recuperating from serious injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [16]

Free Republic Inaugural Ball

In January 2005, Free Republic hosted an Inaugural Ball at the Washington Plaza Hotel to celebrate the reelection of President Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney and to honor the men and women serving in the United States Armed Forces. The event featured then Arkansas Republican Governor Mike Huckabee and his rock and roll band called Capitol Offense.[17][18]

Political influence

Memogate

Free Republic posters, notably "TankerKC" (later identified as active Air Force officer Paul Boley) and "Buckhead" (later identified as Atlanta GOP lawyer Harry W. MacDougald) contributed, along with members of the blogs Powerline and Little Green Footballs, to breaking "Memogate," the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of not fully authenticated documents during the 2004 US presidential campaign.

Buckhead may be the first Internet user to post assertions that the memos were forged. In a post on Free Republic the night of the broadcast, he mentioned the memos' proportional spacing and made the claim that such printing was "not widespread until the mid to late 90's".[19] While his claims may not be entirely accurate, his posting spurred discussion spread across the Internet via blogs (attributing Free Republic) and the Drudge Report (attributing the Powerline blog, which credited Buckhead at Free Republic). The Associated Press later picked it up. This resulted in the early retirement of Dan Rather, and the resignations of Mary Mapes and three other news division executives at CBS. According to Ivor Tossell of the Globe and Mail, Free Republic "was central to the network of websites that uncovered the forged memos about Bush's Vietnam service that appeared on CBS News and ultimately cost Dan Rather his job."

Further information: Killian documents authenticity issues

Indiscretions

During the 2004 U.S. Elections, Jerome Corsi, a Swift Boat Vet and co-author of the book Unfit for Command that attacked the Vietnam war record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, apologized in the national media for comments that he made on Free Republic under the user name "jrlc" "describing Muslims and Catholics as pedophiles and Pope John Paul II as senile." The posts were discovered and made public by Media Matters for America.[20].

In October 2004, an unknown person or persons created an account named "MD4Bush" on the conservative web forum Free Republic to investigate the source of false rumors that Democratic Mayor of Baltimore Martin O'Malley had committed adultery suspected to be coming from the Ehrlich camp. O'Malley was a likely (and eventual) opponent of Ehrlich in the 2006 gubernatorial race. Using this alias, MD4Bush lured Joseph Steffen, aide to Ehrlich, who had a Free Republic membership as "NCPAC," into contact, brought up the rumors, and baited Steffen into giving responses appearing to take credit for spreading the rumors.

Ehrlich fired Steffen when the contents of these messages were published in the Washington Post on February 9, 2005. Some Republicans and Freepers have charged that Post reporter Matthew Mosk's access of the MD4Bush account constitutes complicity to the alleged entrapment of Steffen, and a violation of the privacy of Free Republic users, but there has been no follow-up, and threatened litigation has never materialized. See MD4Bush Incident.

White House Press Secretary and former Fox News commentator Tony Snow was an active poster on the forum before he accepted his position with the Bush administration, at which time all his posts and his account were deleted. Many of the posts have been archived and show that Snow was not afraid to 'mix it up' with the outspoken Freepers who sometimes disagreed with his political philosophy.[21] [22]

When Robinson was supporting Alan Keyes, who had spoken at the original March for Justice, for President in 2000, he wrote the following about posters supporting George W. Bush:

"So, it doesn't matter if he snorted coke as a youth? It was a long time ago, a youthful indiscretion? Kinda like people who frequented sneakeasies during prohibition? Kind of a cute story, eh? Well, how about all the people whose lives have been destroyed by being arrested for the felony of drug possession? What about the millions of people who are rotting away in your filthy drug infested prisons at this very moment?

"Well, by God, if you people insist on electing another cokehead as President, you damned well better throw open all the prison cell doors and free every man, woman, and child you're holding on drug charges. And if you're gonna elect another drug felon as President, you'd better rescind each and every one of your unconstitutional drug laws now on the books, including all of your unconstitutional search and seizure laws, and your asset forfeiture laws, and your laws that enable your unconstitutional snooping into our bank accounts and cash transactions. Well, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. You people are sick! Conservatives my ass. You people are nothing but a bunch of non-thinking hypocrits! You're a shame and a disgrace to the Republic!

"And, I, for one, am tired of taking orders from cokeheads and felons! Elect another one and I'll tell you what. I'll be ready for war! It'll be time to take up arms and run the filthy lying bastards out!" [23]

Robinson's shift to Bush (after posting "I do not believe a Bush Presidency will be good for our Constitution or for our Republic.") caused an internal battle analogous to the "April Purges" of 2007 "as its founder and chief administrator first cleansed commenting ranks of Bush supporters, then, later, rallied to his support."[24]

The Dixie Chicks

The band Dixie Chicks and lead singer Natalie Maines claim that Free Republic was instrumental in fueling a boycott of their music which was organized by some former fans and radio stations after Maines made anti-Bush comments in 2003. In their documentary Shut Up and Sing as well as in interviews, the Dixie Chicks have often mentioned Free Republic in reference to the boycott. Maines was quoted as saying: "It's scary how much power they do have. They can take down someone singlehandedly and I don't think Americans are aware of that."

Kristinn Taylor of Free Republic's D.C. chapter attended the screening of the film hosted by the liberal advocacy group Center for American Progress. He was invited to join in a discussion after the screening and complimented the director on the film. [25] [26] [27][28] [29]

Further information: Dixie chicks § Political controversy

Controversies and criticism

Free Republic has been criticized for the actions of a few of its members who had threatened to assassinate former President Bill Clinton. Similarly, when owners of a restaurant notified authorities that an underage Jenna Bush had attempted to purchase liquor, their personal information was distributed and promises of violence made. Salon.com's Jeff Stein observed in 1999 that: "[A] swelling number of haters have turned up the volume of death threats, gay-bashing, name-calling and conspiracy theories tying the father of Republican front-runner George W. Bush to drug-dealing by the CIA."

Threats and other policy-violating posts have been removed by Robinson when brought to his attention, and the posts' authors have been banned. He says that the site has had to "delete relatively few posts" over time for violations of its "no-violence" policy despite Free Republic's popularity and ease of registration.

Copyright lawsuit

Further information: L.A. Times v. Free Republic

In its early years, Free Republic generally allowed its members to post copyrighted news stories in entirety to its forum, regardless of whether permission had been granted by content owners, until the site was sued in 1998 by The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times for copyright infringement. The newspapers eventually prevailed in the courts, although a damages award of $1 million was reduced to $10,000 during the course of the appeal.[30] The case, often cited when arguing cyberlaw, is called L.A. Times v. Free Republic. Free Republic members called the lawsuit a conspiracy by the liberal media to stifle the organization, and Robinson referred to the suit as "a life and death struggle with elements of the socialist propaganda machine."[31]

External links

• Official website
• Stein, Jeff. "Free-for-all at Free Republic: Lucianne Goldberg, Matt Drudge and other friends abandon the Clinton-bashing Web site over its attacks on George W. Bush" Salon, 13 July 1999.
• Lauerman, Kerry. "They're here, they're mad, get used to it." Salon, 24 June 2001.
• York, Anthony. "Free Republic defends Salon." Salon, 18 July 2001.