Free Republic: Difference between revisions
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The moderators often remove or ban posters who criticize [[Israel]] from a leftist pro-palestinian perspective, the [[2003 invasion of Iraq|Iraq]] or [[U.S. invasion of Afghanistan|Afghanistan war]], etc., from its discussion boards. Material criticising the administration of President [[George W. Bush]] from a left-wing perspective is typically not permitted. However, ample examples exist of criticism of the President and Congress for not being sufficiently conservative or living up to the group's ideals. Some left-wingers have been allowed on the Free Republic board, but this is at management's discretion. Often leftist users are labeled [[Internet troll|troll]]s and banned from Free Republic. Generally, the amount of latitude one has to express his views expands significantly as he becomes better known on the site, establishes relationships with other users, and provides evidence of adhering to the rules and stated goals of the site. |
The moderators often remove or ban posters who criticize [[Israel]] from a leftist pro-palestinian perspective, the [[2003 invasion of Iraq|Iraq]] or [[U.S. invasion of Afghanistan|Afghanistan war]], etc., from its discussion boards. Material criticising the administration of President [[George W. Bush]] from a left-wing perspective is typically not permitted. However, ample examples exist of criticism of the President and Congress for not being sufficiently conservative or living up to the group's ideals. Some left-wingers have been allowed on the Free Republic board, but this is at management's discretion. Often leftist users are labeled [[Internet troll|troll]]s and banned from Free Republic. Generally, the amount of latitude one has to express his views expands significantly as he becomes better known on the site, establishes relationships with other users, and provides evidence of adhering to the rules and stated goals of the site. |
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It is also worth noting that Jim Robinson, who now quickly bans from the forum anyone who speaks disparagingly of the current administration, said of George W. Bush on August 20, 1999: |
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:"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!" [http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37bd2556430e.htm] |
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==Manipulating polls== |
==Manipulating polls== |
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Revision as of 02:23, 8 October 2005
Free Republic is an American Internet forum and activist site for conservatives. It bills itself as "the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web."
Origins and funding
Free Republic was founded in 1996 by Jim Robinson of Fresno, California as a non-commercial, Limited liability company. The site gained popularity during the President Clinton impeachment controversy when protests and write-in campaigns were organized on it.
The site is funded by donations requested through "Freepathons." These fundraising events occur each quarter, and raise sufficient funds to support Free Republic's founder and staff. Some members of Free Republic have questioned whether the funds raised in these "Freepathons" have been spent in an appropriate manner. Many of those who have raised such questions have been subsequently banned from the site.
The current Freepathon (October 2005) is requesting $72,000 for the next three months. This is the primary funding mechanism for Free Republic, which is supplimented by the relatively minor income from sales of Free Republic-branded merchandise.
Format
Free Republic's content consists largely of news stories and opinion pieces posted by its active user base, and discussion of these pieces by the users. Because Free Republic allowed its users to copy and paste copyrighted news stories in their entirety to its discussion boards, Free Republic was sued by The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. (Reuters and The Wall Street Journal were part of the original consortium threatening legal action, but they dropped out before the lawsuit was filed.) The tort complaint of $1,000,000 was filed in the 9th District Circuit Court. Many members view the lawsuit as an unsuccessful conspiracy by a "liberal media" to stifle the organization; founder Robinson referred to the suit as "a life and death struggle with elements of the socialist propaganda machine."
In a negotiated settlement, Free Republic agreed to remove the posted articles from the sites listed in the complaint, and paid these two newspapers $5,000 each. Neither party was awarded any damages, legal fees or costs. Today, other publishers, such as Condé Nast Publications, have joined The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times in objecting to the posting of entire copyrighted articles. Users now post excerpts from such publishers (as allowed by fair use), and the site filters submissions against a watchlist of "banned" sources, by request of their webmaster or as a result of the lawsuit, as a precaution against future lawsuits.
Specific terminology
The Free Republic subculture developed several specific expressions:
- Freeper is an active member of the Free Republic site.
- Freep is an event organized by a local Free Republic chapter. Freeps are often presented as responses to protests by various left-wing groups. Freepers, as Free Republic's active users are called, will assemble at some point with signs and banners, generally designed and hand-drawn by individual members. See Social Organization and Events.
- Freeping is most often the participation in a Freep. For example, if a Freep was organized because of an appearance by Bill Clinton, a Freeper would say they were going to Freep Bill Clinton. Afterwards, one would say Bill Clinton was Freeped. In some cases, freeping is the act of directing the members to collectively vote in an online poll, with the aim of significantly affecting its outcome. See Manipulating polls. However, these could just be consdered online freeps.
- Freepathon is a quarterly fundraising event, aimed to collect donations for running the site and raise sufficient funds to support Free Republic's founder and staff.
- Freeploader is a pejorative term to address those who may not have donated to the site. The term is not part of the official lexicon of the site. Many posters at Free Republic who do donate do not make their donations known as they prefer to donate privately. It has become a source of irritation to some freepers that this practice has begun, as some freepers do not have the financial means to donate, or as mentioned, wish to do so anonymously.
Social organization and events
There are local chapters within Free Republic which are organized through ping lists (see below), e-mail, and Free Republic mail.
The more active chapters organize live protests, which they call "Freeps." Often these are counter protests, as responses to protests by groups who they oppose. "Freepers," as Free Republic's active users are called, will assemble at a predetermined location with signs and banners which are generally designed and hand-drawn by individual members.
Board users
Like most Internet message forums, anyone can easily register as a user. Free Republic refers to its users as "members," but the site is free, with no fixed membership structure or dues. Users of Free Republic organize themselves in ad hoc groups to plan local gatherings and events (see discussion above).
There is a member directory, but like most Internet forums nearly everyone has an anonymous username. Few users divulge their true identities in their online profiles.
All user accounts include an intra-site mail feature that can send, receive and store private messages to other users, without the use of external personal e-mail.
Members can alert each other to articles, posts, or ongoing discussions of mutual interest via "ping lists," lists of users interested in a certain subjects. Members can also ping each other individually, and can use a second features, an alert window, to be alerted with a sound when somone replies to one of their posts.
Alexa, a company that ranks the Internet's 100,000 most visited sites, and measures their traffic in users per million, estimates that Free Republic reaches approximately five to six hundred users per million each day, and ranks at number 1,560 of all sites. Comparitively, by Alexa Internet's estimation, Wikipedia.org reaches 11 to 12 thousand per million each day and ranks at 53, Yahoo reaches 300,000 and ranks at no. 1, and Google reaches 220,000 and ranks at no. 3. Visits at Free Republic tend to spike sharply upward during election seasons and when news breaks which captures its users' interest.
Discussion
The Free Republic community is largely united on certain political staples of the american conservative movement, including having a strong dislike for former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton, and opposing gun control, abortion, and what it considers to be a homosexual agenda, particularly same-sex marriage. In general the Free Republic community is more conservative than the typical supporter of the Republican Party.
On some issues, however, the Free Republic membership is divided. Three main groups can be observed on the forum: neoconservatives, paleoconservatives, and libertarians/paleolibertarians, with large majority of users being sympathetic to the neoconservative analysis of foriegn policy, especially in regards to the threat of Political Islam to western societies and Israel.
Divisive issues include evolution/the influence of the Christian right, immigration control, free trade, state v individual rights, John Birch Society type conspiracism, skepticism about United Nations/European Union, and the legalization of soft drugs.
Free Republic does not seek to be a board that represents all political viewpoints.It is a meeting point for those to the right of the political center in America, and articles posted which contain unwelcome (usually liberal) views are customarily ridiculed and tagged with the words BARF ALERT after the headline. The "BARF ALERT" has two purposes: to warn readers in advance of an opinion running counter to the prevailing perspective of the site's audience and to protect the poster by distancing him- or herself from those views. Another common term is ZOT! which refers to the banning of a user for posting unwelcome material (trolling).
The moderators often remove or ban posters who criticize Israel from a leftist pro-palestinian perspective, the Iraq or Afghanistan war, etc., from its discussion boards. Material criticising the administration of President George W. Bush from a left-wing perspective is typically not permitted. However, ample examples exist of criticism of the President and Congress for not being sufficiently conservative or living up to the group's ideals. Some left-wingers have been allowed on the Free Republic board, but this is at management's discretion. Often leftist users are labeled trolls and banned from Free Republic. Generally, the amount of latitude one has to express his views expands significantly as he becomes better known on the site, establishes relationships with other users, and provides evidence of adhering to the rules and stated goals of the site.
It is also worth noting that Jim Robinson, who now quickly bans from the forum anyone who speaks disparagingly of the current administration, said of George W. Bush on August 20, 1999:
- "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!" [1]
Manipulating polls
The manipulation of online polls by Free Republic's members is a common practice. It involves posting a message thread directing members to vote en masse in an online poll and including a link to the poll, particularly those on television network or newspaper websites, with the intended goal of significantly affecting the final outcome. Known as "freeping" a poll, the practice is not unique to the Free Republic forums and is employed by many other activist websites of all political stripes, such as Democratic Underground, where it is called "DU'ng".
See also
External links
- Official website
- Statement by the founder of Free Republic
- Pre-2000 Election Opinion of George W. Bush by Jim Robinson
- Pitt, William Rivers. "God Sees The Freepers." Editorial. : 9 June 2001.
- Pitt, William Rivers. "God Still Sees The Freepers." Editorial. : 12 June 2001.
- Niman, Michael I. "Disturbing the Peace: Creepy 'FReepers' Target Activists." ArtVoice: 13 March 2003.
- 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.
- DUmmie FUnnies a popular satirical thread about Democratic Underground
- Comments made by Jerome Corsi on Free Republic
- Jim Robinson Profile
- Critical article about Robinson by an ex-freeper
- Video of a Freep
- FreeRepublic.com Original FR thread with Buckhead's "Post 47" regarding Rathergate
- PowerLingBlog credits Buckhead for its story
- EnterStageRight.com lays out timeline of Buckhead and Rathergate
- Journalism.nyu.edu on source verification, Dan Rather, and CBS
- History of FR by Jim Robinson