Free Republic

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Free Republic is a moderated Internet forum and activist site for conservatives primarily within the United States, founded in 1996 by James C. "Jim" Robinson of Fresno, California.

Contents 1 History 2 Forums 2.1 Format and policy 2.2 Influencing polls 3 Social organization and events 3.1 Free Republic Inaugural Ball 4 Political influence 5 Controversial aspects 5.1 Copyright lawsuit 6 References 7 External links

[edit] History

Founded in 1996, Free Republic gained popularity during the Clinton impeachment controversy in 1998 and 1999, a time when it was linked on the Drudge Report, 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.^{[citation needed]} Other Free Republic events over the years have also been televised by C-SPAN.^[1]

During the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, two Free Republic members worked to discredit CBS's forged memos about U.S. President George W. Bush's National Guard service.^[2]

[edit] Forums

[edit] Format and policy

Free Republic forums are open to registered users for discussion about political events, conservative principles and the elimination of government corruption and abuse. Free Republic has an official policy which requires the removal of blatantly violent, racist, or bigoted postings.^[3][4]

[edit] 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."^[5]

[edit] Social organization and events

There are local chapters within Free Republic, organized through ping lists, e-mail, and Free Republic mail.^{[citation needed]}

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 conservative principles such as the exercise of Second Amendment rights, or the right-to-life movement, or opposing homosexual activism.

The more active chapters organize live protests, which they call "Freeps." Often these are counter protests, responses to protests by opposition groups.^{[citation needed]}

At the original Freep in 2001, [2] 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.

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. [3]

[edit] 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.[4][5]

[edit] Political influence

Free Republic posters, notably "TankerKC" (later identified as active Air Force officer Paul Boley)^[6] and "Buckhead" (later identified as Atlanta GOP lawyer Harry W. MacDougald)^[7] contributed, along with members of the blogs Powerline and Little Green Footballs, to breaking "Memogate," the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of questionable documents during the 2004 US presidential campaign.^[8]

Buckhead is believed to be the first Internet user to post evidence that the memos were forged. His post on Free Republic, mentioning the memos' proportional spacing and other telltale signs of possible forgery, was made during the CBS News broadcast. The discussion spread across the Internet via blogs (attributing Free Republic) and the Drudge Report^[9] (attributing the Powerline blog, which credited Buckhead at Free Republic). The Associated Press later picked it up.^[10] 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."^[2]

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."^[11] The posts were discovered and made public by Media Matters for America.[6].

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.[7] [8]

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."^[12]

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. [9] [10] [11][12] [13]

[edit] Controversial aspects

Ivor Tossell of the Canadian Globe and Mail called Free Republic "the worst site on the Internet, political-rhetoric division" and "an exercise in political extremism that, despite being something of an anthropological train wreck, keeps popping up square in the mainstream."[14]

Free Republic has also been criticized for the actions of a small minority of members who posted death threats against former President Clinton and threats against the owners of a restaurant who notified authorities when an underage Jenna Bush attempted to purchase liquor illegally at the establishment.^[13] 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."^[14] Threats and other policy-violating posts have been removed by Robinson when brought to his attention. 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.^[15]

Free Republic's registration process has since been altered and now new registrants are subjected to having their first post(s) moderated before being allowed full posting privileges.

[edit] Copyright lawsuit

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.[15] 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."[16]

[edit] References

[edit] 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.