Free Republic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Free Republic is a moderated Internet forum and activist site for conservatives from the United States. It bills itself as "the premier on-line gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web." However, this claim is increasingly in dispute, see Criticism section.
Free Republic's mission statement is:
"Broadly stated, the goals of this site are to further conservatism, expose political corruption, and recover a truly constitutional form of government. As a conservative site, Free Republic is pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-Constitution, pro-Bill of Rights, pro-gun, pro-limited government, pro-private property rights, pro-limited taxes, pro-capitalism, pro-national defense, pro-freedom, and pro-America."[citation needed]
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[edit] Origins and funding
Free Republic was founded in 1996 by Jim Robinson of Fresno, California. The site gained popularity during the President Clinton impeachment controversy when protests and write-in campaigns were organized on it.[citation needed]
The site is funded by donations requested through "Freepathons." These fundraising events occur each quarter, and are intended to raise funds to support Free Republic operations and compensate Robinson and others for their time.
Free Republic operates on an annual budget of approximately $260,000. [1].
[edit] Forums
[edit] 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. Users generally post the full text of news stories. This has caused controversy due to the issue of copyright violation, and led to a lawsuit whose settlement is discussed later in this article.
[edit] Board users
Like most Internet chat 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. Some users of Free Republic organize themselves in ad hoc groups to plan local meets. (See discussion on Freeps below.)
There is a member directory, but like most on-line communities, nearly everyone has a pseudonym. Few users divulge their true identities in their on-line profiles. However, many freepers meet in person on annual freeper cruises, titled "Freeps Ahoy."[citation needed]
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 subject. Members can also ping each other individually and can use an alert window to be alerted with a sound when someone replies to one of their posts.
As of November 9, 2006, Alexa, a company that ranks the Internet's 100,000 most visited sites, and measures their traffic in users per million, estimated that Free Republic reached approximately three hundred and fifty users per million each day, and ranked at number 2,919 of all sites. Comparatively, by Alexa Internet's estimation, DailyKos ranked 1,803 and reached 710 per million, Wikipedia.org reached over 51,000 thousand per million each day and ranked at 14, Yahoo! reached 285,000 and ranked at no. 1, and Google reached 268,000 and ranked at no. 3. Visits at Free Republic tend to spike sharply upward during election seasons and when news breaks which captures its users' interest. [2] [3]
Note, however, that Alexa may not be a reliable means of determining traffic to a website. [4][5][6]
[edit] Discussion generals
Members post articles from news sources and then discuss them with subsequent replies to the original post, and to each other. Comments posted by users of Free Republic are often critical of liberal political figures, institutions, ideology, liberals in general, and the media. Most of the comments are short, with some posts of longer length and substance.
The Free Republic community is largely united on certain political staples of the conservative movement,[citation needed] such as opposing liberalism, promoting conservative candidates for various elected offices, abolishing or editing some gun control laws and stopping the creation of new ones, lowering taxes, reducing personal welfare, ending abortion, and opposing what its members consider to be part of the "homosexual agenda", particularly same-sex marriage and the repealing of sodomy laws. On some issues, however, the Free Republic membership is divided. Three main groups can be observed on the forum: neoconservatives, paleoconservatives, and libertarians, with neoconservatism being represented in the large majority of posts. Libertarians arguably remain almost negligible in their numbers on Free Republic, as they are not banned by policy, but widely ridiculed by users with terms such as, "liberal-tarians". A particular example can be found during the Terri Schiavo court battle, when a Libertarian poster argued against George W. Bush's interventionist actions, and was unanimously condemned by hundreds of posters for it -- and ultimately banned for his views.[7] Similarly, opposition to U.S. support for Israel is not tolerated. Divisive issues, which if a conservative is on the 'wrong side' could get them banned from Free Republic, include immigration control and immigrant cultural assimilation, free trade, the defense of the Theory of evolution, the state of the Catholic Church (on the religion forum), and the legalization of drugs.
An example of the breakdown of members might be discerned from a theoretical poll put out by the forum administrators in early 2006 which asked if its members would continue to vote for the GOP if Republicans in the federal government failed to act aggressively on illegal immigration. The poll found that only 46% of its registered users would vote for Republicans in the United States House elections, 2006, 31% would vote for third parties, 20% would stay home and a marginal 2.5% would vote for the Democrats[8]. John McCain's image on the forums is emblematic of the forum users' staunch conservatism. McCain is widely hated by forum members. A recent internal poll illustrated that less than 45% of users would vote for McCain if he were the Republican nominee for president in 2008, with some 10-15% saying they would prefer to sit the election out and another 30% pledging to vote for third party candidates. Rudy Guiliani, however, is a major source of division on the forums, earning both wide praise and support and opposition that is much more evenly distributed than the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the more conservative John McCain.[citation needed]
Free Republic, like many politically oriented sites, does not seek to be a board that represents all political viewpoints, but those to the right of the political center, on issues concerning America. Articles posted which contain unwelcome reports or views (usually liberal) 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 news or opinion articles running counter to the prevailing perspective of the site's intended audience, and to protect the poster by distancing him- or herself from those views or news reports. [citation needed]
Another common term is ZOT! which refers to the banning of a user for posting unwelcome material or for making comments which a forum moderator then uses as a reason or excuse to ban. The moderators on Free Republic often ban, without warning or explanation, posters who criticize Israel, the 2003 invasion of Iraq or the operation in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration's policies on immigration, Catholic complaints about the Catholic Church (on the religion forum), or who express any opinion which diverges from the site's political purposes, or that of a particular forum moderator. Ample examples exist of criticism of the President and Congress for not being sufficiently conservative or living up to the group's ideals. 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 and its owner, although this is no guarantee against a banning if one runs afoul of a particular forum's moderator. If banned in one forum, the member is banned from the entire site. There is no warning system on Free Republic, and no explanation is required to ban a user. It is not a 'democracy', and there is no provision for appeal. A poster becomes aware that he has been banned when he attempts to post or reply on Free Republic and is instead presented with the notice: "Your posting privilege has been revoked."[citation needed]
Free Republic was virtually unmoderated (with the exception of the efforts of Robinson himself) in its early years, but they alledge they are frequently targeted by "moles" from rival liberal talkboards, such as Democratic Underground [citation needed]. As a result of this, Robinson asked several of the more trusted long-term members to volunteer as moderators in 2002. The moderators have the power to delete offensive content, including entire threads, and to suspend an account's posting privileges -- pending review and possible banning by Robinson.
[edit] Sub-Forums
Free Republic is divided into a number of sub-forums. A reader may view threads from one forum at a time, or threads in all of them at once. The forums are:
- Bloggers & Personal
- User questions or opinion pieces, called "vanity threads" or "vanities", are posted in here, as well as blog entries from users. Vanities posted in the News/Activism forum are often moved here.
- General/Chat
- This catch-all category for threads that don't fit into one of the other forums.
- GOP Club
- The GOP Club contains threads pertaining to Republican Party business, as well as political news and analysis threads.
- News/Activism
- This forum is unofficially the "main" forum where most posting takes place. The other forums tend to be more limited in scope. Threads started in this forum are sometimes moved into one of the others by the moderators.
- Religion
- For religious topics. (see below)
- RLC Liberty Caucus
- The RLC forum is the most moribund of forums on Free Republic. It is for threads relating to the Republican Liberty Caucus or the Libertarian Party.
- Smoky Backroom
- Threads that have have become flamewars are moved here by the moderators. Few threads start in the Smoky Backroom.
- VetsCoR
- This forum is for military topics and supporting the troops.
The Religion forum tends to be dominated by discussions of the Roman Catholic Church and the crisis of Anglicanism. It is probably the most heavily moderated forum on Free Republic. A number of banned Roman Catholic Christians, unhappy with the moderation of the forum, chose to create their own forum called Angelqueen [9]. The principal ongoing complaint from those on the latter site was that the Free Republic continued to violate its own stated policies by allowing a notorious poster, sinkspur [10], to remain in good standing. [11]
[edit] Copyright and fair use
Because it has been a practice of Free Republic to allow 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."[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
[edit] Terminology
The Free Republic subculture has developed several specific expressions:
- Freeper
- An active member of the Free Republic site.
- Freep
- An event organized by a local Free Republic chapter. Freeps are often presented as responses to protests by various politically 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
- The participation in a Freep. For example, if a Freep was organized because of an appearance by Bill Clinton, a group of Freepers would say they were going to Freep Bill Clinton and would then congregate and Freep. Afterwards, one would say Bill Clinton had been Freeped. In some cases, freeping is the act of directing the members to influence an online poll. See Influencing polls. However, these could just be considered online freeps.
- Freepathon
- A quarterly fundraising event, aimed to collect donations for running the site.
- Freeploader
- 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, but its use is not discouraged by management. 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.
- BTTT or Bump
- Means "bump to the top" of the queue of articles to be read.
- Zot!
- An expression for an individual who has been banned.
- IBTZ
- Means "in before the zot."
- Freeptard
- A pejorative term for Freepers used by posters on liberal or left-wing sites such as Democratic Underground or the Daily Kos blog. [12] [13]
- DUmmie
- A pejorative term for members of Democratic Underground.
- Jaw Bone Media
- A term referring to conservative talk radio hosts "jaw boning" or spinning an issue and in response to the "Jaw Bone Media" referring to the mainstream media as the "Drive By Media"
[edit] Influencing polls
Some forum posts are aimed at influencing polls on other websites. Media websites (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. Known as "freeping" a poll, it involves posting a message thread directing members to vote en masse in an online poll and including a link to the poll with the intended goal of significantly affecting the final outcome. The practice of alerting members of online voting opportunities is not unique to Free Republic and is employed by many other activist websites of all political stripes; it aappears to be a common practice at Democratic Underground, where it is known as "anti-freeping." However, Free Republic is believed to be the first online message board to try to influence online polls in this manner. The Free Republic’s members have been known to have been involved in vandalism against websites they perceive to be liberal, with members often calling for a coordinated [14][15] vandalism against information websites they perceived to have a liberal bias, primarily related to major racial and political topics.
[edit] Political influence
Free Republic posters, notably "TankerKC" (later identified as active Air Force officer Paul Boley)[citation needed] and "Buckhead" (later identified as Atlanta attorney Harry W. MacDougald)[citation needed] contributed to breaking "Rathergate," the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of questionable documents during the 2004 US presidential campaign."[16] The discussion quickly spread across the Internet via blogs, and the Drudge Report [17] and the Associated Press later picked it up[18]. Some researchers differ with that conclusion that the documents were forged. [19][20] The facts contained in the documents are disputed by Killian's son, though he has not provided any evidence to support his claims [21].
During the 2004 US Elections, Jerome Corsi, co-author of the controversial book Unfit for Command that attacked the Vietnam war record of Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, apologized in the national media for homophobic and anti-Islam comments, as well as slurs made against liberal political figures, that he made on Free Republic under the user name "jrlc." The posts were discovered and made public by Media Matters for America, a liberal website [22]. Concerning the remarks, Corsi said, "I don't stand by any of those comments and I apologize if they offended anybody," and, "...the politically incorrect humor I posted on this site is evidently not funny to everyone. Detractors should have interviewed my dog. No matter how I frame a comment, "Chico" has yet to laugh." Subsequently, John O'Neill, the book's other co-author, attempted to distance himself from Corsi and attempted to downplay Corsi's involvement in the writing of the book.[citation needed]
[edit] Social organization and events
There are local chapters within Free Republic which are organized through ping lists, 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 whom 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.
[edit] Inspiration
Free Republic has spawned a number of other, similar sites in other countries - predominantly English-speaking western countries. The most successful of these has been Free Dominion, in Canada.[citation needed]
[edit] Criticism
[edit] Allegations of extremism
Many posts on Free Republic are devoted to the ridicule of persons or groups perceived as anathema to conservatives. The site's officially stated policy is to remove blatantly racist or bigoted postings. [23]
Jim Robinson, the founder of the forums, has publicly called for all homosexuals to be removed from "churches, universities, schools, the military, the Boy Scouts" and other public institutions. [24] He has endorsed what many people would consider to be anti-science views. He has described the theory of evolution as not being science, but "socialist dogma" which is imposed "on our school children". [25] He has also equated the theory with homosexuality, paganism, and Islamic extremism. [26]. He further asserts that the theory of evolution can't be true because it makes the Bible a lie, the Declaration of Independence a lie, the Bill of Rights a lie, and in fact, all history a lie [27]. These attitudes have driven some members of the site to an alternate forum, Darwin Central. [28]
[edit] Call for US authorities to end Free Republic's 'misuse' of the net
In August 2006, after what were considered offensive comments were posted on Free Republic about a Bahraini Guantanamo detainee there was a call by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, an organization with close links to Islamist parties and the now defunct Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, for the US authorities to act 'to end the misuse of the net'. The Center said "These comments are sickening - and are an incitement to racial or religious hatred. What they are saying goes against human rights by spreading hatred and we should urge the government to work for an end to the misuse of the Internet to spread hatred against certain races or religions'[29]. Previously Free Republic had listed the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain as a 'terrorist organization' (but see http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=7925, http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=7944, so on).
[edit] Cyber stalking
Some members of Free Republic have been accused of cyberstalking.
The owner of a restaurant who notified authorities when an underage Jenna Bush attempted to illegally purchase liquor at the establishment had their name, residential address, maps and directions, date of birth, drivers license and registration information, physical description, and information about their infant child posted on the Free Republic forums. Some of the posters advocated violence toward the restaurant's patrons, as well as destroying it physically. [30].
[edit] Chad Castagana
Chad Castagana 39, of Woodland Hills, California was arrested on 11-12-2006 by a Joint Terrorism Task Force comprised of FBI agents from both New York and California, along with US Postal authorities, for allegedly sending profane and death-threatening letters containing 'white powder' to Liberal politicians, journalists, and celebrities.[31] Castagana was a registered user of Free Republic, according to blogs cited by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC[32]. Free Republic's founder Jim Robinson said that Castagana had been banned numerous times as a "retread troll."
[edit] See also
- Democratic Underground - Liberal counterpart of Free Republic[citation needed]
- Killian documents
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Statement by the founder of Free Republic
- Pitt, William Rivers. "God Sees The Freepers." Editorial. Truthout: 9 June 2001.
- Pitt, William Rivers. "God Still Sees The Freepers." Editorial. Truthout: 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.
- Comments made by Jerome Corsi on Free Republic
- Journalism.nyu.edu on source verification, Dan Rather, and CBS.
- History of FR by Jim Robinson.
