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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."

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.

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. .

Forums

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.

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."

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, Misplaced Pages.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.

Note, however, that Alexa may not be a reliable means of determining traffic to a website.

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, 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. 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. 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.

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. This is often used by "moles" from left-leaning discussion boards who want to present Free Republic users with news that runs counter to their belief system without getting "Zotted".

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."

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 . 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 , to remain in good standing.

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."

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.

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.

DUmmie

A pejorative term for members of Democratic Underground.

Reepers

A pejorative term used and found on many outside discussion groups referring to members of Free Republic.

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, 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 vandalism against information websites they perceived to have a liberal bias, primarily related to major racial and political topics.

Political influence

Free Republic posters contributed to breaking "Rathergate," the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of questionable documents during the 2004 US presidential campaign. Nineteen minutes after its broadcast began, poster "TankerKC" questioned the documents on-line, stating they were "not in the style that we used when I came into the USAF." Another poster, "Buckhead" (later identified as Atlanta attorney Harry W. MacDougald), made an on-line observation that the documents were in a proportionally spaced font, and stated, "these documents are forgeries," less than four hours after CBS broadcast their story . He ended his "Post 47" on that thread with the words, "This should be pursued aggressively." The following morning, Scott Johnson, a co-author of the Internet blog Power Line , received an e-mail which "...quoted from and linked to post." He published the quote and a link to the Free Republic thread, saying, "'Hey, anybody else out there among our readers have any information about this?'" The discussion quickly spread across the Internet via blogs, and the Drudge Report and the Associated Press later picked it up. The questioning of the document's legitimacy -- they were found to be 100% identical to how the same documents would look in Microsoft Word, which wouldn't be invented until almost twenty years later -- caused CBS to investigate internally and eventually retract the story.

Also during that campaign, 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 . 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.

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.

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.

Criticism

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.

Free Republic is often accused of being extremist and far-right. Even popular conservative talk show host Sean Hannity has described the site as "fringe". Some conservatives who formerly contributed to the site, including Matt Drudge and Lucianne Goldberg, have stopped doing so; Goldberg commented that Robinson had "let all the Y2K, gun-nut, Jew-baiting crazies take over and flame the plain-old conservatives."

Free Republic's members often condone and applaud acts of politically motivated violence, such as the Kent State shootings, right-wing dictatorships and the alleged prisoner abuse committed by American and Iraqi government officials. .

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. 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". He has also equated the theory with homosexuality, paganism, and Islamic extremism. . 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 . These attitudes have driven some members of the site to an alternate forum, Darwin Central.

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'. 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).

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. The owner's name, residential address, maps and directions, date of birth, drivers license and registration information, physical description, and information about her infant child were posted on the Free Republic forums by some users. Some of these users then advocated violence toward the restaurant's patrons, as well as destroying it physically. .

Death Threat Poster Allegations

Controversy erupted on November 13, 2006 when it was alleged that a member of the Free Republic forums had been sending death threats to Jon Stewart, Nancy Pelosi, David Letterman and Chuck Schumer. The site administrator allegedly shut down the forums for a period of a half hour to erase all postings made by the poster and to delete several threads discussing the topic.

• Original complaint against Andy Stephenson
• The Stalking of Andy Stephenson by Beth Ferrari
• Seattle Weekly: "A Fight To The End"
• Seattle Weekly: "Internet Martyr - The life and cruel death of Andy Stephenson."

Free Republic Contributor Linked to Keith Olbermann Fake Anthrax Letter

FBI investigators identified Chad Castagana, 39, of Woodland Hills, California, as having sent as having sent more than a dozen threatening letters to media outlets, newscasters, and public figures such as Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Rep. Nancy Pelosi future House Speaker, Chuck Schumer of New York, one of which contained a white powder substance to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

Castagana, has reputedly been linked to "Marc Costanzo", user of Free Republic, whose bio states:

I am a lifelong Conservative Republican .

I have an Associates Degree in the Science of Electronics .

Ann Coulter is a Goddess and I worship Laura Ingraham and Michele Malkin .

English is the langauge of the United States of America- - our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are written in the langauge that expresses our civilized freedoms .

Spanish is the language of Banana Republics, beyond that it belongs in a European country.

Just weeks before the Olbermann letter, Costanzo wrote:

"This partisan loudmouth Olbermann is a demagogue! Someone should find out where he lives and mail him a Ted Kazcinski letter."

After the Keith Olbermann letter, Costanzo wrote: "Not to make light of the situation, but drama queen Olbermann put on quite a production even after he'd been told the powder was harmless and checked out by doctors and told he was fine. He demanded that he be rushed to the hospital for more tests. I wouldn't be even remotely surprised if he mailed it to himself. I've never seen someone more desperate for attention and approval. I heard from a liberal blog that Olbermann was a prima donna at the hospital, giving the medical staff and the cops a hard time. Keith is a whiny little b@tch! Accepting that, I do not believe he sent it to himself. But that is just guess work."

A letter which was posted on the Science Fiction Weekly web site, their August 26, 2002 issue, Costagana wrote: "The future is not the current events of our world thrown into outer space. The future is not with the Liberals, not with the Multiculturalists (both hate America), and it is certainly not to be found in Canada! The future is not written, the future is unformed."

Four years later Marc Costanzo wrote on Free Republic:

"Let us create a future of infinite possibilities devoid of the agenda of the social engineers who work their corruption on us thru the one way world of television. A world where anything is possible, but not everything is possible. Anything can happen, but not all things can happen at once. That is what 'Time' is for, to keep all things from happening at the same moment. That shall be the only rule of our new fantasy world. That an event happens only once. What has been done, cannot be undone. There is no turning back the sands of time. You can review the past but you cannot change the past. That a vision of a possible future - to the present, must be taken in the context of the present. A Cosmos not governed by compassion or tolerance or equality, but common sense and merit. A Universe of strange and totally new lifeforms and not distorted reflections of human characters, just to make some social allegory ---- THAT is the insipid barren road of Political Correctness that Sci-fi entertainment has been a slave to for so many years. The future is not the current events of our world thrown into Outer Space. The future is not with the Liberals, not with the Multiculturalists (both hate America), and it is certainly not to be found in some cheapo TV production made in Canada! The future is not written, the future is unformed."

In a Free Republic posting, "Costanzo" reveals that he hails from Woodland Hills, California, the same site as the future arrest of Chad Castagana.

After the Chuck Schumer letter, Costanzo wrote: "Hold it here now, what are the facts? The links provide few details. This info is very sketchy!"

When the Washington Post recieved it's letter, Costanzo responded: "I heard recently that The Washington Post got interrupted beifly the other day becaue of a 'suspicious letter'. I read about this at Wonkette.com They said that this letter only contained harmless powder of Boric Acid."

Many have linked "Costanzo's" "I have an Associate's Degree in the Science of Electronics" and Castagana's web history indicating a strong interest in the subject.

Liberal blogs, including Daily Kos, have now uncovered numerous aliases.

See also

• Democratic Underground - Liberal counterpart of Free Republic
• Killian documents

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
• FreeRepublic.com Original FR thread with Buckhead's "Post 47" regarding Rathergate.
• Journalism.nyu.edu on source verification, Dan Rather, and CBS.
• History of FR by Jim Robinson.

1. . Reuters. Retrieved November 13, 2006.
2. . Radar Online. Retrieved November 13, 2006.
3. . Radar Online. "Even More on Pelosi's Powder Stalker". Retrieved November 13, 2006.
4. . "Bio". Retrieved November 13, 2006.
5. . Free Republic. Retrieved November 13, 2006.
6. . Free Republic. Retrieved November 13, 2006.
7. . Free Republic. November 13, 2006.
8. . Free Republic. Retrieved November 13, 2006.
9. . Free Republic. November 13, 2006.
10. . Free Republic. , 2006.
11. .
12. .
13. .

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