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Free Republic is a moderated Internet forum and activist site for Republicans and Neoconservatives from the United States. Founded in 1996 by Jim Robinson, it bills itself as "the premier on-line gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web." According to Ivor Tossell of the Globe and Mail, "during the 2004 U.S. presidential election, it 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." The site has been controversial for what its critics consider inappropriate calls to action posted by some of its by members, and what they view as political extremism.
Mission statement
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 and Policy
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.
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.
Free Republic was virtually unmoderated (with the exception of the efforts of Robinson himself) in its early years, however, 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.
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.
Terminology and subculture
The Free Republic subculture has developed its own neologisms and terminology:
- 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.See Social Organization and Events. Also used to describe coordinated voting in an online poll. See Influencing polls
- Freeping: The participation in a Freep
- 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.
- Zot!: An expression for an individual who has been banned.
- IBTZ: Means "in before the zot."
- DUmmie: A pejorative term for members of Democratic Underground.
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," will assemble at a predetermined location with signs and banners which are generally designed and hand-drawn by individual members.
One such Freep was described by reporter by Kerry Lauerman for Salon.com in 2001. A number of Freepers paid $20 each to attend the conference at which conservative politicians and thinkers of varying pedigrees spoke to the issues that most interested the audience; the rights of man, the problems with the news media, and striper lakes. The climax of the evening was the presentation of a large Confederate Flag, to "Bob Johnson, from Los Angeles, for spearheading the Free Republic Network."
in 2005, Free Republic helped organize and stage a 'Freep' in Washington D.C. intended to show support for the troops and in opposition to the September 24 2005 anti warprotest which drew an estimated 100,000. Free Republic's D.C. chapter leader and frequent spokekperson for the group Kristinn Taylor was quoted as saying that they "were prepared for 20,000 people to attend the pro-military rally, billed as a time to honor the troops fighting, the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world." Instead of the 20,000 expected, an estimated 100 reportedly did attend.
Free Republic's counter-protest activities at Walter Reed Army Hospital are also notable. In 2005(? confirm date) the Antiwar group Code Pink initiated recurring protests outside the hospital, home to many soldiers severely injured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The protests reportedly included mock caskets and signs which said "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton." sentiments offensive to many members of Free Republic. The D. C. Chapter, along with other groups, organized successful counter-protests, which allegedly resulted in Code Pink severely curtailing their Walter Reed protests, a clear victory for Free Republic and the other pro-war groups.
Political influence
Free Republic posters, notably "TankerKC" (later identified as active Air Force officer Paul Boley) and "Buckhead" (later identified as Atlanta attorney Harry W. MacDougald) contributed to breaking "Rathergate," the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of questionable documents during the 2004 US presidential campaign, which eventually resulted in the early retirement or forced resignations of Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and three other senior executives at CBS News. The discussion quickly spread across the Internet via blogs, and the Drudge Report and the Associated Press later picked it up . A few researchers differ with the conclusion that the documents were forged , however, American neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard quotes Joseph M. Newcomer, a Microsoft expert with a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University, as having prepared a 7000 word assertion that the documents were forgeries. The facts contained in the documents are disputed by Killian's son, though he has not provided any evidence to support his claims .
Further information: Killian documents authenticity issuesControversial aspects
Ivor Tossell of the 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."
A few members of Free Republic have been criticized for harassment related to implied threats against former President Clinton, and against the owners of a restaurant who notified authorities when an underage Jenna Bush attempted to illegally purchase liquor at the establishment. These actions were condemned by many other posters and by Jim Robinson, who removed the posts and banned the persons who posted them.
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. The tort complaint of $1,000,000 was filed in the US Court of the Southern District of California. 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." The federal trial court judge awarded summary judgment for $1,000,000 in damages to the two newspapers, plus over $1,000,000 in attorney's fees. Free Republic appealed this decision to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 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. 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.
References
- Freerepublic.com - Mission statement
- Freerepublic.com - Budget.
- Freerepublic.com - Guidelines
- Wallsten, Peter, Blogger alleging CBS memos as frauds is GOP lawyer, Saturday, September 18, 2004, Los Angeles Times
- Post
- "The jihad against Chuy's". Salon.com. June 6, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-11.
- Post
See also
External links
- Official website
- Statement by the founder of Free Republic
- York, Anthony. "Free Republic defends Salon." Salon, 18 July 2001.
- Lauerman, Kerry. "They're here, they're mad, get used to it." Salon, 24 June 2001.
- 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.