Free Republic

Free Republic is a moderated Internet forum, activist and chat site for self-described conservatives and nationalists, primarily within the United States.^[1] It presents articles and comments posted pseudonymously by registered members, known as "Freepers,"^[2] using screen names. For each article, the forum's main page typically shows its headline, plus the first 100 words of the article as posted to Free Republic. Users can see the full article at its original source by clicking a hyperlink beneath the headline.

Local chapters and forum policies

There are local chapters "unconnected with Free Republic", organized through ping lists, e-mail, and Free Republic mail.^[3]^[4] 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 Second Amendment, the pro-life movement, or opposing gay marriage. The more active chapters organize live protests, which they call "Freeps." Since the 2000 election, these are often counter-protests, responses to protests by opposition groups,^[5]^[6] or small rallies.^[7]

Chronology

1996-2000 - Anti-Clinton

Founded in September 1996 as a sole proprietorship by Founder, Chairman and President James C. "Jim" Robinson^[8] of Fresno, California, Free Republic opened to the general public in February 1997. Robinson filed for LLC status on September 11, 1998.^[9] It has always been a for-profit company and donations have never been tax exempt. ^[10]

Free Republic gained popularity during the Clinton impeachment in 1997 and 1998, a time when it was linked on the Drudge Report as "Whitewater Archives," 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 over 3000 participants, called the "March for Justice," broadcast live on Halloween 1998 by C-SPAN. Featured speakers included Alan Keyes, Bob Barr, Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson of B.O.N.D. and Larry Klayman. Ann Coulter, Lucianne Goldberg and Matt Drudge also attended.^[11] Other Free Republic events over the years have also been televised by C-SPAN.^[12]^[13]

Drudge dropped the link to Free Republic by February 1999, "because they were doing racist stuff over the [Clinton love child]." Drudge quickly restored the link, but later dropped it again for unknown reasons.^[14] As of April 2008 the Free Republic link is back on Drudge.http://www.drudgereport.com/

In its early years, 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 obtained a permanent injunction, although stipulated damages of $1 million were reduced to $10,000 during settlement negotiations which allowed the defendants to drop their appeal.^[15] The case, often cited when arguing cyberlaw, is called L.A. Times v. Free Republic.

From 1996-2000, the bulletin board was virtually unmoderated. This policy was central to the website's "fair use" defense in the copyright infringement litigation, wherein it stated "(t)he website operated by the defendants, www.freerepublic.com, permits anyone who wishes to post news articles or other items and to post commentary about the article as well ... no censorship is made and all views are permitted."^[16] 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."^[2] Robinson "famously blasted George W. Bush's presidential candidacy back in 2000, before a dramatic late-campaign about-face that saw him emerge as one of the GOP ticket's biggest supporters."^[17] These shifts signalled internal battles comparable to the nomination controversies of 2007 "as its founder and chief administrator first cleansed commenting ranks of Bush supporters, then, later, rallied to his support."^[17]

White House Press Secretary and former Fox News commentator Tony Snow was a registered member of Free Republic. Snow was not afraid to 'mix it up' with the Freepers who sometimes disagreed with his political philosophy and who called him a "pansy".^[18]^[19]

Free Republic had been criticized during the pre-moderation period for the actions of a few of its members. In 1999, after FReepers heard that Julie Hiatt Steele, the woman charged with obstruction of justice by Kenneth Starr during President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, was taking credit card donations to help pay her legal bills, they flooded her website with fake donations. Hundreds of "donations" listing fake credit-card numbers (a form of wire fraud)^[20] ended up costing Steele around $4,000, since she had to pay her e-commerce service company 25 to 35 cents to process each one.^[21] Some threatened to assassinate Clinton, like this from February 2001: "If he keeps on he's going to make me come up there. There is only one solution to the Klintons, two 45 rounds and a nice little spot in Marcy Park." ^[22]

When the bar manager of an Austin, Texas restaurant called 9-11 to notify authorities that an underage Jenna Bush had attempted to purchase liquor in June 2001, the bar manager's personal information including her home address, date of birth, driver's license number and physical description was posted on FreeRepublic, along with calls for punitive action.^[23] The Clinton threat and some of the bar manager's personal information were removed by Robinson when brought to his attention, and the authors' posting privileges were revoked. He said that the site had had to "delete relatively few posts" over time for violations of its "no-violence" policy despite Free Republic's popularity and ease of registration.^[24] ^[25]

2001-2004: Bush's first term and Killian documents

In January 2001, the forum organized a "Free Republic Inaugural Gala and Count the Silverware Ball, with orchestral entertainment provided by the sitting governor of Arkansas (Gov. Mike Huckabee) and his band."^[26] Among the attendees were James Golden (a.k.a., Bo Snerdly from Rush Limbaugh radio broadcasts, an early investor in Free Republic), and the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson of B.O.N.D.^[27]

Members of the independent D.C. Chapter counter-protest at an anti-war demonstration at Arlington National Cemetery on October 2, 2004.

Free Republic posters, notably "TankerKC" (later identified as active Air Force officer Paul Boley)^[29] and "Buckhead" (later identified as Atlanta GOP lawyer Harry W. MacDougald)^[30] were among the first, along with members of the blogs Powerline and Little Green Footballs, to react publicly to "Memogate", the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of documents of questionable provenance during the 2004 presidential campaign.^[31]

"One of the first" attacks ^[32] came on Free Republic the night of the broadcast. MacDougald/Buckhead mentioned the memos' proportional spacing and made the claim that such printing was "not widespread until the mid to late 90's".^[33] His posting was followed by further attacks which spread across the Internet via blogs and, by 3 p.m. the next day, the Drudge Report^[34] (attributing the Power Line blog, which credited "reader Liz MacDougald" with pointing to the "MacDougald/Buckhead" post within minutes of its posting at FreeRepublic.) (Power Line then pointed out that the Executive line of IBM typewriters did have proportionally spaced fonts at the time.^[35]). The Associated Press covered the controversy.^[36] The Investigative Panel "was not able to reach a definitive conclusion" on the documents' authenticity. The unresolved controversy 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."^[37] The Columbia Journalism Review wrote "But on close examination the scene looks less like a victory for democracy than a case of mob rule."^[38]

MD4Bush Incident

In October 2004, the "MD4Bush" account was created to investigate the source of false rumors that Democratic Mayor of Baltimore Martin O'Malley had committed adultery.^[39] These rumors were suspected to be coming from the camp of Governor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich.^[39] O'Malley was a likely (and eventual) opponent of Ehrlich in the 2006 gubernatorial race.^[39] Using this alias, MD4Bush allegedly lured Joseph Steffen, aide to Ehrlich, who had a Free Republic membership as "NCPAC," into contact.^[39] MD4Bush then allegedly brought up the O'Malley rumors, and baited Steffen into giving responses on the FR "private message" system, appearing to take credit for spreading the rumors.^[39]

Ehrlich fired Steffen when the contents of these messages were published in the Washington Post on February 9, 2005.^[40] "Kristinn Taylor, a spokesman for FreeRepublic.com, said [Maryland Democratic Party communications director] Ryan O'Doherty's Democratic Party address was one of at least three used to operate the identity of MD4BUSH."^[41] Taylor charged that Post reporter Matthew Mosk's access to the MD4Bush account was a violation of the Free Republic users agreement, and they were "looking into whether the Washington Post violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when Post reporter Matthew Mosk accessed the Free Republic account of MD4Bush."^[42] The e-mail address used in October 2004 to open the MD4Bush account was later changed to rodoherty@mddems.org, then changed for a third time. Anyone who had the password to the MD4Bush account could change the e-mail registration address at any time. It is not known how many people may have had access to that password. The e-mail address information obtained does not shed light on the actual users of the MD4Bush account, nor does it reveal whether someone attached the Ryan O'Doherty e-mail address to the account without his knowledge.^[43]

2005-now - Bush's second term

The band Dixie Chicks and lead singer Natalie Maines claim that Free Republic was instrumental in fueling a nationwide boycott of their music, which was organized by some former fans and radio stations after Maines made some anti-Bush comments in 2003. In their 2006 documentary Shut Up and Sing as well as in interviews, the Dixie Chicks have often mentioned Free Republic in reference to the boycott, which sharply reduced sales of their CDs and concert tickets.

American Flag-waving Jim Robinson and about two dozen other Freepers from all over the country attend the March for Justice II rally at the Upper Senate Park on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Thursday, April 7, 2005.

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."^[46] "And I think it was originally started by the Free Republic. And they were very organized in calling radio stations across the country and telling them that they would never listen to their station, when they didn't even live in that town." Kristinn Taylor of Free Republic's dominant Washington D.C. chapter attended the screening of the documentary, 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.^[47]^[48]^[49]

Allegations of unfair treatment of Giuliani supporters

In 2007, moderators removed the posting privileges of many members who supported the presidential campaign of then current Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani. The New York Observer reported:

Robinson himself endorsed Fred Thompson and was an enthusiastic backer of his campaign.^[50]

Influencing online 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 all Internet users to respond. Some Free Republic forum messages, usually captioned "Freep this poll!", urge Free Republic members to vote en masse in these polls. Members are also urged to "'Freep' C-Span's 'Washington Journal' with telephone calls pointing out media bias."^[51]

"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 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."^[52]

Occasionally, if the current results of an online poll are unfavorable to them, Freepers will "reverse freep" it, voting against their own views to pad the opposing vote to the point where it loses credibility.^[53]