Free Republic

Free Republic is a moderated Internet forum and chat site for conservatives, primarily within the United States of America. It includes articles and original postings accompanied by comments from forum participants. Posting privileges are limited to registered members using screen names. The comments are typically from a conservative point of view. Due to copyright restrictions (see below), posted articles are often excerpts from originals.

For each article, the forum's main page typically shows its headline, plus the first hundred 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. Registered members post a continuous flow of new articles to the forum.

Free Republic forums are open to registered users for discussion about news stories excerpted and linked from their sources, political events, conservative principles and the elimination of government corruption and abuse. Other frequent subjects are Prayer Requests, "Caption This Photo", and a number of subjects in which interest is so prolonged so as to be featured as Daily Threads and given separate homepage links, amongst which can be found:

• "The FReeper Foxhole" (a forum about military history, military news and similar topics),
• "FReeper Canteen" (a daily thread dedicated to those who serve in the armed forces),
• "Pookie's Toons" (a.k.a. "Today's Toons"), a daily collection of political cartoons updated daily
• horse chat,
• hobbit chat,
• political limericks
• Prayer Request for a friend's grandchild,
• Terri Schiavo,
• "Pray for President Bush",
• "A Day in the Life of Pres. Bush (photos)",

There are daily and weekly live threads discussing numerous local, syndicated and Internet-only conservative talk radio broadcasts.

There are local chapters "unconnected with Free Republic", organized through ping lists, e-mail, and Free Republic mail. 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 , or small rallies.

Free Republic has an official policy which allows authorized moderators to remove postings identified as blatantly violent, racist or bigoted.. Postings deemed to support "Liberal" points of view may also be "moderated" per official policy, expressed in 2004 by the owner as: "we feel no compelling need to allow [liberals] a platform to promote their repugnant and obnoxious propaganda from our forum. Free Republic is not a liberal debating society." The owner reserves the right to revoke posting privileges and exclude any individual without recourse.