The Heritage Foundation has warned Americans against believing that Big Tech oligarchs want substantive reform while censorship continues on. Google CEO Sundar Pichai called President-elect Donald Trump in late November, Amazon.com owner Jeff Bezos wouldn’t allow his paper (The Washington Post) to endorse Democrat candidate Kamala Harris and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg paid an in-person visit to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, reportedly claiming to be ready and eager to help Trump with a “reform movement” of technology. But since both Google and Meta continue to censor free speech, Heritage warned, “Do not trust Mark Zuckerberg,” Meta, Google or the other Big Tech companies. The Heritage Foundation posted the warning against trusting Big Tech on Dec. 3, adding, “Meta was still censoring right-wing content in the lead up to Election Day, and there’s no indication that it won’t continue whenever it’s politically convenient.” Indeed, Facebook has continued to censor users after the election, including Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), as MRC’s unique CensorTrack database shows. Google also continued to display extreme leftist bias in its manipulation of search results on and following Election Day, as MRC studies continue to show. MRC Vice President for Free Speech Dan Schneider said, “The Heritage Foundation is right to warn Americans against implicitly trusting Big Tech CEOs who have been violating Americans’ First Amendment rights for years. Major reforms need to be implemented before these CEOs gain credibility.” The Heritage Foundation’s X post included a video showing its Tech Policy Center director Kara Frederick explaining that Big Tech oligarchs are not trustworthy. “There is an extensive CYA campaign — you might have seen Mark Zuckerberg came out, and said [in a letter], ‘Oh, you know, we did wrong when we suppressed COVID-19 misinformation,’ right? ‘We did wrong when we suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story.’ Because I think these guys are hedging their bets,” Frederick argued. She warned, “Don't take that victory lap for free speech just because somebody like Mark Zuckerberg says mea culpa to a degree, because we know that in the background, they are continuing to censor apace. We've seen it again and again, not just with Meta actually downranking that photo of Trump raising his fist defiantly in the air [after being shot in July], but we've seen it with Google.” Indeed, likely no company has engaged in more election-interfering censorship than Google.  Frederick highlighted biased search results, “When people tried to search for ‘Trump assassination,’ they weren't getting what happened. They weren’t getting proper search results. Google was not surfacing real information.” MRC studies throughout Octoberand November showed that Google consistently buried right-leaning news sources and websites for major Republican candidates, including Trump, and now Trump’s cabinet picks.  Even Amazon joined in the Big Tech election rigging, Frederick noted, as Alexa was willing to provide reasons for voting for Harris but not for her Republican opponent Trump.  Ultimately, Frederick cautioned that tech oligarchs are “continuing to do what they've always done in election cycles and suppress information. Right now, they're just being a little bit more savvy in the public eye about it, because they know there was such a backlash, given what they did in the 2020 election cycle. I'm telling everyone, they are smart. Don't fall for it guys. All of the censorship is happening in the background.”  And, as The Heritage Foundation is warning, that censorship continues after the election too, no matter what Pichai, Zuckerberg or even Bezos pretend. Conservatives are under attack. Contact Googleand Facebook here and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

Taylor Lorenz — the controversial, polarizing former Washington Post writer — declared the following just hours after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in a targeted attack Wednesday, Fox News noted: "And people wonder why we want these executives dead." Fox News said Lorenz wrote the aforementioned words on social media site Bluesky alongside a report about Blue Cross Blue Shield no longer covering anesthesia for the full length of some surgeries.'If you have watched a loved one die because an insurance conglomerate has denied their life saving treatment as a cost-cutting measure, yes, it's natural to wish that the people who run such conglomerates would suffer the same fate.'Lorenz also shared images of Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO Kim Keck and reposted calls for other health insurance executives to be targeted, the cable news network added.Fox News in a separate story said Lorenz reposted the following words from another social media user: "hypothetically, would it be considered an actionable threat to start emailing other insurance CEOs a simple ‘you're next’? Completely unrelated to current events btw." Fox News said Lorenz clarified to the cable news network in regard to her "And people wonder why we want these executives dead" post, noting that it "uses the royal we and is explaining the public sentiment." Lorenz continued to Fox News, "That said, health care executives absolutely want people dead as long as it helps their bottom line, and that’s the entire problem. My sympathies are with the innocent people who have died or suffered after being denied coverage by greedy insurance companies."More from Fox News:In a post entitled, "Why ‘we’ want insurance executives dead," Lorenz denied she was calling for the murder of more top executives before seeming to justify her harsh comments from the day before. "Let me be super clear: My post uses a collective ‘we’ and is explaining the public sentiment. It is not me personally saying ‘I want these executives dead and so we should kill them,'" Lorenz said. "I am explaining that thousands of Americans (myself included) are fed up with our barbaric health care system and the people at the top who rake in millions while inflicting pain, suffering, and death on millions of innocent people." She continued, "If you have watched a loved one die because an insurance conglomerate has denied their life-saving treatment as a cost-cutting measure, yes, it's natural to wish that the people who run such conglomerates would suffer the same fate."Fox News said the post also featured a meme depicting a smiling star and balloons with the text, "CEO DOWN." "People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering," her post continued, according to the cable network. "I think it’s good to call out this broken system and the people in power who enable it. Again, not so they can be murdered, but so that we can change the system and start holding people in power accountable for their actions." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

President Joe Biden’s sweeping 11-year pardon for his son Hunter makes it much easier for President-elect Donald J. Trump to issue pardons to all of the more than 1,560 Jan. 6 defendants, the founder of the Oath Keepers says. Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, 59, who is serving an 18-year Jan. 6 prison term for seditious conspiracy and tampering with documents or evidence, said he is glad to see Biden acknowledge that the U.S. Department of Justice engages in selective prosecution. “Now Biden finally agrees with President Trump and us J6 political prisoners who have been pointing out that reality for years — that our legal system has become utterly corrupted, politicized, and ‘weaponized’ for ‘raw politics,’” Rhodes told Blaze News in a statement from the federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland. Rhodes said Trump is keenly aware of the weaponized justice system, having been charged in a Florida classified documents case that was later dismissed, a Jan. 6 obstruction case in Washington, D.C., several cases in New York state, and one in Georgia. Not to mention a one-sided investigation by the Jan. 6 Select Committee, two impeachments that resulted in acquittals, and civil lawsuits brought by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the District of Columbia, and private individuals. 'In Biden’s alternate reality, his son’s prosecution alone is unfair and political.' “President Trump now knows exactly what it is like to go through a kangaroo-court, Stalinistic show trial in a leftist court with leftists jurors and a leftist judge,” Rhodes said. “He also knows that he will have no meaningful review by any leftist appellate court either in state or federal court. So he knows that the only way any of these oppressed and persecuted patriots are ever going to have their rights actually defended is if President Trump himself does it by issuing pardons or commutations. “Biden pardoning his son does make it harder for anyone to criticize President Trump when he pardons us J6 political prisoners,” Rhodes said. “Of course, the left will still scream bloody murder and is already ramping up a campaign to demonize all of us, and especially those of us who have a higher profile. The defamatory hit pieces have already begun."Selective prosecution? “But all that noise and false outrage will have even less credibility now that Biden has pardoned his son despite his obvious guilt while thousands of other Americans continue to rot in prison for doing the exact same thing,” Rhodes said. When Biden issued his pardon on Dec. 1, he said Hunter Biden had been “selectively and unfairly prosecuted” by the DOJ on gun and tax charges. The pardon was backdated to 2014, blunting any possible prosecution related to alleged kickbacks from Ukraine and China. Selective prosecution has been alleged in many Jan. 6 criminal cases, but judges in the Washington, D.C., federal district court have not allowed it as a defense. Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III testifies before the Jan. 6 Select Committee on June 9, 2022.Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images In a trial that ran from Sept. 27 to Nov. 29, 2022, Rhodes argued that he was being prosecuted for his speech before, during, and after Jan. 6. Rhodes had urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act in 2020 and use his authority to to declassify a cache of documents to expose the deep state and societal elites. Rhodes had said that if Trump did not act, others would pay the price in a bloody revolution. Rhodes didn’t go inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 but was accused by the DOJ of an implied conspiracy to attack the Capitol and oppose the authority of the U.S. government by force. The FBI testified in the first Oath Keepers trial that there was no plan to go into or attack the Capitol, although a group of Oath Keepers did enter the Capitol through the Columbus Doors after 2:30 p.m. “In Biden’s alternate reality, his son’s prosecution alone is unfair and political, but all the other prosecutions are perfectly fine,” Rhodes said. “All the J6 prosecutions? My 18-year sentence for standing outside the Capitol and exercising my right to political free speech while harming nobody? That’s fine. 'Give them all pardons so they can finally speak the truth without fear of being punished for it.' “Enrique Tarrio’s 22-year sentence while he wasn’t even in D.C. on Jan 6? That’s fine,” Rhodes said. “The 14-year sentence for Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs, who is on video helping police inside the Capitol? That’s fine.” Rhodes said he and others were targeted “because of who we are, not because of anything we did” in order to create a narrative of Trump-ordered insurrection at the Capitol. All to keep Trump from continuing in the presidency after Jan. 20, 2021. “But [Biden’s] drug-addict felon son, caught red-handed lying on federal firearms forms and in possession of a firearm, that prosecution is unfair and only motivated by politics? C’mon, man!” A blanket pardon would allow those who were coerced into giving false testimony to come forward and expose anyone who put them up to it, Rhodes said. “The only way to fully unwind the ‘lawfare’ and unwind the Big Lie of Jan. 6 and to begin the dismantling of this empire of lies is to give them all pardons so they can finally speak the truth without fear of being punished for it,” Rhodes said. The 2022 Oath Keepers trial was fueled by false testimony, Rhodes said. He was acquitted of conspiracy to obstruct the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress and conspiracy to prevent members of Congress from discharging their duties. Rhodes’ conviction for obstruction of an official proceeding was likely invalidated by a June 28 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Fischer v. United States. Rhodes has not filed to have the verdict tossed or for a resentencing without the 20-year obstruction felony. “That’s why I think President Trump should pardon everyone, including these turncoats who sold out and committed the sin of bearing false witness and the crime of perjury,” Rhodes said. “They too should be pardoned so they are free to speak out and finally tell the truth and testify against the prosecutors who engaged in the crime of subornation of perjury.” Daniel Ball, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., said the DOJ would have no comment on the subornation of perjury allegation. Veterans’ benefits stripped The pardons can “set right” the denial of rightfully earned Veterans Affairs benefits that were stripped from many Jan. 6 defendants, he said. Rhodes served in the U.S. Army as an infantryman in a long-range scout reconnaissance unit. Due to a service injury, Rhodes said he is rated by the VA as 50% disabled. “I nearly died in a parachuting accident on a night jump while doing very dangerous rough-terrain parachuting training that broke my back and left me with a permanently fused spine, with steel rods holding it all together,” Rhodes said. Rhodes said he received a letter from the VA “notifying me that I had now been stripped of all my disabled-veteran benefits, and now I cannot even be buried in a veterans’ cemetery when I die. That is the most horrific insult I have ever received in my life. That and being stripped of my right to keep and bear arms and my right to vote.” Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III speaks to media at the University of California Berkeley in 2017. Oath Keepers photo A lifelong Republican, Rhodes said he has responsibly carried a concealed weapon his entire adult life in order to protect his family and those around him. As a felon, Rhodes will not be able to possess firearms. “All that has been stripped from me,” Rhodes said. “Only a pardon will set that right and restore me to my rightful place as a full citizen. And I am not alone in that. The same is true of many other J6 defendants who are also veterans and also sheepdogs.” If he issues pardons, Trump would follow in the footsteps of Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Washington pardoned those found guilty of treason in the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion tax protest. Jefferson pardoned men who had been convicted and imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Rhodes said. “In both cases, those amazing Founding Fathers pardoned all involved as a way to dial back the dangerously heated political turmoil of that time,” he said. “And when Jefferson pardoned the men imprisoned for their free speech under the Sedition Acts, he did so in defense of the First Amendment, even though not one federal court had overturned a single conviction.” Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Canadian video game developer Ubisoft is reportedly seeking a buyout from its minority shareholders to avoid a hostile takeover, according to inside sources.A report by Reuters cited "two people familiar with the matter" who requested to remain anonymous to provide the details.The Guillemot family, the founders and largest shareholders (15%) in Ubisoft, have allegedly been in talks with the second-largest shareholder in the company, Tencent (9.99%), to organize a buyout.Tencent is a giant, multinational media corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, China. It owns shares in over 30 gaming companies across the world, owning more than a third of studios like Epic Games and Shift Up. Tencent also wholly owns Riot Games out of Los Angeles, which created the ultra-popular League of Legends game.The rumors allege that other minority shareholders, such as AJ Investments, have been nudging the founding family to take the company private or sell it off to a strategic investor.The Guillemots would reportedly like to maintain control of the company, but Tencent has yet to decide whether or not it wants to increase its stake. Tencent has apparently asked for greater decision-making power in the boardroom including in regard to where cash flow is distributed. The Chinese company is hoping to avoid a hostile takeover by other investors who are unhappy with the company's drop in stock prices.As of the time of this writing, Ubisoft stock prices have dropped by nearly 50% in the last year, falling from almost $25 per share in December 2023 down to around $13.30 in December 2024.'We have utterly crushed this corrupt, gamer hating studio.'Ubisoft has been mired in controversy for almost all of 2024, which has led to extremely sour tastes in the mouths of gamers and even poorer sales.The company started off the year with marketing executive Philippe Tremblay saying consumers need to get used to not owning their video games in order to move the market in a direction that is focused on subscription-based access. In April, developers of Star Wars Outlaws denounced oppression and inequality in a series of cringeworthy public statements meant to appeal to progressive audiences. Upon its release, Ubisoft said its sales were "softer than expected," admitting to just 1 million copies sold, which was incredibly low for a budget of approximately $250 million.In July, the company's newest Assassin's Creed game faced relentless backlash for fabricating a story about a black samurai and making the character the face of the game. Assassin's Creed Shadows was eventually delayed until February 2025 as outrage spiraled online.Game developer Mark Kern, who has led a crusade against forced diversity in video games in recent years, called Ubisoft one of the "most infected" studios in terms of heartless platitudes."[They] tried to make you love Star Wars Outlaws, and tried to virtue signal with Assassin's Creed Shadows." Kern added, "You fought. We fought. And now, we have utterly crushed this corrupt, gamer hating studio."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

One of Donald Trump’s most exciting picks for his incoming administration is Kash Patel, who will lead the FBI. And FBI whistleblower Steve Friend is thrilled by the pick. “I’ve been on record for a long time now believing that the FBI has to be shattered into a thousand pieces and scattered to the wind,” Friend tells Jill Savage and Matthew Peterson of “Blaze News Tonight.” “If there is one person, though, who can possibly make the demo into a reno, it is Kash Patel,” he continues. “He brings a great perspective being someone who is not just a prosecutor who actually helped prosecute the war on terrorism over at JSOC and saw intelligence and rooted out the corruption when he was part of the Russiagate expose that went on, but he’s also a public defender, which is very unique because historically, the FBI director is a federal prosecutor,” he explains. Because of his unique skill set, Friend believes that “he has a healthy respect for the amount of power that is at the fingertips of the FBI.” “The fact that they’re able to take people’s freedom away, if they indeed make the process the punishment, that they’re able to do that,” he continues, adding, “So I’m really enthused by that.” Friend has been in “back channel conversations with him” and knows that Patel is “willing to take up things like ‘let’s get rid of the intelligence apparatus that exists for the FBI.’” “There’s no reason they need to be spying on the American people. They’re a police force, they shouldn’t be a secret police force,” Friend says, noting that Patel “needs to get rid of the quota system.” “The fact that the FBI is rewarding and incentivizing agents, senior executives, to push on their underlings to go and arrest the right number of people or open the right number of cases so that they can get five-figure bonuses,” he comments, disturbed. “And let’s revamp the way we’re doing our hiring practices so that we’re merit-based.” “And I just have to point to the last three position holders over at the FBI directorship,” he continues, noting James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Christopher Wray, who were all working against Trump and the American people for the last few years. “It’s hardly a nonpartisan position at this point, and the fact that Kash Patel is wearing his politics on his sleeve, I think is actually just refreshing. Because it’s transparent,” he adds. Want more from 'Blaze News Tonight'?To enjoy more provocative opinions, expert analysis, and breaking stories you won’t see anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

U.S. officials are imploring individuals and companies alike to use encrypted messaging apps in order to minimize the chances of the communist Chinese regime intercepting their communications. The recommendations coincide with the confirmation by a top U.S. security official this week of a historic state-sponsored hacking campaign that compromised at least eight American telecommunications companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Microsoft dubbed the Chinese group responsible Salt Typhoon. Salt Typhoon, which has been active since at least 3020, is also occasionally referred to as GhostEmperor, Earth Estries, UNC2286 or FamousSparrow. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the Salt Typhoon attack in September, noting that the hackers penetrated numerous broadband providers earlier this year, affording them a foothold within the broadband infrastructure with which to access private data and possible launch a ruinous cyberattack. While exponents of the Chinese regime have repeatedly denied its role in the attack, American officials aren't buying what they are selling. 'Encryption is your friend.' The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI issued a joint statement last month indicating that the U.S. government's "continued investigation into the People's Republic of China (PRC) targeting of commercial telecommunications infrastructure has revealed a broad and significant cyber espionage campaign." "Specifically, we have identified that PRC-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies to enable the theft of customer call records data, the compromise of private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders," said the agencies. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) stated on Nov. 29, "Salt Typhoon is the worst telecom hack in American history, and demands both a proportionate response to the Chinese Communist Party and increased accountability for U.S. corporations to prevent these intrusions." Auchincloss suggested to CNN that the hackers were especially brazen, re-asserting themselves in the networks after being discovered. An unnamed senior FBI official and Jeff Greene, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, told NBC News Tuesday that Americans should use encrypted messaging apps. "Our suggestion, what we have told folks internally, is not new here: Encryption is your friend, whether it's on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication. Even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible," said Greene. "People looking to further protect their mobile device communications would benefit from considering using a cellphone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption and phishing resistant" multi-factor authentication for email, social media and collaboration tool accounts, said the FBI official. Greene indicated the networks remained compromised and that intelligence agencies cannot presently "predict a time frame on when we'll have full eviction." The FBI, CISA, and the National Security Agency published a joint guide Wednesday, titled "Enhanced Visibility and Hardening Guidance for Communications Infrastructure," detailing ways that network engineers and "defenders of communications infrastructure" can harden their network devices against further exploitation by Chinese hackers. "The PRC-affiliated cyber activity poses a serious threat to critical infrastructure, government agencies, and businesses. This guide will help telecommunications and other organizations detect and prevent compromises by the PRC and other cyber actors," Greene said in a statement. 'It should never have happened.' The Biden White House's deputy national security adviser, Anne Neuberger, told reporters this week that none of the impacted companies have "fully removed the Chinese actors from these networks," reported the Associated Press. "So there is a risk of ongoing compromises to communications until U.S. companies address the cybersecurity gaps the Chinese are likely to maintain their access," added Neuberger. Neuberger added, "We don't believe any classified communications has been compromised." After intelligence officials briefed members of the U.S. Senate Wednesday, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) reportedly expressed frustration, noting, "They have not told us why they didn't catch it; what they could have done to prevent it." Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, "The extent and depth and breadth of Chinese hacking is absolutely mind-boggling — that we would permit as much as has happened in just the last year is terrifying," reported Reuters. The Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday that it is "taking decisive steps to address vulnerabilities in U.S. telecommunications networks following the Salt Typhoon cyberattack, a sophisticated intrusion linked to foreign state-sponsored actors. These measures aim to safeguard critical communications infrastructure and ensure national security, public safety, and economic resilience in the future." FCC commissioner Brendan Carr tweeted, "The Salt Typhoon intrusion is a serious and unacceptable risk to our national security. It should never have happened. I will be working with national security agencies through the transition and next year in an effort to root out the threat and secure our networks." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Potion Craft: Alchemy Simulator has a great premise. Rather than focus on the medieval battles or town and country management seen in games like Manor Lords, Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, or Crusader Kings 3, Potion Craft takes a more intimate — and slightly fanciful — look at one particular aspect of the past: Managing an alchemy shop. And now, despite having launched almost two years ago, it's just received a massive free update that adds in new modes and features meant to provide even more expansive options for making and selling potions. Continue reading Medieval storefront simulator Potion Craft gets massive free update

Seems Racist: San Fran School District Targets Successful Majority Asian School for Closure to Fix Budget

What Is WRONG With You? Anti-Theists Are Outraged at Gwen Stefani's Christmas Prayer App

Get a Hobby, Keith! Olbermann's Terminal Case of TDS Leads Him to Pounce on a Trump Typo