The last 5 years have been a colossal opportunity for grifters like Alex Jones, who were able to take advantage of a ready-made audience of gullible Trump consumers waiting to buy whatever anyone was selling them.

And they were aided by platforms like @Facebook and @YouTube.
1/
These people, like Mike Cernovich, Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro and Jones had access to amplification they could have never dreamed of previously through social networks and unmoderated advertising, merchandising, subscription & payment platforms allowed them to monetize it. 2/
Trump fandom was and continues to be a group of easy marks for all of it.

Even if these grifters didn’t like Trump, just merely expressing their support of him or his policies could land them millions in sold merchandise and exposure on social platforms. 3/
Ultimately, this is a story about @Facebook @YouTube @Twitter and platforms like @stripe @Shopify and @GoogleAds turning a blind eye to the people with whom who they are doing business.

Their negligence has made a lot of racists, conspiracy theorists and grifters a lot of money.

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More from @slpng_giants

21 Feb
Holy shit, this is a damning piece.

This explains what we always thought was true about @Facebook. They have consistently make special commutations for outlets like Breitbart, The Daily Wire and InfoWars despite their breaches of the Terms of Service.
We have been pushing @facebook to simply enforce their own rules for years, as have others, and have consistently found that they were unwilling to do even the bare minimum.

Politics should be separated from moderation decisions and rules should be enforced equally. They’re not.
This, from an employee who left @facebook because of its damaging policy decisions, gets it right.

No one is asking Facebook to throw people off their platform based on their ideology, they are simply asking the company to enforce their terms. It isn’t happening.
Read 11 tweets
20 Feb
Read this piece, everyone.

We talk a lot about the negligence of @facebook and @YouTube on here, but @amazon is right up there.

Amazon regularly allows extremists to sell goods on their platform, monetizing them. In fact, they still have an InfoWars storefront on their site.
As is pointed out in this piece, @amazon is the last large advertiser on Breitbart, supporting their content after nearly every other brand abandoned them.

This is emblematic of their history of ignoring moderation and responsibility in favor of profits.
The reason that @amazon can ignore extremism is because they have a monopoly.

With it, they have no need to stop selling, as they have in the past, Nazi merchandise, or stop extremists from selling prepper kits. To them, it’s all cash.
Read 4 tweets
16 Feb
CONFIRMED: Milo Yiannopoulos has been banned by PARLER!
This proves two things:

Parler is not the “free speech” platform they claim to be.

Milo is even annoying to the people who agree with him.
Might have been something to do with this.
Read 4 tweets
16 Feb
This piece underscores how far we’ve come since Pizzagate. In the wrong direction.

Social media companies have not learned a thing and we’re seeing the results:

@twitter hasn’t even bothered to remove two of Pizzagate’s biggest propagandists, Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec.
.@Facebook has now allowed rumors to spread on their platforms that have touched off a genocide and, likely soon, yet another.

@youtube has allowed QAnon and the anti-vaccine movement to grow from fringe theories to massive movements.
And now, after Parler (along with Facebook) enabled militia groups to literally plan the overthrow of the US government and almost succeed, @SkySilkCloud is allowing it back online using their servers.

We have learned nothing.
Read 6 tweets
11 Feb
HORRENDOUS: If you’re still advertising on Fox News, you are sponsoring and attaching your brand to conspiracies and racism. Full stop.

As Fox rails against Black Lives Matter, let’s see what their major advertisers said about it this summer.

Thread:
.@Verizon, one of Fox’s biggest advertisers, made a strong statement in support of racial justice, but they hand Fox millions to lie about George Floyd and defend white supremacists.
.@gm and @cadillac, major sponsors of Fox News, gave $10 million to fund racial justice. Today, they continue to sponsor Fox shows which say Black Lives Matter has torn the fabric of our country.
Read 12 tweets
10 Feb
Truly the most irresponsible cable network in the country.

This is the kind of crap that (kind of) gets removed from Facebook, but here it is getting blasted out to millions nightly.
What’s even more stunning is that one of the leading vaccine manufacturers, @pfizer, is STILL a major advertiser on this network!!

Why in the world would they spend money on a network that is telling people to QUESTION THE VACCINE?!??
Read 4 tweets

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