ATT’s Direct TV no longer carries OAN. And as of July 31st, Verizon Fios will also drop them. Which will rendered this right-wing font of falsehood invisible to most Americans. OAN on-air personnel are consequently miffed
Alison Steinberg is one of them. She took to Instagram on Tuesday to offer her thinking on the subject.
“The fact that these telecom companies have the ability to invoke this tyrannical, authoritarian power should absolutely concern everyone, regardless of where you stand politically. If we continue to allow this to happen…We will all find ourselves walking down a very slippery slope that will ultimately lead to communism.”
Anyone who pays a cell phone or cable bill will agree that telecom companies are gouging monopolies. But that is entirely due to the Republican philosophy of handing corporate America whatever it wants — damn the consumer.
But what of Steinberg’s claim that the disposal of OAN by these communications giants is a slippery slope heading toward communism? It is nonsense. There are no corporations in communism. The word she wants is ‘fascism’. She is making the issue political — and left-driven — when it is neither.
Cable/satellite companies do not make decisions based on politics. They are public companies. Their fiduciary responsibility is to maximize their shareholders' equity value. Fios dropped OAN because they could not come to a satisfactory agreement on fees. Steinberg claims this is a smokescreen. And she may be right.
Which raises the question, why would Verizon drop OAN if not for money? Because corporations carry an intangible asset on their balance sheet — ‘goodwill’. This is the difference between the fair market value of a company and what it would be worth to a buyer. And even such dismal companies as Verizon have goodwill. Being associated with such a dishonest, bigotry-promoting, hate factory as OAN does not help goodwill.
Steinberg then adds that she has personally felt the consequences of spewing hate and lies,
Then we tackled that daily battle of online censorship, being demonetized on YouTube. Having our content flagged and shadow-banned. Speaking from my own personal experience, I have had my own page deleted four times.
The poor dear. Four times? And she still has not figured out why. Here is a hint. It is not because she is a conservative. There are plenty of conservative accounts on social media. Social media deleted her because she is a virulent, anti-trans homophobe, and dangerous liar. She spread junk science during a pandemic and made waves by posting clips of herself yelling at people for wearing masks.
The acme of this miserable woman’s campaign to prove she is an unmitigated jerk was her tirade against Huntington Beach for flying a pride flag during pride month. She made her feelings known on Instagram. And she soon became notorious on Twitter.
It was this gutter behavior that caught OAN’s attention and met their approval. And they hired her on May 27th. So she has had two months on the job. And already, the ship is sinking.
Steinberg then begged liberals to support her cause. Saying that if she goes, they go. But while her message called for unity, her words remained divisive.
“If you love freedom, if you love the ability to speak your mind, to believe in whatever it is you believe in, to marry whoever you want to marry, or for heaven’s sake, even have the ability to identify as whatever furry creature you’ve made up or whatever pronoun you’ve convinced yourself is your reality, well, then we all must come together now and put an end to this.
I know it's hard for you leftists to wrap your brains around this fact, but if they can cancel us conservatives, they will inevitably come for you too…It is absolutely crucial that, for once, we defy the powers that be, we all come together, set aside our differences in a unified effort so that we can recognize the horrifying danger that lies ahead. If you’re watching this, and you’re laughing and scoffing because you think you’re immune to what’s coming, you just wait.
Enjoy your freedoms while you’ve still got ’em.”
Dear God, can you imagine a worse call to arms? “Come now, you intellectual bereft, pronoun-abusing furries, help me out.” It is hard for me to wrap my brain around how that is the best approach to achieving your goal. But that’s a MAGA zealot for you. No different from the scorpion on the frog’s back.
I do not doubt that there are political forces in America that would love to cancel free speech. But who are the likely candidates? Conservatives who are masters of message discipline and have had for 25 years America’s #1 cable news network as their propaganda outlet? Or liberals, who cannot agree on anything and whose talking heads have the intellectual unanimity of a gaggle of philosophers overdosing on Pinot Grigio and the good kush.
That is the problem with independent thinkers. Unlike conservatives who cannot wait for the boss to tell them what to think, liberals do not take their direction from a news source. I imagine most liberals who watch MSNBC sit there muttering at their screens complaining that the talent has ‘compromised’ or has become too ‘corporate’ or some other sin. It is a point of pride not to indulge in groupthink.
However, when these same liberals take to social media to illuminate the failings of their team and the opposition, they tend to do it without heat, hate, and blatant falsehoods. As a result, they are far less likely to be sent to the penalty box.