Then the deplatformers came for Dan Bongino
Outbrain advertising service cuts off Dan’s websites.
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We are quickly moving towards two internet universes, one controlled by liberal and leftist tech giants, the other controlled by upstart conservative services providing a refuge for deplatformed, demonetized, and throttled conservatives.
This emerging decoupling is wholly a product of deplatforming of non-leftists at Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. We recently covered how WordPress.com cut off The Conservative Treehouse while Mailchimp cut off the Northern Virginia Tea Party. We covered the development in Prepare for the Great Decoupling – Deplatforming moves downstream to WordPress.com and Mailchimp.
Demonitization is a subset of deplatforming, a way to deprive creators of an income stream from a platform. Another form of demonetization is cutting advertisers off from generating revenue at a website, TV, or radio show. That has been the preferred method for Media Matters and others in attacking Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative media.
Dan Bongino is a big name in emerging conservative media, and a longtime friend of Legal Insurrection. We covered his political races dating back to 2012 from his earlier life, and have watched as his media career took off with his podcast, Bongino.com, The Bongino Report, and regular appearances on Fox News.
Politico ran a hit piece this morning about Dan, portraying him as someone who burst on the scene by peddling post-election conspiracy theories, Dan Bongino leads the MAGA field in stolen-election messaging:
Bongino — a former police officer and Secret Service agent who was a latecomer to the talk-show world — is the surprise leader in the far-right media sweepstakes set off by Trump’s refusal to concede the election. While the president’s chances of clinging to power remain wafer thin, the prospect of a new conspiracy theory that could dominate right-wing discourse for four years is not being ignored by the pundits, podcasters and mini-moguls who populate MAGA-world.
Only ignorant or malicious liberal journalists could not know that Dan’s star has been rising for years, particularly this year. To attribute his success to post-election posturing is deceptive and false. But I suspected something else was up regarding the focus of the Politico article on election contests — that is an excuse being used by social media giants to ban or restrict many people who question how the election was conducted and the vote count.
Maybe it was coincidence, but today Dan also revealed that Dan and his entities have been demonetized by Outbrain, a large online advertising system which allows publishers to place links to their articles on other websites. When you see boxed links to articles at other websites, it’s usually advertising and Outbrain is one of the largest players.
Dan tweeted today:
The tech tyrants strike again. They’re doubling down on their war on speech. Here’s an email from the tyrants at .
@Outbrain who canceled services on our websites for spurious reasons.If you’re running a conservative website, you’ve been warned about Outbrain.More on my show today
The tech tyrants strike again. They’re doubling down on their war on speech. Here’s an email from the tyrants at .@Outbrain who canceled services on our websites for spurious reasons.If you’re running a conservative website, you’ve been warned about Outbrain.More on my show today pic.twitter.com/RL0kynai8F
— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) November 18, 2020
Matt Polumbo adds at Bongino.com:
Outbrain is a platform that publishers can use to display ads on their websites – including this one… formally.
This morning Dan got an email from Outbrain, informing us that they’d no longer be allowing us to use their platform. “It has come to our attention that some of the content on one or more of the domains associated with your account are in violation of the terms of our agreement” Outbrain says, without specifying what was violated.
Bizarrely, this email comes from their “anti-fraud team”…. who allege no fraud….
While we have [no[ idea whatsoever what content of ours supposedly violated their terms of service, and we can only speculate that it’s for purely ideological reasons, it would be yet the millionth time this has happened to conservatives.
Outbrain is free to clarify what policy was violated – though it’s a bit odd they didn’t do so in the first place.
Coincidence that this came as Politico tried to marginalize Dan? Do you believe in coincidences?
It appears that questioning Joe Biden’s “victory” is now grounds to get you banned on the ground of undermining trust in elections.
Under that standard, almost every major Democrat and leftist Twitter account should be banned for undermining trust in Trump’s 2016 election. But of course, that’s not how it works.
My best guess is that Outbrain demonetizing the Bongino media entities was not a high-level corporate decision. In all likelihood, one or more woke youngsters in positions of power at Outbrain made that decision. The question is, will it stick.
Prepare to decouple.
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Comments
“(to the extant [sic] available)”?
Smart people right there.
“Undermining trust in elections.” Hilarious. More of the Law of Leftist Projection. That is, whatever they accuse you of doing, they have done, are doing or plan on doing.
The Leftists are being characteristically hypocritical and authoritarian, but Mr Bongino’s on-air conduct has made him an easy target. I listen to his show every day, and think well of his analyses, but his incessant, childish, gratuitous attacks on liberals are inexcusable. I can’t find much fault with anyone for pulling their advertising from his show.
You imply that Bongino is boorish because he attacks the idiots that attacked him. Seems a better comprehension of the battle terrain is necessary on your part.
moonmoth
1. person that loses because they abhor the required fight
Time to deplatform outbrain dot com on every router I control.
Local DNS rule to resolve it to 0.0.0.0.
Do that, or add it to your ad blocker’s filter list.
The Conservative Treehouse, has been de-platformed. They were told by their hosting company they have until 12/2 to move.
This is how they work. They 1/2-way couldn’t mess with us while DJT was in office.
They ONLY WAY THEY CAN SUCCEED in the future – IS TO TOTALLY SILENCE US.
Look for this site too, to come under fire in the future. ANYONE WHO QUESTIONS THE AGENDA – WILL BE SILENCED.
Rick
There are hundreds of hosting companies. They can easily find one that suits them, and this time make sure they have a contract that can’t be terminated at will.
The thing is that for a web site to lose its host is almost a nothing burger, an inconvenience at worst. Sites that are de-platformed retain their domain names, they just have to move that domain to another server. If this site were de-platformed tomorrow, I could visit it again as soon as an new host was engaged, which could happen in a matter of minutes – hours at most. My link to the site will work no matter where the site resides or who is hosting. It’s not like all my links to conservative sites will suddenly break, and I’ll lose contact with them.
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