Donie O’Sullivan Shines a Light on Facebook. Gateway Pundit Gets Sued. Alec Baldwin Shares His Story. | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room
THE DAILY NEWSLETTER – FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2021
MEDIA WINNER: Donie O’Sullivan
During an appearance on Thursday on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan discussed his reporting that found multiple examples of Facebook selling anti-vaccine ads, including some comparing the vaccine to the Holocaust.
One ad from a group called “Ride the Red Wave” features a sweater that reads “I’m officially from America but currently reside in 1941 Germany.” The Holocaust started that year. Another pic from the group shows a t-shirt with a picture of an injection needle that reads “Slowly and quietly” above the needle and “But it’s a Holocaust” below it.
O’Sullivan told host Anderson Cooper that Facebook was unaware of the ads until CNN flagged them for the social media network. However, CNN “found these ads very, very easily,” and, O’Sullivan argued, “a trillion-dollar company” like Facebook, with their resources “should be able to find the stuff themselves.”
Facebook has been under increasing scrutiny not just for the content they allow on their platform, but for the way they often derive higher profits from some of the most objectionable and inciting content. O’Sullivan’s report shined a light on that exact problem, describing hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad buys from these groups promoting vaccine misinformation and propaganda.
Photo of Jim Hoft, publisher of The Gateway Pundit, by Ben Jackson/Getty Images for SiriusXM.
MEDIA LOSER: Gateway Pundit
Two women who were Fulton County, Georgia election workers during the 2020 election have filed a defamation lawsuit against right-wing website The Gateway Pundit, the site’s founder and publisher Jim Hoft, and his twin brother who contributes articles, Joe Hoft.
The complaint, filed by Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, says the defendants targeted the women in a “campaign of lies” with dozens of posts falsely accusing them of committing ballot fraud to steal the presidential election in Georgia from former President Donald Trump.
Gateway Pundit didn’t just publish articles with these false accusations; they also posted the women’s names and photos, contributing to the “violent, racist threats and harassment” both women received.
“The allegations are incredibly damning,” tweeted David French about the lawsuit, noting that this “tsunami of falsehood has real consequences for real people.”
Freeman and Moss suffered severe, documented harm from Gateway Pundit’s posts, and their legal case is bolstered by the defendants’ refusal to correct their articles when given notice by the women’s attorneys. Gateway Pundit may soon find itself following in Gawker’s footsteps, filing bankruptcy after losing a legal battle.
Links We Like:
Omicron Won’t Ruin Your Booster
– Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic
COVID Time Warp
– Alison Snyder, Axios
Twitter’s New ‘Privacy’ Policy Could Destroy Its Value for Decentralized Citizen Journalism
– Brian Doherty, Reason
The escalating costs of being single in America
– Anne Helen Petersen, Vox
Read the full Mediaite Green Room Newsletter here, including Alec Baldwin’s emotional interview about the tragic shooting on the Rust film set, and sign up for your free subscription here.
