Activists Are Targeting Tucker Carlson, Show Losing Sponsors
Activists Are Targeting Tucker Carlson, Show Losing Sponsors. Following statements made by Tucker Carlson about immigration and the migrant caravan social justice activists began sending letters and complaints to companies running ads on his program.Several sponsors have pulled out of the show so far.The primary criticism started after Carlson questioned diversity on a program in September and it would seem far left activists have maintained the campaign against his show.Fox News and Carlson have refused to back down and issued a lengthy statement about defending their free speech from left wing activists.
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Activists are targeting Tucker Carlson over comments he made on his show about immigration.
They're sending strongly worded letters to advertisers in an attempt to get his sponsorship pulled.
And it's working.
Several companies have pulled out, some saying they're no longer going to support any political opinion show.
And who can blame them?
No matter what you do, someone seems to get offended.
But what we're seeing from the left is a common tactic.
Instead of arguing facts and trying to refute your points, they will just go for your funding source, in this instance targeting the sponsors of his show.
We've seen similar things with other deplatformings, most notably Patreon and Subscribestar.
Activists figure the easiest way to shut you down is to cut off the flow of income.
Now, what they're doing isn't necessarily wrong.
You're in your right to send strongly worded emails and letters to companies and let them know that you're upset.
The issue is that people on the other side aren't challenging this brigading.
They don't engage in this behavior.
So these companies only see one side.
And you have to imagine, what will a company think when they get inundated with a hundred plus emails saying, this is wrong, don't do this?
They can only assume that these people are the general public and they're outraged.
When in reality, it is just a squeaky wheel begging for grease.
So today, let's take a look at what's going on Tucker Carlson, and I want to talk about the idea of conservatives and the right just not being able to appropriately combat this tactic.
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From BuzzFeed News, advertisers are ditching Tucker Carlson on Fox News after he said immigrants make the U.S.
poor and dirtier.
Pacific Life, Indeed, Bowflex, Minted, and Smile Direct Club have all said they won't advertise on the show in light of Carlson's comments on immigration.
Carlson is the latest Fox News host to face backlash from advertisers after making controversial comments on the air, prompting critics to launch a social media campaign to pressure advertisers to pull their ads.
Last week wasn't the first time Carlson has been critical of the migrant caravan at the southern border, and he has regularly run segments questioning the benefits of diversity in the U.S.
Yet Thursday's segment, which was immediately followed by insurance company Pacific Life being cited as a sponsor, seemed to strike a chord with critics.
Carlson said in his show that political leaders are telling us we must admit the world's poor, even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided.
By Friday morning, Pacific Life announced that it disagreed with the comments and would re-evaluate its relationship with his program.
As a company, we strongly disagree with Mr. Carlson's statements, a spokesman for Pacific Life told BuzzFeed News.
Our customer base and our workforce reflect the diversity of our great nation, something we take great pride in.
On Monday, Indeed and Smile Direct Club confirmed to BuzzFeed News that they would no longer be advertising with the show.
A spokesperson for the job site Indeed told BuzzFeed News the company had not purchased advertising on the show for more than a month and that it did not plan to do so in the future.
As a company, we are nonpartisan.
Our site is for everyone, regardless of background or beliefs.
A spokesperson for Smile Direct Club said the company was working with its media buyers to make sure it is no longer running ads around any political opinion shows.
Nautilus confirmed its decision to The Hollywood Reporter.
Minted, an online retailer of local craftsmakers, said on Twitter Monday night that it was permanently cutting advertising on the show.
Fox News, meanwhile, called the campaign against Carlson an effort from left-wing advocacy
groups.
It is a shame that left-wing advocacy groups, under the guise of being supposed media watchdogs,
weaponize social media against companies in an effort to stifle free speech, a spokesperson
for the network told BuzzFeed News.
"...We continue to stand by and work with our advertisers through these unfortunate
and unnecessary distractions."
And it would seem, at least according to BuzzFeed News, this is an effort from left-wing activists.
They say, Matt Rivetz, the founder of Sleeping Giants, a Twitter account that has targeted conservative and right-wing media in the past, told BuzzFeed News he had sent a letter to Carlson's advertisers in September, highlighting his comments on diversity, asking them if they wanted to be associated with his views.
The letter followed a September segment in which Carlson asked, how precisely is diversity our strength?
But Rivets noted that none of the advertisers who were forwarded the letter responded at the time.
Thursday's segment, however, took off on social media.
Which leads me to the story from The Wrap.
Judd Apatow calls for expansion of Tucker Carlson's sponsor boycott.
Apatow accuses Carlson and Fox News of spewing lies and hate at immigrant communities who are just trying to survive.
In the story, they mention how Judd Apatow had sent several tweets to sponsors questioning Tucker Carlson's show, saying, What does it say about your company and your moral positions if you advertise on Tucker Carlson's show?
He and Fox News get rich off dividing our country and spewing lies and hate at immigrant communities who are just trying to survive.
Maybe choose another show.
Now, Tucker Carlson responded on Fox News with a long post saying, And I think the important thing to realize is that by doing this to Tucker Carlson, you're only inflaming his base.
You are making them truly believe the things he says without question, because you are attacking someone they respect.
If you want to challenge their ideas, be polite and have a real conversation.
But don't just try and shut him down, because then all you do is give Fox News and Tucker Carlson more press attention.
Fox News has more than enough funding from other areas to continue to make sure that Tucker Carlson's show can stay on the air.
Pulling a few sponsors from underneath him is not going to end the Tucker Carlson show on Fox News.
It will only prove that you are intolerant of different ideas and that you can't actually argue against them.
Not only that, it brings more attention to the issues that Tucker Carlson brought up.
If you don't like these ideas, then what you are doing is ineffective.
In Tucker Carlson's response, he says, Last week we interviewed a man named Genaro Lopez.
Lopez is an elected official in Tijuana, Mexico.
He's exactly the kind of person you'd think a lot of American journalists would want to talk to.
For months, the media have demanded, the migrant caravan from Honduras must be admitted into the
United States.
Once it gets here, they've told us, our country will be greatly improved by its presence.
That's how immigration works.
He says, how about we just ask this simple question?
Has the caravan made Tijuana better?
Gennaro Lopez would know the answer.
His job is to represent the citizens of that city.
We've invited Lopez on twice to ask about the caravan.
Here's some of what he told us.
I asked him.
Behind you it seems that somebody's cleaning up garbage.
Is there a lot of trash there?
Lopez responded.
There's a lot of trash because what I was trying to tell you.
The 360 people we had here grew to 6,200.
And that's why it got out of hand.
So we got another facility.
It's a big concert hall where you can have 10,000 people under one roof.
They have more quotes from Gennaro.
Things aren't getting better.
They're probably getting worse.
Last weekend we issued an ultimatum to all the Hondurans and Guatemalans that are camping out here on the street.
They're blocking the street and they're bringing all their necessities, trashing the street.
Problems are still going on.
There's been like 280 arrests.
Before it was solely for drug possession and being drunk in the streets.
Now it's for breaking and entering into homes.
Deplatforming works for some people some of the time, but Fox News is just way too powerful for this tactic, and all you've done is made Tucker Carlson's fans double down.
You've given him an opportunity to present more of the same.
He's had on another Tijuana official to talk about these problems.
I'd also like to point out, if an official from Tijuana is making these statements, then who are they to refute it?
And I think that's why they're resorting to this tactic.
It's a last-ditch effort.
You can't actually argue against someone who is an official in Tijuana, so what do you do?
Just get the program muted by pulling the rug out from under them.
Unfortunately, this won't work.
Not against Tucker Carlson.
He's too wealthy, and Fox News is too well-funded.
So this could work on smaller creators, people on the internet, people who don't have a chance to fight back, or don't have external funding or funding from other shows.
But in this instance, you've only made Tucker Carlson louder.
But the most important issue here is not about Tucker Carlson's show or the points about immigration, it's the fact that Sleeping Giants' tactics works.
Sleeping Giants has 215,000 followers.
That means when they make a post, they can easily brigade any one of these companies.
I've noticed that people on the other side of this activism, sometimes typically conservatives but often liberals too who believe in free speech, don't seem to engage in any kind of similar tactic and thus they will lose.
As I mentioned, these companies are only seeing one side of it.
And if they only hear messages from the far left and the authoritarian regressive left, then they're going to assume that's what people want.
There was a study done a while ago, I made a couple videos about it.
Where they showed us a map of Twitter users.
What was interesting was that in the middle you can see the left and the right.
Then you can see the Trump supporters a little further right and the regressive left further than that.
But what was interesting was that marketing campaigns on Twitter typically fall into the ideology of the regressive left for one reason.
They are the squeaky wheel asking for grease.
They are the vocal minority.
And this makes marketing companies think this is what people want.
And it's all downstream from there.
Because if advertisers won't fund certain ideas, then those ideas will cease to exist.
And the activists understand this.
And that's why they target the money.
It's also why you'll likely notice that many advertising campaigns play up to far-left politics and not conservative politics.
Because conservatives are not letting them know they exist.
Even though we can see That 50-50, in this country, Trump to Hillary, that at least half of this country believes in certain ideas or are willing to support certain ideas, marketing typically leaves them out.
It's also interesting to see that late-night hosts for major networks typically make fun of conservatives and pander to a left-wing audience.
Why?
Because conservatives don't engage in the same way.
Activist organizations have a monopoly on this tactic, and they have for a very, very long time, and they're very good at it.
Conservatives are bad at activism, plain and simple.
In fact, in the years I've been out in the streets covering protests and riots, it is rare to see any conservative out in the street.
I was once standing in front of Trump Tower, and they were protesters.
And someone came up to me and started talking to me, and it turned out they were a Trump supporter.
I said, why aren't you guys out here?
And they said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, we won't do anything like that.
And thus, the only thing these companies will see are left-wing activists.
They will assume you don't exist.
And that's probably why these people call themselves the silent majority.
So look, in the long run, I think Tucker Carlson is going to be fine.
He's used this as an opportunity to double down on his positions and run another segment saying he will not be intimidated.
And this is probably going to inspire his fans and his base, saying, good, don't back down, Tucker.
They don't want him to.
It's going to present more attention to the idea of the culture war.
It's going to rally more people who are moderate towards Tucker Carlson.
You will likely not gain a lot of attention from this on the left because you are doing a direct campaign to that company.
But Tucker Carlson used it as an opportunity to claim His speech is under attack, and that will absolutely speak to moderates and those who believe in free speech.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
How do you feel about all this?
Look, I think the right or the other side of the regressive left, they're just not good at this.
It's sad, honestly, that they can't find out how to defend themselves from this type of brigading.
But maybe you disagree, maybe there's something else going on.
You can comment, let me know what you think in the comments below.
You can also follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
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