The church of the perpetually persecuted right wing has their sparkly white panties in a bunch over Facebook's alleged censorship of conservative views. So who better to pimp this persecution meme than Fox's Todd Starnes who is not only a voice for persecuted Christians - but a Christian being persecuted by Facebook. Awww.
Conservative victimhood reached a fever pitch, earlier this month, when a former Facebook worker claimed that those in charge of Facebook news feeds routinely suppressed conservative news from Facebook's "trending" section. Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg met with the representatives from the aggrieved community in order to assuage their fears while defending his company. (Tucker Carlson, who was at the meeting, claimed that fellow attendee Glenn Beck totally sucked up to Zuckerberg!)
So in anticipation of the meeting, last Tuesday, Todd Starnes vented his Facebook frustration with Fox friend Pete Hegseth. The persecution theme was immediately set when Hegseth reported that Facebook removed one of Starnes' comments that mentioned the NRA, Paula Deen. He noted that Starnes says that his Facebook comments are still getting censored.
Starnes followed with his prediction that conservatives won't be able to "convince Mark Zuckerberg to give conservatives a fair shot." He claimed that in 2013, "they called me the bad boy of Facebook" because he posted comments about sweet tea and reading his bible. (He didn't specify who, exactly, bestowed the cute nickname. Hegseth said that the comment "got literally blocked.")
When Starnes whined about Facebook's "community standards," directed against pornography, he gave us an example of his rapier wit: "Everybody who reads my Facebook is wearing pants." (But is Starnes?) He expressed his belief that it was "the conservative content" that gets nice conservatives, like him, censored.
Starnes continued his whine about even though conservatives aren't happy with Facebook, "it's the only game in town." He informed us that the legion of conservative Christians who "reach out" to him, say that their posts are being blocked. Hegseth read Facebook's response to this outrage and, naturally, Starnes didn't agree because "all you have to do is look at the numbers of people complaining about this... He joked that the reason why he didn't get invited to Wednesday's meeting was that he was going to bring his sweet tea. Hegseth added that Starnes might mention Jesus Christ and "you can't do that on Facebook." (Uh, then why is there a Facebook page for "Jesus Daily?")
Hegseth thanked Starnes for "keeping up the fight."
What neither Hegseth nor Starnes mentioned was that the removal of Starnes' 2013 post was followed by an apology from Facebook. But hey, conservative victimhood, the bedrock of Fox News, is much more fun...
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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