Late last week Fox News’ Laura Ingraham ignited the internet when she defended white supremacist extremists during her prime time Fox Show “The Ingraham Angle.”
During a segment of the show that was centered around social media censorship, Ingraham showed graphics of people she said were “prominent voices censored on social media” that Facebook has “shunned.”
Ingraham went on to characterize the people in the graphic as “people who believe in border enforcement, people who believe in national sovereignty.”
One individual featured in Ingraham’s graphic is well known white supremacist Paul Nehlen.
Nehlen, who ran unseccessfully for the Republican U.S. House nomination in Wisconsim in 2016 and 2018, was banned from Twitter (and from the Wisconsin Republican Party) for racist and anti-semitic tweets.
Last year Nehlan was seen wearing a T-shirt with the Pittsbuurgh shooter Robert Bowers, proclaiming to anyone who would listen that some people “do what needs to be done, and that is to rid white lands of Jews.”
Ingraham claims that social-media companies are censoring conservatives while saying they are combating hate speech.
Fracture, a photo-printing service whose advertisement was shown during Ingraham’s show that day quickly removed their support from the show, stating on their website that they are reviewing their ad-buying policies:
“Last night one of our ads aired during an episode of The Ingraham Angle during which Laura Ingraham expressed alarming views that run entirely counter to the values that we hold as a company. We are taking this matter very seriously and as a result we are taking swift action.”
This was not the first time advertisers pulled their support from Ingraham’s show. Last year more than a dozen left after Ingraham mocked Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg.
However, Fox News was quick to stand and support Ingraham. “Anyone who watches Laura’s show knows that she is a fierce protector of freedom of speech and the intent of the segment was to highlight the growing trend of unilateral censorship in America,” said a statement from Fox. The network claimed the Ingraham wasn’t defending white supremacy but was simply using a graphic with names that came from an Associated Press report on Facebook banning political extremists.
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