OAN Rails Against 'Radical Marxist Verizon' For Dumping It

Because when we think 'radical Marxist,' we think ...

Last week, One America News got ditched by the last cable provider that was still carrying it, Verizon Fios. While Verizon claimed it couldn't come to an agreement that worked for both parties, OAN believes it's being censored because it's a right-wing channel. This comes on the heels of OAN railing against Verizon for the last month due to a relatively innocuous "Guide to Misinformation" the provider put up on its website, as both OAN and Breitbart felt that it was an attempt to silence and censor them, personally.

One would imagine a channel that has spent the better part of the last year and a half insisting Donald Trump won the 2020 election might take any move discouraging people from believing things that are not true personally.

Now, even though they hate Verizon, the gang over at OAN is very upset at them for taking them off their roster of channels. Commentator Pearson Sharp — whom we last met when he was discussing how excited he was for the vaccine to kill all of the liberals , and prior to that, when he was advocating for mass executions of everyone who stole the election from Donald Trump — went on a very long rant about how "radical Marxist" Verizon was cancel culturing poor OAN.

Transcript via Media Matters:

SHARP: Over the last few years, we've watched as countless independent, freethinking, and conservative organizations were shut down and censored by the radical left. Regrettably, that toxic cancel culture is still alive and well, and it's coming after One America News. Beginning July 30th, Verizon has decided it will no longer carry OAN. You can imagine why. Now we've had a lot of questions from our loyal customers, and we want to give you some answers and help you understand what's going on and what to expect in the future.

Just to be clear, lots of regular websites and left-wing sites have been shut down as well. I worked for two of them! Either that or they've been taken over by venture capitalists who want to change their whole mission or dissolve their labor unions or do whatever other bullshit to them. It's not "censorship," it's America.

That being said, it is not censorship for a cable company to not carry a channel. That's not a thing.

One America News has been with Verizon for many years, going all the way back to 2005, and we've had a great relationship with our staff and never had any reason to suspect that wouldn't continue. But when it came time to renew our contract this year, everything changed. We offered them an incredible deal to carry our channel at a substantially discounted rate, and they flat-out refused to continue carriage. More than that, Verizon decided that they wanted to tack on additional fees and make OAN an add-on service, costing their customers more money. Basically, at a time of historic inflation when people are stretching every penny to have enough to make ends meet, Verizon wanted to price gouge its customers for one of their favorite channels.

Yeah? I had to pay extra a while back for the ID Channel because it was rudely not included with my basic cable package. It sucked, but what was I going to do? Just not spend entire days sometimes watching Candice DeLong change wigs and talk about "Deadly Women"? (I'm part of the problem, I know)

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A cable provider is not required to carry your television station under a deal it doesn't like. That is not what censorship is. The fact is, they probably had other stations that were more worth their while and that more people were going to watch. Perhaps channels where people don't regularly deliver rants about they can't wait to see their political enemies dead (unless it's a crime documentary) or claim the election was stolen when it was not.

We made multiple offers to try and come to an agreement and Verizon not only refused to budge, but they cut off negotiations prematurely. They'd already made their decision, because Verizon, like many radical Marxist corporations, has proven that it's more interested in discriminating against independent voices than being a diversity leader. If our messaging, if our philosophy doesn't align with theirs, then Verizon is happy to censor us and shut us down. It's that simple.

"Like many radical Marxist corporations."

I'm sorry, did I miss where the Verizon workers own the means of production? Is Marxist just a term for "stuff I don't like?"

It's a sad day when a media corporation with extreme market powers, a company that acts as a steward for the freedom of the press decides it wants to censor independent news channels. Verizon doesn't care what its customers want. They're letting us and their customers know that promoting their Marxist agenda is more important than keeping their subscribers happy.

It was probably subscribers who said "We don't want this channel" in the first place. Judging by the deal they were offered and the fact that OAN offered Verizon a "deep discount," odds are that the "market forces" of the cable news lineup were not favoring OAN, and the only way they were going to stay on was for Verizon to figure out a way make it financially worth their while.

And as much as I'd truly love it if Verizon was, indeed, a radical Marxist corporation promoting a Marxist agenda, it is a very capitalist corporation promoting a very capitalist agenda.

And in case it isn't obvious, it isn't easy being an independent news channel. We face constant harassment, censorship from big tech, de-platforming, demonetization, cancel culture, and exclusion from broadcast networks with advocacy groups relentlessly attacking our network. Even members of Congress and the commander-in-thief himself, Joe Biden – members at the highest levels of our own government – are trying to censor and silence us. And that's on top of the daily death threats sent to us and our families. Oh, and by the way, all of this hatred and vitriol comes exclusively from those on the left. You know, the tolerant, peaceful, rational liberals.

Screenshots and actual proof that the person is, in fact, "on the Left" or it didn't happen.

All of this is "capitalism." Corporations are allowed, largely, to do what they want. They are only very lightly regulated, largely thanks to Republicans. Cancel culture is literally just "market forces." It's people deciding what they like and don't like, which they are legally allowed to do.

During this segment OAN displayed images of other news sites criticizing their coverage. They're legally allowed to do that.

What OAN is asking for would require nothing short of a full-on totalitarian regime in which they get to be the state-run media, where no one is allowed to criticize them, every telecom agency is required to broadcast their propaganda and everyone is required to watch it. That's what their issue is here. They have put out a product people don't want and don't like and they are throwing a hissy fit over it. They are mad at capitalism and they are mad at freedom of speech.

They are not mad at Marxism and they will never be mad at Marxism, because they have absolutely no idea what Marxism is. Because that is the kind of "news" station they are.

[ Media Matters ]

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