Are you an AT&T, DIRECTV, or HBO Customer? They’re Propping up a Trump Propaganda Machine

Are you an AT&T, DIRECTV, or HBO Customer? They’re Propping up a Trump Propaganda Machine

Dear MoveOn member, 

Have you heard of the far-right television network beloved by Donald Trump that is so extreme it could make Fox News seem like an arm of the Democratic Party?

It’s called One America News (OAN), and in just the last five months, hosts and guests on its shows have claimed all of the following asinine, nonsensical lies:

  • That COVID-19 vaccines have killed 10,000 to 12,000 people and can make you magnetic.1,2
  • That President Biden is a “brain-dead zombie puppet” being controlled by George Soros and the Chinese Communist Party.3
  • That the participants in the deadly white supremacist attempted coup on January 6 were actually the victims of a “setup.”4
  • That Black people fighting for civil rights are “race hustlers.”5
  • That the LGBTQ+ community is “perverted” and that Pride Month should be replaced by a celebration of “white history month.”6

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The bile spewed by OAN is just one remote control click away for more than 30 million Americans, primarily thanks to a multimillion-dollar deal made by AT&T to include the network on their DIRECTV cable service.7

That’s right, AT&T, a company that proudly touts their status as one of the first companies to ban discrimination of LGBTQ+ employees, is almost single-handedly propping up one of the worst, most hateful, violent, and racist television networks in history.8

It’s time to call them out. MoveOn wants to go big and create a television ad demanding that AT&T drop OAN from their DIRECTV service and then air it during the next Dallas Cowboys home game played at Dallas’s AT&T Stadium in AT&T’s hometown.

But we can do it only if we raise at least $100,000 by midnight tonight, and we need your help. Will you chip in $3?

A bombshell report released by Reuters last week showed that, according to depositions from OAN’s own leadership, 90% of the network’s revenue comes from AT&T.9 And according to sworn testimony from the company’s accountant, without the deal with AT&T to carry the network on DIRECTV, the value of OAN “would be zero.”10

That means, if we can convince AT&T to drop OAN, the network wouldn’t just take a hit, it could disappear entirely, finally shutting out a major source of disgusting lies, harm, and violence-invoking rhetoric from our nation’s ecosystem.

And if AT&T wants to live up to their own company values, the decision should be an easy one. On its homepage, AT&T states proudly that they “stand for equality” and notes that one of the company’s core values is “advancing economic opportunity, overcoming systemic barriers, and ensuring civil rights for all people.”11

It’s gross and outrageous for AT&T to claim that the company supports our shared humanity while at the same time propping up and making possible the filth, hatred, and lies on OAN.

Enough is enough. It’s time to hold corporations like AT&T accountable. Help MoveOn launch a powerful ad demanding that AT&T drop OAN and run it during the next Dallas Cowboys home game at AT&T Stadium. Click here to chip in $3 now.

Thanks for all you do.

–David, Gabi, Bekir, Amy, and the rest of the team

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