The following is a rush transcript from the Todd Starnes Radio Show. Click here to download the segment.
TODD: Good people there. Oh, I’m I’m so glad Brad called from Virginia. He wants to talk about some censorship on social media regarding Kyle Rittenhouse. Brad, what’s going on?
CALLER: [01:11:12] Hey, Todd, thanks for taking my call. I actually deleted or deactivated both Facebook and Twitter long ago because of the problems with those. And the one that I did keep was Instagram. Well, over the last few days, I guess two days ago, I had commented on someone else’s story, not shared a couple of stories as well on mine, but I commented on someone who was speaking positively about Kyle Rittenhouse and that he was innocent and using some of the testimony of the defendant. I mean that the prosecution was using. And so I commented with the hashtag. Kyle Rittenhouse is innocent.
Well, shortly thereafter, I don’t know if it’s Instagram themselves doing this or someone reported my comment to them. But anyway, I got a warning from Instagram and about that comment being bullying or harassment. And then I got another one that said it was supporting violent or dangerous individuals or groups. So surely to goodness it couldn’t be that comment. So I tried it again. But it on another comment that again was one in support of Kyle Rittenhouse. I’m not going on people’s pages, you know, they’re bashing him like LeBron James or any of that. I’m going on, you know, people that are in support of him and I’m putting on supportive comments as well.
But as I was telling Grace, if you try to tap that hashtag again as you’re typing it out, hashtag Kyle Rittenhouse, it prompts you to fill in is a murderer, but it won’t give you is innocent. And if you do, it is innocent and you kind of looked at back it. They won’t show any post of that, but they’ll show you over 46 post where people have tagged him as a murderer. So this country is supposed to be founded on innocent until proven guilty. But in social media and in the media in general, you are absolutely guilty. And if anyone tries to say you’re innocent, they’re bullying, they’re harassing their violent and they’re dangerous just like I was anyway.
I got banned for twenty four hours, couldn’t log back into any. And if you go on my page, you can find out I can. You can put me on hold and I’ll give grace my page when we get off. And anyway, when I finally got back on instead of having to like, verify after an email or through a text with a code, they actually made me hold my phone up and do a video selfie to get, I guess, the facial recognition data in order to get access back to my account.
TODD: [01:13:34] Really, you see, I don’t I wouldn’t be able to do. I don’t take good selfies. That’s that’s not me.
CALLER: [01:13:38] Well, it took me probably 45 days. I should have had my wife videotaped this because I’m like, Good grief, what is this? I’ve never seen this before. Brad, hold my phone up at eye level and I would have to turn my head slowly to the right. And it would give me a check mark, turn my head slowly to the left, and it will give me a check mark. But I have to keep doing that over and over again. I kept messing it up.
TODD: [01:13:58] Well, look, Brad, here’s the deal we are hearing from from people all over the country that Facebook and Twitter. This is the first time I hear of Instagram doing this, but Facebook and Twitter have actually been doing that. They’re blocking anyone who is posting anything supportive of Kyle Rittenhouse. And to your point. This is all about controlling a narrative and and social media has been very effective at doing that.