Yahoo Finance Frank: MyPillow CEO’s pro-Trump social network breaks immediately upon launch
FrankSpeech, a pro-Trump social media platform set up by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, has failed to launch for the second time in seven days.
Users were unable to register for the website, which claims it had two billion requests over the past 48 hours, an increase from 9 million on 19 April. The Independent has not been able to confirm these numbers.
A lengthy, rambling live stream from CEO Mike Lindell was one of two videos recently playable on the bare site. The other is “Absolute Interference”, a two-hour long video criticizing the news media, promoting conspiracy theories about voter interference in the 2020 Presidential election, and condemning communism.
Mr Lindell’s livestream is hours-long, with a substantial section criticising a Facebook fact checking partner and editor in chief of LeadStories Alan Duke, who published a debunk of Mr Lindell’s “Absolute Proof” election fraud documentary.
“I’m sad for Mike”, Duke told The Independent. “I think he is a victim of misinformation”. Duke dismissed any notion that he is biased or funded by the Chinese Communist Party, as Mr Lindell claimed he was.
The FrankSpeech site, which Mr Lindell describes as a “platform for Americans who want to defend life, liberty, and all the freedoms that have marked America” in a Telegram post, was planned to launch on Monday this week, but users were met with 500 and 502 internal server errors.
Users in a Telegram channel supporting Mr Lindell were both excited about the launch of the site, but disappointed over its repeated failed attempts, Newsweek reports. A post on Sunday from Mr Lindell urged supporters to promote the site’s launch, and gained over 2,000 comments.
“FrankSpeech.com is having a massive attack against it currently. We are working to get it up ASAP! Thank you for your patience”, the CEO wrote on Parler.
Ongoing cyber attacks are being conducted against the platform, but Mr Lindell said in a longer press release that there was a “backup plan” and the site would be active soon.
"We’re going to be attacked, but I have my own servers and everything," he said in a recent video, as reported by Business Insider. "We’re not going to be worried about Amazon taking it down, or YouTube, or Google, or Apple."
The “frankspeech.com” address is hosted by Cloudflare, according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The Independent has contacted Cloudflare for confirmation of the claims of cyberattack.
Development of the social media site was mocked recently after the self-described free speech platform banned swearing and blasphemy.
“There will be four words for sure you can’t say: You can’t say the C-word, the N-word, the F-word, and you can’t use God’s name in vain. What a concept. Right?", the CEO said on Eric Metaxas’ radio show.
The MyPillow CEO is facing a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit filed in February 2021 from Dominion Voting Systems, alleging that Mr Lindell “knew there was no real ‘evidence’ supporting his claims” that “Dominion had stolen the 2020 election”, calling the accusations a “big lie”. Mr Lindell did not respond to a request for comment before time of publication.
Two months later, Mike Lindell announced his own lawsuit against Dominion for $1.6 billion. Dominion caused “grave harm” to MyPillow “as a result of Dominion’s suppression of speech and attacks” on the company, the lawsuit claims. The company did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent before time of publication.
Mr Lindell is a prominent supporter of former president Donald Trump, and has claimed Mr Trump will be in the White House again by August. The CEO has also spread misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine and antisemitic conspiracy theories about Israel.
The bizarre “Absolute Interference” video platforms other members of the Trump administration, including disgraced General Michael Flynn. "We’ve always had pressure from foreign influences, foreign interference from different countries. Back in the beginning of this country it was Great Britain and France. It’s just migrated to countries like China [and] Russia", Flynn says in the video’s trailer.
Mr Trump fired General Flynn in 2017 after 24 days of his presidency, after the general lied to former vice president Mike Pence and the FBI about conversations he had with an ambassador to Russia.
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