Conservative media stars Diamond & Silk claimed to Fox & Friends on Friday that their supposed “censorship” on Facebook was akin to Jim Crow — a claim that has repeatedly been proven to be false.
The pair were on the network to discuss the supposed silencing of conservative voices online, a day after Republicans went into a frenzy about the supposed “shadow banning” of conservatives from Twitter — a complaint which doesn’t stack up once you examine it.
But that didn’t stop Diamond & Silk — whose real names are Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson — from claiming it was a new form of censorship. “I call this the new Jim Crow day,” Diamond said. “Back in the day you were discriminated based on the color of your skin. Now you’re being discriminated against based on the color of your politics. This is the new Jim Crow….they’re weaponizing their platforms with algorithms to suppress the voices of conservatives.”
Diamond & Silk’s claims of censorship stem from last September where they said that “bias and discrimination” against there brand was causing their Facebook views to go down. However an analysis by ThinkProgress showed that Diamond and Silk actually received more interactions after they were censored. According to data from analytics platform Crowdtangle, the pair actually received more interactions in January then any month in 2017 prior to their supposed censorship.
What’s more, Facebook changed its algorithms in September to favor content published by “friends and family” as opposed to “passive content” — including the viral videos and homemade punditry Diamond & Silk specialize in. These changes impacted all online publishers, both liberal and conservative.
Despite this, Diamond & Silk were called before the House Judiciary Committee in April to testify about their supposed censorship. However, their rants about free speech took a turn for the worse when Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) asked about a FEC filing showing that they’d taken $1,274.94 from the Trump campaign for “field consulting.” Hardaway categorically denied that she or Richardson had ever taken money from the Trump campaign.
If it makes Diamond & Silk feel any better, Facebook yesterday suffered one of the biggest single-day losses in U.S. stock-market history, with shares plummeting nearly 20 percent and wiping nearly $120 billion off the company’s value, including $17 billion off Zuckerberg’s personal fortune.