Conservative media network One American News (OAN) aired MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s election fraud “documentary” on Friday, with a 90-second disclaimer that received significant attention online.
Prior to its release, Lindell predicted that “the end of time” will be with us if his two-hour film, Absolute proof, fails to convince Americans that former President Donald Trump lost the election to Joe Biden in November due to electoral fraud.
After the project was launched on Friday, OAN aired the film with an impressive warning.
“Mr. Lindell is the sole author and executive producer of this program and is solely and exclusively responsible for its content,” he said. “This program is not a product of the OAN reports.”
“The statements and claims expressed in this program are presented at this time only as opinions and are not intended to be taken or interpreted by the viewer as proven facts.”
According to MarketWatch, the warning turned “Absolute Proof” into a trend on Twitter on Friday, with the OAN preface attracting more online buzz than the film itself.
Drew Angerer / Getty
Twitter permanently banned the MyPillow account on Monday after Lindell tried to use it to bypass his personal ban on the social media platform. “Jack Dorsey is trying to cancel me (Mike Lindell)!” the MyPillow account tweeted last Sunday.
Dominion Voting Systems has sent evidence preservation letters to Lindell, OAN and others for publicizing unverified allegations of electoral fraud. Dominion’s lawyer Thomas Clare called the OAN disclaimer “real textbook malice” and insisted that “it definitely does not exempt them from liability”.
“On the contrary, we specifically warned them in writing that they would be transmitting false and defamatory statements of fact if they transmitted the program, and they made the affirmative decision to ignore this warning and broadcast it anyway,” said Clare Law and Crime, noting that “other establishments refused to host it.”
YouTube and Vimeo quickly removed the film hours after it launched on their platforms on Friday. A YouTube spokesperson explained the Vice News that the film’s content “violated our presidential election integrity policy”.
Politifact, a non-profit fact-checking website operated by the Poynter Institute, called the film “not meant to be considered a fact” and concluded that its content does not provide the proof that its title promises.
“The video, which lasts about two hours, recalls old conspiracy theories, touching on allegations that have been repeatedly debunked by state and local officials, rejected by the courts and denied by federal agencies,” according to Politifact.
Newsweek contacted One American News for comment.