HappyJoy
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Looks like one of the last bastions for major wingnut news is scrubbing it's own website of Dominion stories to try and save itself from a lawsuit.
One America News Network has quietly scrubbed its website of references to election conspiracy theories, which could be an attempt to fend off a lawsuit from the election-technology companies it had targeted in its stories.
For months, the media organization, which is allied with former President Donald Trump, has published stories about Dominion Voting Systems and perpetuated the baseless conspiracy theory that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election for President Joe Biden at the expense of Trump.
But sometime in January, OAN removed stories about Dominion from its website. It has also removed stories about Smartmatic, a rival election-technology company also targeted in the conspiracy theories.
Stories about Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and Lin Wood — the three biggest champions of the unsubstantiated theories — have been removed as well.
A review of the "Dominion Voting Systems" category tag on OAN's website shows just one article, published on January 4, about a "MAGA victory rally" in Georgia. But the Wayback Machine, which creates archives of websites, shows more than a dozen stories published with that category tag up until January 14, a week after Dominion filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Powell.
The "Dominion Voting Systems" category tag included now deleted stories based on groundless allegations, such as Powell claiming Dominion had a "vote switch algorithm," Giuliani claiming the supposed algorithm created a specific margin for Biden's victory, and an interview with someone claiming a Dominion executive has secret ties to antifa.
The category tag on OAN's website for Powell, an attorney who became a right-wing celebrity while pushing four failed lawsuits seeking to overturn election results based on conspiracy theories, also shows only one story, which mentions Twitter barring her for spreading election conspiracy theories in the wake of the Capitol riot that left five people dead.
The Wayback Machine's records showed that the website previously hosted three other articles about Powell, which were also available on the website until January 14.
The Wayback Machine pages for category tags for Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer who has pushed conspiracy theories, and the pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood also showed articles were wiped from OAN's website.
OAN has also removed at least two stories with the category tag "Smartmatic," a technology-company rival to Dominion that conspiracy theorists claimed formed the secret link between the 2020 US election results and the regime of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013.
A spokesperson for Dominion said OAN had "not been in contact with us about any articles they have removed."
Erik Connolly, an attorney representing Smartmatic, told Insider the removals didn't make a difference in whether the company would ultimately sue OAN.
"Any removal of the articles by OAN at this late date has no impact on whether Smartmatic can or will pursue litigation," Connolly said.
OAN hasn't given public notice of the removals
Legitimate news organizations normally issue retraction notices or editors' notes when stories have been removed or significantly corrected.
Those notes are generally designed to demonstrate transparency, attempt to retain the trust of readers, or simply show that the news organization is complying with a court order.
But despite the removals, OAN has not given any public notice of those actions. The links to the removed articles do not lead to a retraction notice but to a 404 page.
OAN's purge of articles about Dominion does not appear to be comprehensive. A simple search for "Dominion" on the website brings up a story headlined "Tech Expert Reveals Ga. Voting Machines Connected To Chinese Vendor." The article is based on comments from a person named Jovan Pulitzer, whose claims have been rejected by Georgia's secretary of state. The media organization's YouTube page also appears to show several video segments about Dominion.
Representatives for OAN didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Trump-ally media outlet OAN quietly deleted articles about Dominion despite publicly doubling down on election conspiracy theories
One America News Network hasn't issued a retraction notice after taking down articles about Dominion, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and others.
www.businessinsider.com
One America News Network has quietly scrubbed its website of references to election conspiracy theories, which could be an attempt to fend off a lawsuit from the election-technology companies it had targeted in its stories.
For months, the media organization, which is allied with former President Donald Trump, has published stories about Dominion Voting Systems and perpetuated the baseless conspiracy theory that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election for President Joe Biden at the expense of Trump.
But sometime in January, OAN removed stories about Dominion from its website. It has also removed stories about Smartmatic, a rival election-technology company also targeted in the conspiracy theories.
Stories about Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and Lin Wood — the three biggest champions of the unsubstantiated theories — have been removed as well.
A review of the "Dominion Voting Systems" category tag on OAN's website shows just one article, published on January 4, about a "MAGA victory rally" in Georgia. But the Wayback Machine, which creates archives of websites, shows more than a dozen stories published with that category tag up until January 14, a week after Dominion filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Powell.
The "Dominion Voting Systems" category tag included now deleted stories based on groundless allegations, such as Powell claiming Dominion had a "vote switch algorithm," Giuliani claiming the supposed algorithm created a specific margin for Biden's victory, and an interview with someone claiming a Dominion executive has secret ties to antifa.
The category tag on OAN's website for Powell, an attorney who became a right-wing celebrity while pushing four failed lawsuits seeking to overturn election results based on conspiracy theories, also shows only one story, which mentions Twitter barring her for spreading election conspiracy theories in the wake of the Capitol riot that left five people dead.
The Wayback Machine's records showed that the website previously hosted three other articles about Powell, which were also available on the website until January 14.
The Wayback Machine pages for category tags for Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer who has pushed conspiracy theories, and the pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood also showed articles were wiped from OAN's website.
OAN has also removed at least two stories with the category tag "Smartmatic," a technology-company rival to Dominion that conspiracy theorists claimed formed the secret link between the 2020 US election results and the regime of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013.
A spokesperson for Dominion said OAN had "not been in contact with us about any articles they have removed."
Erik Connolly, an attorney representing Smartmatic, told Insider the removals didn't make a difference in whether the company would ultimately sue OAN.
"Any removal of the articles by OAN at this late date has no impact on whether Smartmatic can or will pursue litigation," Connolly said.
OAN hasn't given public notice of the removals
Legitimate news organizations normally issue retraction notices or editors' notes when stories have been removed or significantly corrected.
Those notes are generally designed to demonstrate transparency, attempt to retain the trust of readers, or simply show that the news organization is complying with a court order.
But despite the removals, OAN has not given any public notice of those actions. The links to the removed articles do not lead to a retraction notice but to a 404 page.
OAN's purge of articles about Dominion does not appear to be comprehensive. A simple search for "Dominion" on the website brings up a story headlined "Tech Expert Reveals Ga. Voting Machines Connected To Chinese Vendor." The article is based on comments from a person named Jovan Pulitzer, whose claims have been rejected by Georgia's secretary of state. The media organization's YouTube page also appears to show several video segments about Dominion.
Representatives for OAN didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.