MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, who has spent awhile helping spread the lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged for President Joe Biden, hit yet another apparent stumble this week when a new social media platform that he’s developing didn’t appear online at the promised time. The platform, known as “Frank,” was supposed to go live for so-called VIPs on “Thursday night at midnight” — but it didn’t. Instead, Newsweek reports that “some Telegram followers of Lindell’s verified Telegram channel were left puzzled.”
Newsweek says that they sought comment from Lindell about the delayed launch of his social media platform, but the pillow company CEO doesn’t appear to have gotten back in touch with them. Although as its name suggests, “Frank” is meant to be a haven for what conservatives see as free speech — Lindell has said that swearing will be forbidden on the site, so conservatives’ fantasyland of freedom only goes so far, apparently. In reality, of course, there is no systematic suppression of conservative viewpoints elsewhere. Night after night, Fox News broadcasts far-right nonsense into millions of homes.
Meanwhile, in reference to a form on a placeholder version of the “Frank” social media platform’s website where prospective users could submit their phone numbers, Newsweek reported that “[some] Telegram fans who sent their phone numbers to the placeholder website’s form reported receiving error codes, or no codes at all.” Lindell himself was banned from Twitter earlier this year after his consistent propagation of the rigged election lies that inspired the deadly rioting at the Capitol in January. He has not let up with his false claims about the election in the time since the Capitol violence — instead, he recently claimed that Trump will be back in office by August, which is obviously ridiculous.
Notably, Trump has also been apparently exploring the launch of his own social media platform, which could leave the former president in competition with Lindell. Like the pillow company CEO, Trump was banned from Twitter after the Capitol rioting, although he has continued to issue public statements about various public issues.
