MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell is facing yet another apparent setback after his new social media platform, which he’s calling “Frank,” suddenly went largely offline just days after originally launching. Lindell has characterized the new platform as a haven for the free speech that conservatives falsely claim is suppressed elsewhere, although notably, Lindell won’t even be allowing cursing on the site — if it ever even successfully launches — so his far-right free speech vision has its limits.
As of this Friday morning, Frankspeech.com — where the social media platform was supposed to be housed — displayed a short message and a couple of videos, including an embedded version of one of Lindell’s documentaries recapping the imaginary 2020 election fraud that Trump supporters have claimed unfolded. The subtitle for “Absolute Interference,” which is the documentary on the site, claims that the video reveals “new evidence” that “foreign & domestic enemies used computers to hack the 2020 election.” How else would they have “hacked” the election? Voodoo? These people are clownishly incompetent.
The message displayed at Frankspeech.com as of this Friday read as follows:
‘Thank you for being a part of Frank! With over 200M streams in just 2-days, FrankSpeech so far has been an epic success! Right now we’re working on new features – keep checking back. In the meantime, help save our country and share Absolute Interference Everywhere!’
It’s unclear where Lindell got the “200M” streams claim. At one point, he insisted that his social media site — where it’s unclear if members of the general public have ever been able to even make an account — “had attracted more than 90 million unique visitors,” as described by Salon, which is just… not realistic. Clearly, Lindell is profoundly out-of-touch. After a prank call during a long livestream associated with the “Frank” launch when a caller pretended to be Donald Trump before cursing at Lindell, the pillow company CEO claimed that his phone had been “hacked.” Caller ID spoofing — a very common tech trick that the prank caller may have used — is not hacking. He just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Lindell’s buffoonish antics have impacted his business. He recently told Business Insider that he expected to lose as much as $65 million in potential profit this year because of retail companies severing ties with MyPillow. He said, however, that he was hopeful that advertisements where possible would help make up for the lost sales.
