Pro-Trump video bloggers Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, sisters who are best known by their online personas “Diamond and Silk,” appeared on the conspiracy outlet Infowars while representatives were citing the pair’s tangles with Facebook during congressional hearings with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg focused on the platform’s reported mishandling of user data.
Diamond and Silk are sisters who have built their internet fame by cheerleading for President Trump and defending him against accusations of racism. Since September, the duo has joined the bandwagon of right-wing content creators and claimed that Facebook has taken systemic measures to limit the reach of their posts and other conservative content. It’s worth noting that most of the publishing industry has seen its reach shrink as Facebook makes adjustments to its distribution mechanisms.
Recently, the Facebook page connected to Diamond and Silk had been marked “unsafe to the community.” Facebook told The Washington Post that it had sent the message, but that it was “inaccurate.” Over the weekend, Diamond and Silk took a lap on the conservative media circuit to air their grievances against Facebook.
The Daily Beast reported that during hearings this week, members of Congress unloaded on Zuckerberg with a significant number of questions about Diamond and Silk. Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Joe Barton, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Rep. Steve Scalise and Rep. Billy Long, all Republicans, all confronted Zuckerberg with the duo’s Facebook plight.
The duo appeared on Infowars today while Zuckerberg was facing his second day of congressional hearings, with host Owen Shroyer introducing them by comparing their Facebook woes to things completely unrelated to Facebook and reiterating Infowars’ claims that last weekend’s gas attack in Syria was a “false narrative.”
“Snoop Dogg can depict himself shooting Trump in the head, no problem there. They can threaten Trump with the security agencies and the intelligence agencies—that’s all good, that’s not unsafe to the community. Spreading false narratives about chemical attacks in Syria to lead us to World War III, that’s not unsafe to the community, but Diamond and Silk just having an opinion and existing is unsafe to the Facebook community,” Shroyer said.
Diamond and Silk told Shroyer that Facebook lied about its communications with them and that they did not believe Zuckerberg when he told members of Congress that Facebook deeming their Facebook page “unsafe” was an “enforcement error.”
Shroyer asked if the sisters had been contacted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
“The ACLU, they would prefer to go and make sure the KKK have a voice instead of people like us,” Diamond said.
She added, “You have two black conservative women who are Republicans who support the president, but you have a white liberal who owns this platform discriminating against two people of color and I want them to see the hypocrisy of this here.”
Shroyer told the sisters they had “an open-and-shut case of discrimination.”
