The Babylon Bee is one of the most popular satirical websites around. A cross between the Onion and a conservative, Christian outlet, the Babylon Bee pokes fun at what’s popular, pointing out disingenuous ideas while hinting at the truth.
This model has made the media outlet some enemies.
Recently, a company that had been working with the Babylon Bee terminated the agreement, citing a violation of its user conduct policy. Seth Dillon, CEO of the Babylon Bee, tweeted:
The company, Front, provides a “shared inbox” platform that pulls emails, DMs, text messages, etc. into one inbox for a customer support team to manage.
“They’ve been woke for a while,” Dillon told me. “We noticed over the past year or so their employees all started putting their pronouns in their signatures.”
Still, Dillon was happy with Front’s services. He had been a customer of Front’s for many years, with several media sites on the platform, including the Babylon Bee and Not the Bee. Dillon recently added LibsofTikTok to the platform, a popular but controversial site that aggregates and reposts TikTok posts by liberals, usually touting wildly progressive ideas.
“Out of the blue, they terminated us, citing a violation of their user conduct policy,” Dillon stated.
Why?
“We assume they take issue with our politics and content, as there is nothing we’ve actually done to violate their terms of service. They must consider our content hateful or dangerously misinformative. But they will not admit this. They refuse to explain how, exactly, we violated their policies.”
When reached for comment via Twitter, Front responded that it would not comment on specific customers or “internal decisions about relationships with its customers.”
It’s not clear whether the Babylon Bee was specifically let go by Front because it touts conservative political beliefs. If so, it would not be the first time the Babylon Bee has suffered this fate. The Babylon Bee’s Twitter account hasn’t tweeted since March because Twitter suspended it after it tweeted, “The Babylon Bee’s Man Of The Year Is Rachel Levine,” pointing out the fact that Levine is a biological man who transitioned to live as a woman.
It’s one thing for companies to terminate relationships due to unethical, work-related violations such as lack of payment, poor communication, or other issues. Of course, technically, companies like Front can do what they want. But it’s quite another thing to sever a professional relationship with a client over the client’s traditional political beliefs. It’s akin to reverse anti-discrimination in the workplace.
Anti-discrimination laws were set in place to protect the marginalized — women, members of the LGBTQ community, and people of other races, ethnicities, and beliefs. But now some traditional views are seen as uncomfortable, harmful, or weird.
If Front refuses to work with a company because of its traditional, conservative stances, that seems like the opposite of anti-discrimination efforts. Progressive, secular ideas and conservative, Christian ideas have co-existed for centuries without people refusing to acknowledge one another. People just accepted different views and tried to respect, or at least tolerate, these divergences.
It’s sad that we appear headed in a different direction.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She is an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
