Hobby Lobby is facing new boycott threats over a photo of a store display urging customers to 'Vote Trump'

Hobby Lobby is once again in hot water, this time in response to a now-viral photo — said to have been taken at one of its stores — showing a display of decorative letters that spell out "USA Vote Trump." Several boycott efforts have been made against the company in the past decade in response to its controversial stances in areas such as reproductive rights and, more recently, coronavirus safety policies. "I'm not a fan of Hobby Lobby. I would never shop there," Kari Brekke, the author of a viral tweet sharing the photo, told Business Insider. "I'm a Democrat. I hate the company." Some Twitter users pointed out that a customer may have arranged the letters rather than a store employee. Hobby Lobby did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Shoppers are once again calling for a boycott of Hobby Lobby, the arts-and-crafts company that's no stranger to controversy. The growing #BoycottHobbyLobby effort began picking up steam on social media on Sunday in response to a now-viral tweet shared by a user named Kari Brekke. In the tweet — which has more than 33,000 likes and more than 10,000 retweets — Brekke shared an image with the caption "In a Hobby Lobby" showing a display of decorative letters arranged to read "USA Vote Trump."

Brekke told Business Insider she did not take the photo but rather pulled it from a public post shared in a national Facebook group for the Lincoln Project, an organization started by former Republicans in 2019 dedicated to preventing President Donald Trump's reelection. Brekke said she did not have any additional information regarding who may have arranged the display nor where the photo was taken. Some other Twitter users pointed out that the letters would be free for customers to move around — in other words, a customer rather than an employee may be behind the display.

Hobby Lobby did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. "I'm not a fan of Hobby Lobby. I would never shop there," Brekke told Business Insider. "I'm a Democrat. I hate the company." Calls to boycott the craft store were swift on Twitter, as users shared the image with captions like "I've never stepped foot in a Hobby Lobby and never will" along with the hashtag #BoycottHobbyLobby. The blowback is just the latest in a smattering of outcries against the company in the past decade.

https://www.businessinsider.com/furious-shoppers-call-for-hobby-lobby-boycott-pro-trump-display-2020-9

https://twitter.com/KariBrekke/status/1302733519899234304

Trump supporter takes on Silicon Valley tech giants after doctored video said she was voting for Biden

It was the first time Joan Herbert had made her political views so public. She was nervous but said she was pleased the finished campaign advertisement got her pro-Trump message across so clearly. Sitting in a darkened bedroom, the Pennsylvania mother of four delivered her message without speaking, flipping through a series of cue cards. “I’m afraid to say this out loud,” reads one. “I won’t risk my children’s future with Biden.” But as the Trump campaign ad circulated last month, the congratulatory phone calls from friends quickly turned to confused inquiries about whether she supported President Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. “Some people called and asked, 'Which is the real one? Are you really a Biden supporter or a Trump supporter,'” she said.

Within hours of her video hitting social media, it had been picked up by Republican Voters Against Trump and edited to replace her cue cards with words attacking the president and his record. “I voted for Trump in 2016,” one reads. “It was the biggest mistake of my life.” The altered video remains available on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube despite Herbert’s efforts to have it removed. Its makers insist it is clearly a parody and, therefore, not designed to mislead. The result is a dispute over how best to manage manipulated videos on social media so that users are protected from misinformation while still being able to post commentary and satire. But the Trump campaign said the rules were being applied unfairly and that Herbert was just the latest victim of Silicon Valley’s anti-conservative bias. “Joan Herbert embraced her First Amendment right to express her views in support of President Trump, and in return, the left exploited that expression — and the arbitrary ‘rules’ created by social media companies aren’t helping her fix the issue,” spokeswoman Samantha Zager said in a statement.

In contrast, officials pointed to cases in which the president’s social media accounts appeared to be subject to stricter rules. When he tweeted a parody video of one toddler chasing another with fake CNN chyrons that said, “Terrified todler [sic] runs from racist baby” and “Racist baby probably a Trump voter,” the content was first labeled with a “modified” tag on Twitter before being removed altogether by Twitter and Facebook. Herbert said she was disappointed she had not been able to remove the modified video and said it appeared to show double standards. She is originally from Chennai, India, and took American citizenship three years ago. She raises her four children in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, where her husband works for the Trump campaign. That is how she was approached to take part in a video. “I was really excited because I was able to voice my opinion and because I agreed with the words in the ad,” she said. But her excitement turned to horror when the edited video spread. “I was really sad and disappointed,” she said. “They could have made their own ad instead of using ours. It was really shocking.” Efforts to have the video removed required complicated proof that she was the copyright holder, something she did not have. Twitter told her that “only the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on their behalf” could apply to have the video removed. The company did not respond to a request for further comment.

Facebook took a different line, adding that commentary and satire were fair game. “In particular, it appears that the content you reported is being used for the purpose of commentary, criticism or parody,” it said in a message shared with the Washington Examiner. A spokesman for Facebook directed inquiries to its publicly posted policy on manipulated media, which calls on users not to share content that “would likely mislead an average person to believe that a subject of the video said words that they did not say” except in cases of “parody or satire.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-supporter-takes-on-silicon-valley-tech-giants-after-doctored-video-said-she-was-voting-for-biden

https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1290253053740949505

https://twitter.com/RVAT2020/status/1290373568635842561

What a bunch of brainless twits no imagination, they have to steal someone else's work in order to frame their message.

>>10572246

Nice, thinking there are some who are afraid of both POTUS and the Q movements popularity!