Right Wingers ‘Fight’ AT&T By Embracing ‘Anti-Woke’ Cell Carrier…That’s Just Rebranded AT&T

Stupidity

from the anti-woke-brain-broke dept

You’d be pretty hard pressed to find a company that leans more right wing than AT&T. The company was a big ally to President Trump and drove most of his telecom policy (which was basically to give AT&T everything it wants). AT&T has a long, long record of supporting politicians who oppose civil rights and supported the January 6 insurrection. They even funded and helped create OAN.

But for some reason, the right wing propaganda echoplex got it stuck in their craw recently that AT&T was too “woke” (read: anything a modern Trump era Conservative does not like, especially if it involves showing empathy to marginalized populations). Apparently AT&T was deemed too “woke” because it owns CNN (they don’t any more, of course, as that property was spun off as part of the Discovery merger).

So the right wing grifter and propaganda echoplex has been pushing a wireless carrier alternative dubbed Puretalk, which portrays itself as a small business alternative to big companies purportedly hostile to “Conservative values.” Right wing bullshit artist Mark Levin put it this way:

“AT&T customers, your company owns far-left CNN. And T-Mobile, your CEO reportedly advised Democrats how to beat [former President Donald] Trump,” Levin exclaimed this week while reading an ad script during his radio show. “Don’t give your money to these corporatists, these corporatist wireless companies. Instead, choose PureTalk.”

But not only is AT&T fairly right wing as a company and no longer owns CNN, PureTalk is just another MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) that runs over the AT&T network under different brand name, with most of the money being funneled back to AT&T:

As a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) of AT&T, PureTalk effectively purchases bulk network service access at wholesale prices and then resells that access at retail rates to their customers, setting the prices based on the data limit plans. While they will handle the customer service, billing and packaging, PureTalk does not have networking licensing of its own. Instead, they currently need to have a business agreement in place with AT&T in order to access its mobile network operating system.

A huge part of the Trumpist grift is fostering a perpetual victimization and aggrievement complex with endless lies, then selling rubes alternative services that cater to said victimization complex. Like that $500 MAGA Freedom Phone that promised “privacy” from “Big Tech,” but wound up being a cheap-ass Chinese-made phone running Google software in disguise.

Of course none of the used-car salesmen hawking this service on right wing media platforms could be bothered to note that the network runs over AT&T. And media trust among the MAGA sect has been so eroded by propaganda they’ll never see or hear any reports pointing out how this is just dumb showmanship. It’s all part of a seemingly endless ouroboros of bullshit and propaganda we have no real answers for, yet whose impact is painfully evident everywhere you look.

Filed Under: cellular, conservative values, freedom, mvno, right wing, wireless
Companies: at&t