One America News, the San Diego-based channel appealing to Trump fans, has removed QAnon-related emojis from a set it was making available to subscribers to its KlowdTV streaming channel.
KlowdTV lists only 1,380 subscribers on YouTube, posting a few sample OAN clips. But its live-streaming service starts at $4.99 a month for eight TV channels (free through the end of 2020) or $9.99 a month for 85 “live TV channels.”
The existence of a half-dozen emojis tied to QAnon was first reported Wednesday by Will Sommer of The Daily Beast. He wrote that OAN was “cashing in on the conspiracy movement that the FBI considers a potential source of domestic terrorism.”
Within hours, another story appeared on Insider.com, updated to say: “Soon after the original version of this article was published, OAN’s YouTube Live page appeared to remove the QAnon-related emojis from its site. In an email, a representative for OAN told Insider that the network did ‘not believe’ the emojis were ‘created or used by OAN.’”
OAN didn’t respond to requests for comment from Times of San Diego.
Sometime Thursday, the emoji offerings disappeared completely. (The last available set included a new statement: “Creator may update perks from time to time.”)
KlowdTV lists offices at the Bay Ho address where OAN has studios. But “Un-Linked Corp., a Nevada company, [is] doing business as KlowdTV,” says its website. Nevada authorities list Un-Linked at a Las Vegas address with officers including OAN’s founder, Robert S. Herring, and sons Charles P. Herring and Robert T. Herring.
The QAnon emojis were among 43 being used to entice would-be subscribers. They included, Sommer wrote: “a large Q in a patriotic color scheme” and one in which the zeroes in 2020 were replaced with with Qs — making it 2Q2Q.
Sommer said a yellow box with black letters spelling out GITMO “ostensibly offers viewers the chance to support the prospect of top Democrats being arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay. QAnon believers hold that Trump is engaged in a shadowy war with a cabal of cannibal-pedophiles in the Democratic Party, and that he’ll eventually order a series of mass arrests called ‘The Storm’ that will result in figures like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama facing military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.”
He said QAnon believers can show support for this purge by buying the OAN membership with access to the GITMO emoji.
Related emojis included the face of Hillary Clinton behind bars and a fedora-wearing man said to reflect the QAnon belief that John F. Kennedy Jr. “faked his death and will take Mike Pence’s spot on the 2020 ticket,” Sommer wrote.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether any of the emojis were copyrighted.
By Wednesday night, the 43 pictograph offerings had been cut to 32.
KlowdTV — which also offers several Russia Today streams and the deplatformed InfoWars — can shed subscribers as well as emojis.
On its Terms of Use page, KlowdTV says it retains the right to “use any means available … to block or restrict your access to KlowdTV, including terminating/suspending your account.”
“You acknowledge [that] KlowdTV may do so at its sole discretion, and will not be liable to you for any such a suspension of service,” it added.
Meanwhile, OAN owner Herring Networks is continuing to pursue its defamation case against Rachel Maddow and MSNBC. In May, a federal judge dismissed its $10 million lawsuit, and Herring is appealing in the 9th U.S. Circuit.
According to court records, Herring must submit an opening brief by Oct. 13. Maddow and fellow defendants, including Comcast Corp. and NBCUniversal Media, have until Nov. 12 to reply to Herring.
“The optional reply brief [from Herring] is due 21 days from the date of service of the answering brief,” the court said.
Updated at 6:52 a.m. Sept. 25, 2020