Reactionary conservative misinformation hub The Daily Wire is shelling out large sums of ad money to promote misogynistic, skewed pro-Johnny Depp content during the actor’s ongoing defamation trial with ex-wife, Amber Heard, according to recent evidence from a collaboration between Vice World News and nonprofit group The Citizens. So far, the media site has spent somewhere between $35,000 and $47,000 on this content — the majority of which was dedicated to pushing an article called “The Attempted Character Assassination of Johnny Depp” by Candace “Blexit” Owens.
Founded by former Breitbart News editor and still-transphobic, height-conscious pundit Ben Shapiro, The Daily Wire is consistently one of Facebook’s most popular news publications, often taking the top spot on the platform while peddling a variety of virulently anti-queer, anti-abortion, racist, and misogynistic content that extremism experts warn can help further radicalize susceptible Americans. By weaponizing social media platforms’ oversized promotion of Depp-Heard content, conservative organizations like The Daily Wire are able to peddle their ideologies to even wider audiences than normal... and comparatively cheaply, too.
