Babylon Bee CEO says satirical site ‘punching back’ against liberal media, Big Tech censorship

Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon said his satirical news site is "punching back" amid censorship attempts from the mainstream media and Big Tech because he refuses to bow down to the left's progressive agenda. 

"Conservatives have been on the ropes in the culture war for a long time. We're in a defensive posture, fighting back against the top-down tyranny of the left's progressive agenda that destroys everything it touches. That agenda is fueled and furthered by all the nation's most powerful people, corporations, and institutions. If that's not punching up, I don't know what is," Dillon wrote. 

Dillon penned a story published Monday, "The Censors Keep Coming For The Babylon Bee," which details the various examples of liberal outlets and companies seeking to silence the conservative satirical site. The New York Times recently issued a correction after initially claiming the Bee "trafficked in misinformation," and the liberal paper now admits Dillon’s site simply publishes satire. 

NEW YORK TIMES ADMITS BABYLON BEE IS SATIRE, NOT ‘MISINFORMATION,’ IN CORRECTION

"We had a big win against The New York Times. In response to our demand letter, they removed their defamatory statements about us and updated the offending article with a correction," Dillon wrote. "The significance of this can't be overstated. If those statements had stayed in print, the social networks (and other vendors we work with) could have used them against us, citing them as cause for terminating our accounts."

Dillon declared the Times was the outlet actually "trafficking in misinformation" and thanked supporters who helped make the victory possible.

However, not everything is so positive and the Babylon Bee CEO then turned his attention to recent actions by Facebook. 

"Facebook recently announced they'll be moderating satire to make sure it doesn't ‘punch down.’ Anything that punches down—that is, anything that takes aim at protected targets Facebook doesn't want you joking about—doesn't qualify as ‘true satire,’" Dillon wrote. "In fact, they've made it clear they'll consider jokes that ‘punch down’ to be hatred disguised as satire." 

Dillon noted that Slate recently published a piece that accused the Bee of punching down. 

"This is not a coincidence. Having failed in their effort to lump us in with fake news, the media and Big Tech are looking for new ways to work together to deplatform us. They now hope to discredit us by saying we're spreading hatred—rather than misinformation—under the guise of satire," Dillon wrote. "But we're not punching down.’ We're punching back."

Dillon feels "the left's new prohibition of ‘punching down’ is speech suppression in disguise" and blasted anyone who plays along. 

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"It's people in positions of power protecting their interests by telling you what you can and cannot joke about. Comedians who self-censor in deference to that power are themselves a joke," he wrote. 

Last week, the Bee parted ways with the popular email marketing company Mailchimp after the satirical website's account was suspended. The suspension was reversed and the service claimed it was a mistake, but Dillon feels the company is "exercising viewpoint discrimination under the guise of protecting the public from harmful misinformation" on its platform. 

"We have no interest in staying on a platform that's looking for excuses to censor us by literally scanning the content of our emails," Dillon wrote. 

Dillon concluded by noting the popular site will "keep making jokes" on the internet. 

"We're going to keep punching back—not down—at the left's progressive agenda and their endless efforts to silence us," Dillon wrote. 

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Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.