Stardock CEO Boycotts UPS For Dropping FOX News Ads That Never Existed
Stardock CEO and political conservative Brad Wardell has said that his company will boycott UPS for dropping its advertising with Fox News, when UPS supposedly joined a group of 33 companies boycotting the news channel after Fox clown Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist.
This already sounds like third grade.
Wardell defended himself, seemingly by implying that if the bad PR hurt Stardock's business he would fire liberals first:
I wasn't making a moral pronouncement on what UPS had done. I was simply annoyed by what they were doing. If people want to boycott my company as a result, that's certainly their right. Of course, I suspect they assume that if their boycott were successful and I had to lay people off that I wouldn't do so based on the ideology of the employee.
Isn't it illegal to fire someone based on their political beliefs? (Answer: apparently not.) I'm not sure what kind of points Wardell was hoping for there, but as we've discovered recently, boycotts are contentious things.
And while UPS does seem to have responded with an (appropriate?) temporary halt to ad purchases on the network, it seems that the idea that UPS would be boycotting Fox News isn't true, which leaves Wardell looking a little, well... Glenn Beckish?
UPS had this to say:
"We did not halt our advertising on FOX; we simply did not have any ads currently airing on FOX. This should not be interpreted as a decision to pull our advertising temporarily or permanently from the FOX network. In fact, a new advertising rotation began on September 14 to support the new The UPS Store online printing service. FOX is included in that rotation."
Oh brother. Expect to hear nonsense phrases like "Stardock's right to have their products bought" and "UPS has stepped on Stardock's freedom of speech" and "Fox News deserves ad money." What a hoot.
More Stardock/UPS/FOX Clarifications [GamePolitics]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 1 October 2009
· Comments (7)
Other stuff like this: brad wardell, fox news, glenn beck, stardock, ups
God damn it what's with these idiots injecting politics into my favorite pastime?
Even if UPS pulled its ads off deliberately I don't see how what was really just purely a business reputation decision (and obviously not partisanship, as they wouldn't have advertised on Fox News in the first place) is a boycottable offense.
*promptly scratches Stardock off his list of companies to buy from*
I didn't know he was a conservative. Sigh.
After playing a lot of the Beta for League of Legends I was considering picking up Demigod, but I think I'll pass.
What an ass Wardell is. I'm not giving his company another cent.
I'm letting my Stardock subscriptions expire. Thanks for making it easy, Stardock!
Exxon/Mobile: Check
EA: Check
Now Stardock: Check
More money to spend elsewhere!