Facebook Group Highlighting Michael Savage/Rockstar Connection Censored

By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted June 11, 2009.

Right-wing shock-jock Michael Savage, best known for his abusive tirades against minorities, liberals and, recently, entire countries, has a family connection to the popular energy drink Rockstar. Savage's son, Russell Weiner, is the founder and CEO of Rockstar. Savage's wife serves as director of energy drink company, and Savage Productions shares an address with Rockstar. The energy-drink company recently signed a distribution deal with PepsiCo.

Rockstar's lawyers have been hard at work trying to tamp down publicity about Savage's relationship to the energy drink. The firm -- which, incidentally, includes Robert Shapiro of OJ Simpson-trial fame -- is threatening Web sites and groups that have drawn attention to the connection with defamation suits. AlterNet got such a letter in response to an article highlighting a Facebook campaign that called for a boycott of Rockstar.

Apparently, Rockstar has found an ally in Facebook. Soon after lawyers sent letters to various publications asking for a retraction and apology over allegations that Savage is a co-founder, the social networking site took down the Facebook page organizing the boycott. The account of the founder of the campaign, Charles Tsai, was disabled without warning or explanation.

Tsai had created the Facebook group, "Don't Drink Hate. BOYCOTT ROCKSTAR," in late April, after reading an article filled with quotes from Savage and Weiner. Tsai, who wrote in a statement published later, "I was utterly disgusted" by their statements, decided to boycott Rockstar products and alert others to the company's right-wing associations.

According to a statement published on Tsai's Web site, the group soon grew to more than 12,000 people.

On May 27 (the same day AlterNet received a letter from Rockstar's lawyers), Tsai found that his account had been disabled and "Don't Drink Hate" had been deleted by Facebook administrators. The next day, he received a letter from Rockstar's lawyers.

The letter demanded that Tsai apologize. In response, Tsai started another Facebook group called "Don't Drink Hate. BOYCOTT ROCKSTAR* my apology" on June 2.

Once again, Facebook suspended Tsai's account. Tsai writes on his blog, "I come home from dinner on June 8th to find my new Facebook account disabled, and because I created the group from it, I am no longer an admin of the 'Don't Drink Hate. BOYCOTT ROCKSTAR* my apology' group."

Later on the same day, Tsai found that the account had been hijacked by what appeared to be fans of Savage or Rockstar. The group's name was changed to "LEGALIZE CHILD LABOR!" and then changed to "ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK FANCLUB!"

The site's message boards featured the following:

"Yes, this is a cave-in. It was decided it was not worth any legal repercussions to we now FULLY endorse Rockstar Energy Drink in every way! GO ROCKSTAR! YAY!" and "Please let's all focus on the AWESOMENESS that is ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK (as ordered by lawyers). Any past negative comments concerning ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK originatin from this group were WRONG, LIES and SLANDER! GO ROCKSTAR!" and "Once again, we APOLOGIZE publicly for any slander towards ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK and salute them as the world's most powerful energy drink! Go Rockstar!"

See more stories tagged with: michael savage, facebook, hate speech, right-wing media, rockstar

Tana Ganeva is an associate editor at AlterNet.

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