MyPillow founder and staunch Trump ally Mike Lindell plans to launch his own social network in the coming weeks, creating a haven from the kind of pro-Trump conspiracy theories banned on more prominent social media sites. On Lindell’s “Vocl” social media platform, users will be free to claim that a supercomputer stole Donald Trump’s election, or that vaccines are a tool of the devil.
Every new social media network faces serious challenges. But Vocl has to grapple with a daunting problem before it even launches: a website called “Vocal” already exists, spelled with an “A”.
On Thursday, lawyers for Vocal’s publicly traded parent company, Creatd, Inc., warned Lindell, in a letter reviewed by The Daily Beast, to change the name of its social media network and give up ownership of the Vocl.com domain name. If Lindell refuses to change the name, he can file a lawsuit.
Lindell claims that Vocl is also an acronym. “Our stands for the ‘Victory of Christ’s love,'” Lindell added.
While Lindell has promised to turn Vocl into a “cross between Twitter and YouTube,” Vocal is a publishing platform similar to Medium where writers can post and monetize articles.
“It is clear that you are acting in bad faith and with the intention of taking advantage of Creatd’s brand,” read the letter, claiming that Lindell’s Vocl would “taint” the Vocal brand.
“It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen,” Lindell said earlier Insider, in which he describes his eponymous social network. “It’s about being able to be vocal again and not walk on eggshells.”
Creatd owns the trademark for using “Vocal” in a number of ways related to social networking, including creating “virtual communities” and “online networking services”. In addition to relinquishing ownership of the Vocl.com domain name, Creatd wants Lindell to destroy all Vocl-branded products and never use the name again.
“Creatd is willing to take any steps necessary to protect Creatd’s valuable intellectual property rights without giving notice to you,” the letter read.
When asked about the new legal warning on Friday morning, the controversial MyPillow CEO and Trump friend replied, “It has nothing to do with their trademark. I haven’t even launched yet. But it has nothing to do with us. “
Lindell claims that Vocl is also an acronym.
“Our stands for the ‘Victory of Christ’s love,’” added Lindell.
Early Friday afternoon, he called back to say, “We looked at it and we think it would be confusing, so we’re going to announce a different name and URL on Monday.”
Lindell is already facing a major lawsuit. In February, voting tech company Voting Systems sued Lindell and MyPillow for unfounded allegations that Dominion was involved in a scandalous election theft. At the same time, with the help of Trump attorney and Gawker slayer Charles Harder, Lindell also recently launched the Daily mail tabloid, about the January article of the publication with which the Trump friend had a “ secret romance. ” 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star Jane Krakowski, a story that both sides have flatly denied.
The pillow tycoon has been a personal friend of former President Donald Trump and a diehard MAGA supporter and campaigner for years. During the 2020 presidential election, Lindell was the co-chair of Trump 2020 in Minnesota, and after Trump’s loss in the Electoral College and the general election to Democrat Joe Biden, MyPillow’s CEO became one of the loudest voices in the country. supported Trump’s broader effort to overturn the outcome of the presidential race. (Trump’s anti-democratic crusade on this, of course, culminated with his instigation of the deadly January 6 riot at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, an event that led to the ex-president’s second impeachment in the House.)
During the tumultuous presidential transition period, Lindell was a major behind-the-scenes funder of several efforts to challenge the 2020 results, and by the end of Trump’s term, he even visited the then White House president to inform him of discredited documents. alleging that China and other foreign countries helped hack the election and throw it at Biden. Since the beginning of the Biden era, Lindell has not given up aggressively promoting the fiction that Trump actually won, even though this has resulted in his banning from certain social media platforms, his company shunned by other companies, and increasing legal risks.
Alternative social media networks targeting conservatives are being challenged by hacks and other technical issues, but Lindell maintains that Vocl won’t address those issues. Hackers recently hit the far-right social network Gab, while social media platform Parler went offline for a month after the Capitol riot when Amazon Web Services pulled support for its hosting. In contrast, Lindell told Insider that Vocl will have its own servers, with “spacetime stuff” to prevent hacking.
Lindell told Insider that Vocl has a staff of about 10 people, but declined to describe them or where they work “for their safety”.
Vocl users will be free to promote conspiracy theories about election fraud and vaccines, according to a speech Lindell delivered at a rally in Arizona on Wednesday.
“Every word that comes out of their mouths is about Dominion, Smartmatic fraud, vaccine fraud,” Lindell told the cheering crowd, describing the content on Vocl.