The fight to finally bring about sensible gun control in the United States is just beginning, and is a multi-pronged effort that will extend from this week’s CNN Town Hall to the ballot box this November and beyond. But here’s one thing that’s simple, easy, and, if you’re a regular reader of The A.V. Club, involves something you probably already have in your homes: Telling NRATV, the NRA’s online video channel whose anti-media, pro-Trump rhetoric makes Fox News look tame by comparison, to fuck right off.
The channel, which even before last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida had taken a sharp right turn into what can only be described as right-wing conspiracy theories, is currently available on Amazon’s FireTV, Google’s Chromecast, Apple TV, and Roku. (It’s the media home of, among others, Dana Loesch, who said, “many in legacy media love mass shootings,” in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference yesterday.) We’re guessing, if you’re as voracious a consumer of pop culture as we are, you probably already own one (or more) of these devices. So perhaps it’s time to let them know that, as a customer, you don’t support the hosting of racist dog whistles on your device.
The campaign to petition Amazon in particular due to its huge market reach is already picking up steam on Twitter, as celebrities like Alyssa Milano, Denis O’Hare, Tara Strong, and Law & Order: SVU executive producer Warren Leight have joined the call to pressure the company to drop the channel with the hashtag #StopNRAmazon. Even now, writing this story, we clicked over to NRATV’s live stream to hear a member of the NRATV team talking about the #StopNRAmazon campaign, saying it was a liberal attempt to violate the First Amendment. Sorry, my dude, but this is just private companies making business decisions based on market pressures. You can make all the extreme pro-gun statements you want, but streaming services don’t have to host them.
Just now, we took a moment to call Roku customer support to leave a comment replying to the spokeswoman who told Variety that the company doesn’t plan to drop NRATV, and it has “not received any requests from customers to drop the channel.” Well, there’s one. Be polite—the people who work at these phone banks aren’t making these decisions, executives are—be brief, and be persistent, on the phone or on social media. If you need one, here’s a sample script: “Hi, I’m a (Google/Apple/Roku/Amazon) customer, and I’m calling to request that you stop streaming NRATV on your platform immediately.”
- Apple U.S. customer support: 1-800-275-2273 / @Apple, @AppleTv, @AppleSupport
- Amazon customer support: 1-888-280-4331 / @Amazon, @AmazonHelp, #StopNRAmazon
- Google Chromecast customer support: 1-844-400-2278 (844-400-CAST) / @madebygoogle, @Google
- Roku customer support: 1-816-272-8106 / @RokuPlayer, @RokuSupport