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Tucker Carlson: »Without Gatekeeper«
Photo: LUCAS JACKSON / REUTERS
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson released the first episode of his new show "Tucker on Twitter" on Tuesday. Carlson announced his move to the Internet platform in May after Fox News fired him.
In his first ten-minute broadcast on Twitter, the 53-year-old claimed, among other things, that Ukraine was responsible for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and the resulting flooding. He did not give any evidence of this.
According to Carlson, his hope is that Twitter will become a kind of "shortwave radio", "without a gatekeeper", i.e. without an authority that decides whether certain content can be published or not. If it turns out not to be so, we will leave," he added.
Elon Musk wants more formats like this
Twitter owner Elon Musk, who has not been CEO of the company for a few days, tweeted after the release of the first episode of the Carlson show: "It would be great to have shows from all parts of the political spectrum on this platform". The possibly necessary corrections would then already be made by the users in the comments.
Fox News itself has so far not clarified why Carlson had to leave. Shortly before, however, the broadcaster had paid $787 million in a settlement to avert a lawsuit by voting machine manufacturer Dominion. The company had taken legal action against the broadcaster because it had considered allegations spread on Carlson's show about voting machines allegedly manipulated to the detriment of Donald Trump to be damaging to business.
As part of the lawsuit, text messages from Carlson were leaked to the public, in which the right-wing host expressed his private, unflattering views on Trump and his colleagues at Fox News. The New York Times had reported that Tucker's leaked text messages testified to racism and a disturbing attitude towards violence. Against this background, Fox News decided to separate, although Carlson was one of the channel's most successful hosts.
pbe/Reuters