LeBron James is responding to a political ad campaign, Protect My Vote, for using one of his tweets about voter suppression to question the effectiveness of mail-in voting.- On Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers player tweeted "Nobody should be able to use my name (or anyone else name) to lie and deceive about the election."
- Protect My Vote's paid for Facebook posts using James comments about the 2020 election but misconstrued his meaning.
LeBron James responded to a political ad campaign for using one of his tweets about voter suppression to discourage mail-in voting.
On Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers player addressed a story in The Washington Post about a website called Protect My Vote, which according to the story, had been running paid ads on Facebook questioning the validity of voting by mail.
"First of all, Everyone needs to know the kind of BS happening about this election and get organized. This is exactly why we coming together for @morethanavote misinformation=supression!" he tweeted.
"Secondly, Nobody should be able to use my name (or anyone else name) to lie and deceive about the election. Not sure what we can do legally but definitely trying to figure it out! #StayWoke #LoveMyPeople," he added in a second tweet.
—LeBron James (@KingJames) August 21, 2020
James' advisor, Adam Mendelsoh, told The Washington Post the ads were "shameless" and "reprehensible," and that lawyers were looking into the matter.
The posts reportedtly took a tweet James posted on June 20 where he retweeted author Ari Berman talking about the cutting of polling places in Kentucky during a primary election in June.
"Said it last week about GA. This is SYSTEMIC RACISM and OPPRESSION. So angry man. #BlackLivesMatter #MoreThanaVote," he wrote.
—LeBron James (@KingJames) June 20, 2020
A few hours after James' tweets, Facebook deleted the Protect My Vote page using James' image to spread misinformation about mail-in voting. A spokeswoman, Devon Kearns, said the company was enforcing its policy against "voter interference."
"We have removed this page for engaging in voter suppression tactics," she said.
But by the time Facebook deleted the page, Protect My Vote had already bought 150 ads on the platform and had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, according to The Washington Post.
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