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Mike Lindell's social-media site, Frank, is plagued by issues making it impossible to sign up on Monday morning

Apr 20, 2021, 00:37 IST
Business Insider
My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell walks out ahead of President Donald J. Trump to speak with members of the coronavirus task force and reporters during a briefing in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic from the Rose Garden at the White House on Monday, March 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesJabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
  • MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's social-media site, Frank, was supposed to launch at 8 a.m. CT on Monday.
  • Instead, the site showed errors, similar to its planned launch last week.
  • Lindell said the website was facing "a massive attack against it" but didn't explain further.
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Mike Lindell's social-media site, Frank, was supposed to launch at 8 a.m. CT on Monday, but technical issues prevented users from signing up.

The MyPillow CEO said in a live video on the site that users would be able to sign up "sometime today."

At 8 a.m., when the site was supposed to launch, it showed a 502 error.

Screenshot of frankspeech.com at 8 am

At 8:08 a.m., the site showed a "500 internal server error."

At 8:15 a.m., the site allowed this reporter to sign up; it required just an email address and a username to make an account. Clicking "create account" prompted another error.

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Screenshot of Frankspeech at 8:15 am

Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on the matter.

Lindell said on Parler that the Frank website was "having a massive attack against it currently."

"We are working to get it up ASAP!" he wrote. "Thank you for your patience."

Moments later, a live video appeared on Frank with Lindell speaking about his site.

He said Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer advising him on his countersuit against Dominion Voting Systems, would appear on his broadcast alongside Diamond and Silk, the Trump-supporting right-wing vloggers.

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Lindell didn't provide any details about an attack, saying only that it was "probably the biggest ever" and adding, "I don't know if it was bots or what." He said the video would be streaming for the next 48 hours, though users still can't sign up for an account.

Lindell has said he spent millions of dollars on the site's security because he expected it to be the victim of cyberattacks.

"We're going to be attacked, but I have my own servers and everything," he said in a recent video. "We're not going to be worried about Amazon taking it down, or YouTube, or Google, or Apple."

Read more: The MyPillow guy says God helped him beat a crack addiction to build a multimillion-dollar empire. Now his religious devotion to Trump threatens to bring it all crashing down.

The launch of Lindell's social-media site has been repeatedly pushed back since he announced plans in early March to create a platform. He was barred from Twitter in January.

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The site was meant to launch with VIP access at midnight on Thursday, but dozens of people who had preregistered said they were unable to get in.

Lindell then said he'd move the launch to Monday morning, adding that people could sign up and create a profile at that time. He said he would be broadcasting live, starting with a "historical announcement followed by a lineup of guests."

Lindell has been a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and a driving force of voter-fraud conspiracy theories. The voting-machine company Dominion sued him, and more than 20 retailers have pulled his products; he's said that could cost him $65 million in lost revenue this year.

Lindell has lambasted social-media sites including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in interviews after they deleted his posts about voter-fraud claims. He originally told Insider that he would launch a site - a cross between Twitter and YouTube - where people could "be vocal again" and not be "walking on eggshells."

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