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- Fox News host Dan Bongino launched his AlignPay payment platform on Wednesday.
- He built the PayPal-like service after Stripe and other companies banned Trump after January 6.
- Some on the right continue to believe that internet platforms discriminate against conservatives.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Fox News host Dan Bongino unveiled a new online payment platform on Wednesday that is "engineered to cancel 'cancel culture,'" according to its website.
Dubbed AlignPay, the new service will operate similarly to other payment processing market players, providing users with credit, debit, and mobile payment transaction software.
Bongino, who is also a Parler investor, launched the service after payment giant Stripe and PayPal banned former President Donald Trump over risks of violence following the January 6 Capitol insurrection. The action, combined with Facebook and Twitter's crackdown on Trump, fanned the flames of a right-wing belief – which is not backed by evidence – that tech companies censor conservatives on their platforms.
Bongino told the Washington Post in April that he wants to build a "parallel media economy" for the right as a result.
Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, told the Washington Examiner Wednesday that "Stripe is our target here." The company stopped processing donations for Trump's campaign website because it violated its policies against encouraging violence, sources told the Wall Street Journal.
Insider has reached out to Stripe for comment.
"Anyone who's going to engage in any of this cancel culture totalitarianism, we're going to expose and offer our services to the people you cancel," Bongino told the Examiner.
AlignPay's website states that it is "'cancel culture' free" and that its "Free Speech Principles preserve and strengthen the rights of all users to interact freely within the law. Period."
It also says it offers a wide range of services, from e-commerce to donations to political fundraising. "Don't let big tech cancel your ability to raise money," reads the website.
Some conservatives say Big Tech discriminates against them
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Some Republicans have increasingly condemned Big Tech over allegedly discriminating against conservative voices online. The condemnation especially picked up steam in May 2020, when Twitter opted to flag Trump's tweets that questioned the legitimacy of mail-in voting for the 2020 presidential election.
Things have only escalated from there, and some Republican lawmakers began to use congressional hearings to ask tech executives why they crackdown on conservative figures online.
Republican Sen. John Kennedy told Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to "get out of the censorship business" at a virtual hearing in November.
But the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol insurrection poured fuel on the fire as tech companies began to exile Trump over his role in the riot. Facebook indefinitely suspended him and has since said he will stay banned until at least January 2023. Twitter has permanently suspended him from its platform and won't welcome him back even if he runs for office again in 2024.
Other social media websites have gradually sprouted up in response, like Parler, which has become popular among the right for its lack of rules about what you can post. Gab and MeWe have also gained traction.