Candace Owens is a very controversial public figure who has worked as an influencer and an activist for a long time. However, her political views have changed dramatically throughout her career. She began an anti-conservative blog called Degree 180 that published many articles condemning Donald Trump and the Republican party as a whole. It wasn’t until after her website SocialAutopsy.com launched in 2016 that Owens’ political views seemed to shift. This website de-anonymized internet users and earned the influencer a lot of criticism from both political parties. After this, she published a video on YouTube announcing that she had become a republican.
“I became a conservative overnight … I realized that liberals were actually the racists. Liberals were actually the trolls… Social Autopsy is why I’m conservative.”
Candace Owens’ most recent controversy is her claims about the social media platform TikTok. She claims that the site has been used to indoctrinate people into the LGBTQ community. These claims are ridiculous, but it is worth discussing due to the sheer number of people listening to conspiracy theories like this. The influencer recently claimed that “women are being socially engineered to hate men, and men are being socially engineered to be gay.” These claims have been widely criticized, but the sentiment is still out in the world, and some people are believing her.
As a leader in the organization Blacks for Trump, Candace Owens’ words are given more weight amongst Republicans. The hate and fear-mongering in her statements are a staple for those who promote conspiracy theories. In her recent claims about TikTok, Owens frames the “Chinese overlords” as enemies of the people who are trying to make all Americans identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. These false claims have spread fear and hate amongst conservatives and are an indicator of how easily people will believe false and hateful comments.
