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Seth Dillon Explains Why The Babylon Bee Gets Censored While Stephen Colbert Stays Safe
Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, sits down to discuss why his satirical platform faces relentless censorship while left-wing comedians thrive on social media. From the Rachel Levine "Man of the Year" tweet that got them suspended from Twitter to absurd fact-checks claiming their joke about CNN's industrial-sized washing machine was "false," Dillon exposes how tech platforms have weaponized terms of service against conservative humor. He argues that true comedy should challenge power structures, not reinforce them, and today, all the cultural and institutional power resides on the left. While comedians like Stephen Colbert have become megaphones for the popular narrative, The Babylon Bee remains one of the few willing to mock it, making them a target in an era where satire itself has become dangerous.
The Rachel Levine Tweet That Broke Twitter
When USA Today named Rachel Levine one of their "Women of the Year," The Babylon Bee responded with satire that would ultimately get them suspended from Twitter. Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, explains that they named Levine their "Man of the Year" as a parody—a joke they considered just as valid as what they saw as USA Today's own misgendering. Twitter disagreed, flagging it as hateful conduct and demanding The Babylon Bee delete the tweet and admit to engaging in hate speech.
"They're saying as long as we delete the tweet we can stay on Twitter, but in deleting the tweet we have to admit that by deleting the tweet you agree that you engaged in hateful conduct," Dillon explains. "We're not going to do that. This is as absurd as trying to force us to say that two plus two makes five."
The incident reveals how social media platforms have embedded ideological positions into their terms of service, making it nearly impossible to disagree with certain narratives without being labeled hateful.
Fact-Checked to Death on Facebook
Twitter isn't the only platform that has targeted The Babylon Bee. Facebook has presented even greater challenges through its third-party fact-checking system, which has been in place since 2018. Dillon describes receiving fact-checks on obviously satirical content, including one of their earliest run-ins: a story claiming CNN purchased an industrial-sized washing machine to spin the news before publishing it.
"That was one of the first fact checks—they rate it false," Dillon says with evident frustration. "It's just the most absurd story in the world." The Babylon Bee has been repeatedly dinged for "incitement to violence" and "misinformation," accusations that make no sense for a satirical outlet that openly fabricates scenarios to make broader points about culture and politics.
Dillon notes that when The Babylon Bee makes enough noise and the media picks up on the censorship, platforms often backtrack and apologize. But the pattern continues, with policies constantly updated to ensure that even satire must advance the approved narrative rather than challenge it.
The Onion Gets a Pass, The Babylon Bee Gets Punished
When comparing how fact-checkers treat different satirical outlets, a clear double standard emerges. Dillon points out that when Snopes fact-checks The Onion, the tone is friendly and protective: "This is the funniest satire site on the internet, you should know that, why are you thinking this is true?" But when they fact-check The Babylon Bee, the approach shifts dramatically to warnings about "danger" and "disinformation."
The difference, Dillon argues, isn't about the quality or obviousness of the satire—it's about ideology. The Onion is positioned as neutral satire, while The Babylon Bee is framed as "far-right" or "extremist," despite both doing essentially the same thing: using fabricated details to make points rooted in truth.
"What the left will try to do is position everything that they do as just the regular version of something," Dillon explains. "The Onion is a satire site, it's not a left-wing satire site, it's just satire. And The Babylon Bee is the right-wing or far-right or insane extremist version of the Onion."
The Real Job of a Satirist: Punching Up at Power
Dillon makes a compelling case that comedy has lost its way. The traditional role of the satirist, the court jester, has always been to challenge those in power—to punch up at the king, not reinforce his message. Yet most of modern comedy has become exactly that: reinforcement of the dominant cultural narrative.
"The job of the satirist, the job of the comedian, the court jester, is to punch up and make jokes at the powers that be, the power structures that be," Dillon states. "The left has all the cultural and institutional power right now in our society, and so when we push back on them and make fun of their stuff, we are fulfilling that role."
Meanwhile, comedians like Stephen Colbert have abandoned this role entirely, becoming what Dillon calls "megaphones" for those in power rather than critics of it. Instead of seeking laughter, they seek applause and affirmation from audiences who already agree with them.
Why There Are So Few Funny Conservatives (Or So We Thought)
For years, the conventional wisdom held that conservatives simply weren't funny—that comedy belonged to the left because the left was inherently cooler and more creative. But Dillon sees things differently. The issue wasn't talent; it was incentive structure and fear.
"There's tremendous pressure on comedians when you're out there telling jokes—you're literally tiptoeing through a minefield at this point," Dillon explains. "Everybody wants a safe space, nobody wants to be offended by anything, and they'll pretend to be offended because you've said something that they don't like."
Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld won't even perform on college campuses anymore because jokes are viewed as dangerous and harmful. The cancel culture environment has made it nearly impossible for comedians to do their jobs without risking their careers. Yet those who have been willing to push back—Dave Chappelle, Bill Maher, and The Babylon Bee—have found that the fertile ground for comedy lies exactly where the cultural establishment says you can't go.
Disney, Grooming, and the Current Thing
The conversation turns to Disney and the company's recent controversial stances on gender ideology in children's programming. Dillon sees this as part of a larger pattern: corporations with massive cultural reach using their platforms to advance progressive ideology, even at the cost of their brand and market share.
"Nobody has the reach and the influence that Disney has. Disney Plus has more subscribers than The Daily Wire is ever going to have," Dillon notes. "They're using it to the full extent of their ability."
But why would Disney burn decades of brand equity and family trust to push sexual orientation and gender identity content in kindergarten? Dillon's answer points to anti-values: "The way I describe the left is it's not necessarily that they have their own values, they have anti-values. Whatever our values are, they're opposed to them and they want to tear them down."
The Facebook Election Intervention
Dillon traces much of the current censorship environment back to the 2016 election and its aftermath. After Donald Trump's victory, Facebook came under enormous pressure from Democrats and left-wing activists who blamed the platform for not doing enough to control "misinformation" that helped conservatives.
"Facebook was taking a lot of heat for that. They were getting raked over the coals by people on the left for playing a role in allowing conservative media to flourish, conservative voices to flourish," Dillon explains. "They couldn't let that kind of thing happen again. That's why in 2018 you had this big push to start getting these fact-checkers in there."
The lesson Facebook learned wasn't about neutrality—it was about using their power more aggressively to protect the left's cultural dominance.
The Business Model Under Siege
When Dillon purchased The Babylon Bee from founder Adam Ford, censorship was already a primary concern. Ford worried about having the rug pulled out from under him. Dillon saw it differently—as an opportunity to be on the front lines of the battle for free speech and comedy itself.
To protect the business from platform dependency, The Babylon Bee quickly established a subscription model where readers can directly support the site. This provides a financial foundation even if traffic from social media disappears entirely. But the challenge of reach remains: without Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, cultural relevance becomes nearly impossible to maintain.
"If you want cultural relevance, if you want to be engaged, we have people like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk interacting with our tweets when we're on Twitter," Dillon says. "If we're not on Twitter, we don't get that kind of interaction. You're sidelined, you're marginalized, you're removed from those discussions."
Legal Solutions: Common Carrier and Viewpoint Neutrality
Dillon doesn't want government control of speech, but he does see legal remedies that could level the playing field. One approach involves conditioning Section 230 immunity on viewpoint neutrality—similar to how nonprofits must refrain from endorsing political candidates to maintain tax-exempt status.
"You get the benefit of immunity if you're politically neutral, just like you get the benefit of tax exemption being a nonprofit if you don't endorse political candidates," Dillon proposes. "The minute you start doing that, you disqualify yourself from the benefit."
He also points to Justice Clarence Thomas's discussion of common carrier doctrine, which treats telecommunications companies as conduits rather than speakers. Under this framework, companies like AT&T can't discriminate based on the content of messages. If Twitter and Facebook were treated similarly, they couldn't engage in viewpoint discrimination.
Texas attempted legislation along these lines, though it was recently struck down by a judge. The legal battle continues.
Why We Shouldn't Want a Parallel Economy
While many conservatives have embraced the idea of building parallel institutions—from social media platforms to credit card companies—Dillon questions whether this fragmentation is really the goal we should pursue.
"This whole idea of a parallel economy where we're all existing in our own little worlds—the conservatives have their credit cards and the liberals have their credit cards—is that really what we want? Is that how it should be?" Dillon asks. "This is a United States of America, and at the very minimum you're supposed to be forced to tolerate the existence of other people's voices."
His point is profound: alternative platforms like Parler, Gab, and Gettr function as echo chambers that don't provide the cultural reach or cross-pollination necessary for genuine public discourse. The left won't migrate to free speech platforms because, as Dillon puts it, "It's not hate speech they have a problem with—they just hate speech."
The fight, therefore, must be to maintain access to the existing public square rather than retreat to smaller, isolated platforms.
Will Smith, Safe Spaces, and the Death of Self-Deprecating Humor
The conversation touches on Will Smith's assault on Chris Rock at the Academy Awards—an incident Dillon sees as emblematic of how fragile people have become about jokes. There was a time when comedians would pick on audience members and people would laugh at themselves. That healthy exercise in humility has largely disappeared.
"It used to be that people could actually sit there and take a joke," Dillon observes. "There are still a lot of people who aren't so emotionally damaged and fragile that they can't take a joke. They understand, they really enjoy comedy shows and going there and even laughing at themselves."
The progressive obsession with safe spaces has made comedy itself dangerous. Jokes are now viewed as harmful, stereotypes are forbidden even when rooted in observable truth, and the question comedians ask has shifted from "Is this funny?" to "Will this offend someone who might hurt my career?"
The Path Forward: Force Tolerance, Not Agreement
As the interview concludes, Dillon's position crystallizes: the goal isn't to make everyone agree, but to force them to tolerate disagreement. Freedom of speech doesn't require affirmation of every idea—it requires allowing those ideas to exist and be debated in the public square.
"If we're going to force people to do anything, let's force them to acknowledge the fact that freedom is real," Dillon concludes.
The Babylon Bee's fight isn't just about one satirical website—it's about whether comedy can survive in an era that treats laughter as violence and disagreement as hate. In a culture where Stephen Colbert gets applause for repeating approved narratives while The Babylon Bee gets suspended for making jokes, something fundamental has been lost. Dillon and The Babylon Bee represent the effort to get it back.
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