The language-learning app Babbel has apologized after an ad the company aired during “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” a primetime Fox News show that the company called “repugnant.”

“If you saw our ad on Tucker Carlson’s show, you’re right to be upset. We are too,” Babbel tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

“While we did place our ad with Fox, we did not know it would air on a show so repugnant and at odds with our mission and values,” the company said. “We are blacklisting the show going forward. We are deeply sorry.”

The company also tweeted directly to Sleeping Giants, a left-wing group aimed at pressuring advertisers to boycott Fox News. The group celebrated Babbel’s decision in a series of tweets, referencing comments Mr. Carlson made in December when he claimed on his show that illegal immigration made the U.S. “poorer and dirtier and more divided.”

Fox News fired back at Babbel in a statement, saying it would not allow Mr. Carlson to be censored by “agenda-driven intimidation efforts.”

“The millions of unduplicated viewers watching Tucker Carlson Tonight are extremely valuable to our advertisers,” a Fox News spokesperson said. “Our audience is not only deeply loyal to the brand, but to our top tier partners as well, of which Babbel is not one.

“We will not allow voices like Tucker Carlson’s to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts from the intolerant partisan activists Media Matters, Sleeping Giants and Moveon.org whose only goal is to silence conservative thought they don’t agree with,” the statement said.

Of course, it could be that a company that teaches people *foreign languages* doesn’t want to financially support a show that says that immigrants make our country “poorer and dirtier”.



Could be that. https://t.co/gkHRhE0YFj — Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) May 1, 2019

Deciding not to have your brand on a show that has said immigrants make our country “poorer and dirtier” doesn’t mean they don’t want your business.



It means they don’t want to be associated with xenophobia. https://t.co/EZgfEgCjlg — Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) May 1, 2019

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