Saturday, September 07, 2024

Today's News: Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies....


For years now, we have been told how successful the Canadian right-wing social media influencer pundit critics are. 
They told us during the Convoy how popular these yahoos were -- because look at all the money they raised.  They told us how everybody just hates Trudeau because he's so woke and he doesn't appreciate how Canada has such awful problems and is really broken. They told us how everybody just loves Poilievre's three-word Verb-The-Noun policies and these are just what the country needs.
And we believed it! 
Though we kept on fighting the good fight, we progressive lefties still found ourselves wondering if maybe we actually were just out-of-touch elitists who didn't have a clue about what "real" Canadians really wanted. 
And we wondered if we should just try harder to pay attention to these social media influencer pundit critics, maybe we should start watering down our unpopular lefty ideas so they would like what we were saying.  
Because one thing did seem clear -- that millions and millions of "ordinary" Canadians obviously loved what the Canadian right-wing social media influencer pundit critics were saying, because look how much money these guys are making! Look how many page-views they were getting! Look how many subscribers they had!
This week we found out it was all a lie.
We already knew about a few things, like conservative politicians buying subscriber lists for their social media posts, and bot-farms sending out tweets to support right-wing politicians.  We already knew about Russian hackers trying to distort the news.
But this week we found out that so-called popular right-wing social media influencer pundit critics in Canada and America -- bunches of them, whole channels of them! - were just shills for Russia. 
And well-paid ones at that.  
They were actively trying to undermine democracy and our democratically-elected leaders by lying to us, by creating "content" lies that could be amplified by politicians and also by legitimate media, so that people would believe it.
The Pitchbot gets the tone of this betrayal exactly right: At the Atlantic, Tom Nichols writes The Russian Propaganda Attack On America:
...According to a federal indictment unsealed yesterday, two Russian citizens, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, worked with a Tennessee company not named in the indictment but identified in the press as likely to be Tenet Media, owned by the conservative entrepreneurs Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan. The Russians work for RT, a Kremlin-controlled propaganda outlet; they are accused of laundering nearly $10 million and directing the money to the company.
Chen and Donovan then allegedly used most of that money to pay for content from right-wing social-media influencers including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and Benny Johnson. ...
What’s really going on here is that the Russians have identified two major weaknesses in their American adversaries. The first is that a big slice of the American public, especially since the ascent of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, has an almost limitless appetite for stories that jack up their adrenaline: They will embrace wild conspiracies and “news” meant to generate social conflict so long as the stories are exciting, validate their preexisting worldviews, and give them some escape from life’s daily doldrums.
The other is that more than a few Americans have the combination of immense greed and ego-driven grievances that make them easy targets either for recruitment or to be used as clueless dupes. The Russians, along with every other intelligence service in the world, count on finding such people and exploiting their avarice and insecurity. This is not new. (The United States does it too. Money is almost always the easiest inducement to treason.) But the widespread influence of social media has opened a new front in the intelligence battle.
Professional secret agents no longer need to find highly placed Americans who have access to secrets or who might influence policy discussions. Instead of the painstaking work that usually takes months or even years to suborn foreign citizens, the Kremlin can just dragoon a couple of its own people to pose as business sharps with money to burn, spread cash around like manure in a field full of half-wits, and see what blossoms.
The shenanigans described in the DOJ document were not exactly a SPECTRE-level op. In this case, Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva apparently developed and maintained a fake persona named “Eduard Grigoriann” who, for some reason, was just itching to plop a ton of money down on a venture in Tennessee. ...
As idiotic as this business was, Americans should not be complacent. Yes, people such as Johnson and Pool are execrable trolls, and yes, Chen has been fired from Blaze Media, a major conservative media outlet. But to the Russians, cooperative foreigners are interchangeable and replaceable. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is playing a very smart game here. For a relative pittance—$10 million is probably the loose change in the bottom drawer of Vladimir Putin’s desk—they gain a potentially huge amount of social discord, which in turn can translate directly into the electoral outcome the Russians so fervently desire: Trump’s return to the Oval Office....
The Justice Department finally seems to be going on the offense and fighting back against these Russian attacks on America. But this indictment is probably only the tip of the iceberg: Unfortunately, the Russians have scads of money, and plenty of Americans are despicable enough to take their cash.
Note also the significant Canadian connection to this scandal: Press Progress is covering the hell out of this story. Editor Luke LeBrun writes an extremely detailed article Far-Right Media Outlet Linked to Secret Russian Influence Campaign Produced 50+ Videos Focused on Canada Canadian videos produced by far-right media outlet at centre of a US Department of Justice indictment were viewed half a million times
...The far-right media outlet at the centre of a US Department of Justice indictment over an alleged foreign influence campaign involving covert funding from Russia also produced dozens and dozens of videos this year focused on Canada.
The federal indictment alleges two employees of the Russian state-owned media outlet RT violated the US Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspired to commit money laundering by covertly funding and directing a media outlet featuring high-profile far-right influencers.
The indictment focuses on a far-right media outlet based in Tennessee describing itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues” – American media outlets have since independently confirmed the outlet is Tenet Media.
Tenet Media was founded by a Canadian right-wing social media influencer named Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovon.
The indictment alleges RT directed nearly $10 million to Chen and Donovon through Tenet Media and a separate Canadian company controlled by the couple. Canadian corporate records list Chen and Donovon as directors of “Roaming Millennial Inc.” which is registered at a residential address in an affluent neighbourhood in Hudson, Québec, a leafy suburb of Montréal.
The US Department of Justice alleges RT, formerly known as “Russia Today,” set-up a network of “covert projects” after the Russian state-run outlet was sanctioned following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. While it suggests this was designed to “amplify domestic divisions” and “manipulate American public opinion,” Tenet Media has also devoted significant time and energy on Canadian topics.
Tenet Media’s YouTube channel, which counted 316,000 subscribers, went offline Thursday afternoon, nearly a day after the indictment was announced.
However, an analysis of Tenet Media YouTube content preserved by PressProgress prior to its takedown has identified at least 51 videos focused on topics relating to Canada, including videos focused on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other hot button right-wing culture war topics.
According to metrics displayed on the video platforms YouTube and Rumble, the Canadian-themed videos allegedly funded and directed by individuals based in Russia, have been viewed half-a-million times.
At least 51 videos about Canada posted on YouTube have been viewed approximately 434,500 times while 17 videos about Canada posted on Rumble were viewed approximately 64,250 times.
The majority of videos on Canadian topics were produced by Lauren Southern, a highly controversial alt-right influencer originally from Langley, British Columbia who has previously worked for Rebel Media and later separately produced videos with prominent European far-right figures...
And there is more -- click on the article for the whole sordid story.
The CBC is covering the hell out of this story too, and no wonder:
Finally, on the lighter side:
Posted by at

4 comments:

rumleyfips said...


With PP and Trump, Russian intelligence has supported the candidates thety judge most likely to damage Canada and the US. Internal disfunction leading to loss of international respect is their goal.

3:18 am
Cap said...

The federal indictment alleges two employees of the Russian state-owned media outlet RT violated the US Foreign Agents Registration Act...

Of course, no such charges could be brought in Canada because, unlike our peers in the US and Australia, we don't have a foreign agents registration act. The US has had theirs since 1938 and Australia since 2018, but our government continues to drag its feet despite Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue having found foreign election interference in the last two federal elections.

We're obviously facing it now, so why hasn't Trudeau done something about it? It's absolutely maddening that Public Safety Canada simply says, "Officials continue to examine the regimes in partner countries and no decision has been made on whether to pursue something similar." WTF, are the Libs just tired of governing? Just copy-paste what Australia's got, make some tweaks and put it before parliament!

5:31 am
Purple library guy said...

Something to keep in mind is that, while the Russians are certainly doing this, and the Hungarians, and in different ways probably US intelligence as well (probably with different agencies working at cross purposes), the real lion's share of money going to create hard right disinformation is from . . . American oil companies.

American oil companies have spent huge amounts of money building, basically, fascism in both the United States and Canada. Charles Koch, Shell, ExxonMobil . . . that's why alt-right semi-fascists are always also climate change deniers. They have spent stacks of money building those social media echo chambers. It has recently come out that they have ALSO donated millions and millions of dollars to right wing churches and religious pressure groups, to help build their strength while getting them to deny climate change.

The Russia thing is welcome as a scandal and helps show just how venal, corrupt and amoral these people are, but we should keep in mind where the SERIOUS money building this destructive political force is coming from.

9:43 am
Cathie from Canada said...

Yes, PLG, when Cons understand that their ideas aren't popular, they don't change their ideas, they change the playing field.

12:09 pm

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)