The whereabouts of the chief actors indicted in the scheme, RT employees Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, are currently unknown. According to the indictment, the pair, who worked on digital projects for the outlet, used shell companies in the Middle East and Africa to secretly provide nearly $10 million to the company believed to be Tenet between October 2023 and August 2024, while directing it to spread anti-US and anti-Ukraine messaging. Per the indictment, the RT staffers “covertly fund[ed] and direct[ed]” Tenet and its content, including personally editing and posting content themselves and directing what others posted.

They have both been charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires foreign agents to publicly disclose their state-related activities, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They could each face up to 25 years in federal prison.

The associated influencers who have responded to the news have all claimed they knew nothing of Tenet’s Russian affiliations. “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” Pool tweeted Wednesday.

Though no charges have yet been filed against Chen, Donovan, or anyone associated with Tenet Media, the scandal has raised a maelstrom of questions about the Russian state’s ability to manipulate online discourse in the US, and the ways in which our hyper-polarized society might be making us vulnerable to exploitation by bad actors.

RT, the Russian state media outlet behind the alleged psyop (shorthand for “psychological operation” — a systematic attempt to influence others), has long been known for destabilizing activity on US social media and for spreading “anything that causes chaos” online.

The outlet changed its name from Russia Today in 2009 to more proactively obscure its Russian origins following the Russia-Georgia conflict, and was classified a foreign entity by the DOJ in 2017, in an unprecedented move that allowed the US to more closely monitor its staff, who were also classed as foreign agents.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, RT media channels were banned in the US and many of its ally nations; despite this ban, the indictment alleges, “the Government of Russia continues to use RT to direct disinformation and propaganda at Western audiences.”

RT ridiculed the US government’s allegations that it was behind the newly uncovered scheme, stating to Reuters, “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the U.S. elections.” According to the Washington Post, RT sent a response to the allegations that included, “Hahahaha!” (“I’m sure that was much funnier in the original Russian,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told WaPo.)

The indictment, however, is damning. It refers to a “Company 1” serving as the RT’s front as a self-described “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues,” which exactly matches Tenet Media’s website description of itself, among many other aligning details.

Tenet Media was founded in January 2022 by Chen, whose legal name is believed to be Lauren Yu Sum Tam, and her husband Liam Donovan. Chen, who is originally from Quebec, is a former host for multiple shows on Glenn Beck’s far-right media network BlazeTV. According to the FBI’s investigation, Chen and Donovan referred to their RT backers as “the Russians” and knowingly gave them both access to the Tenet Discord server and the ability to post directly to Tenet social media accounts.

Chen and Donovan also worked with Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva to deceive their network of conservative podcasters. The Russians made numerous fake user profiles to further the deception; to dupe members of their network and at least one unnamed potential influencer, the Russians allegedly used barebones LinkedIn pages, a fake CV, and a fake French website to create one fictional French financier with the totally-not-made-up name “Eduard Grigoriann.” The other fake personas created by Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva then promoted the fake Grigoriann (they spelled his name wrong repeatedly in doing so) and dodged basic questions the podcasters asked about his identity.

At one point, whoever was pretending to be the fake Grigoriann scheduled a Zoom call with the commentator they were trying to impress, only to strategically be absent for the conference after claiming to have shown up for the meeting at the wrong time due to time zones.

As slipshod and transparent as these attempts seem to have been, they were effective; two of the pundits entered into contracts of between $400,000-$500,000 a month to create video content for the fake Grigoriann. Most of the $10 million in funding that Tenet received went to creator studios, including, per the indictment, “$8.7 million to the production companies of Commentator-I, Commentator-2, and Commentator-3 alone.”

The group targeted by RT was an impressive array of big-deal conservative and/or right-leaning YouTubers. Dave Rubin is the most prominent pundit on the list, suspected to be one of the higher-paid commentators discussed in the indictment. He was dropped from Tenet’s roster four months ago, according to a statement he issued via Twitter on Wednesday; he called the show he made for Tenet “silly.”

>>1339569
Whats up Ivan? Whats new with you these days? So I heard You guys are getting your asses stomped in Kursk, ain't that some shit.

The other five influencers are: Tim Pool, known for his Timcast IRL podcast; Lauren Southern, a Canadian alt-right influencer who quit the movement to become a tradwife, then returned to public life after alleging her husband mistreated her; serial plagiarist turned podcaster Benny Johnson; self-described independent journalist Tayler Hansen, whose main gig seems to have been working for Tenet Media as a “field reporter”; and podcaster Matt Christiansen, known for broadcasting from the wilderness, who had made Tenet his primary streaming platform prior to this.

On a Wednesday night livestream, Christiansen claimed the FBI had contacted him earlier that day for a voluntary interview, and that investigators see him as a victim of the scheme and not a knowledgeable participant. The indictment indicated as much, describing all of the Tenet network members as unwitting dupes of the Russians.

Pool posted, then reposted, a statement denying any knowledge of the ruse. “I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed,” he stated. “Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show and the contents of the show are often apolitical. Examples include discussing spirituality, dating, and videos [sic] games.”

Johnson stated that the deal he had with Tenet was “arm’s length” and that it had since expired. (He and Rubin are still featured on the company’s promotional website.) “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme,” he said.

So what exactly was Tenet spreading at the behest of the Kremlin? A look at their social platforms reveals a litany of far-right political talking points, ranging from transphobic fearmongering and anti-immigrant rants to demonizing protesters and criticizing abortion — as well as a steady flow of anti-Ukrainian messaging.

"While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine,” the indictment observed.

The Russians not only contracted the most prominent influencers to create content for them through their fake financier, at various points they directly edited the footage submitted to them. One Tenet staffer identified as a “producer” in the indictment protested, when asked to post a video promoting a US influencer’s visit to a Russian grocery store, that it felt like “shilling.” He was ordered to post the content anyway. The Russians would also request that creators make specific content, including, for example, videos about a terrorist attack in Moscow.

The sad part of all this, however, is that this kind of content has become so mundane across the conservative internet that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish what comes directly from the Russian government and what originates from the influencers they employed. After all, while the six figures who were contracted with Tenet might have been unaware of or unbothered about who was paying them, they raised no objections to the content itself. (In fact, the only objection noted in the indictment is a complaint one of the podcasters raised that Grigoriann’s bio was suspect because he mentioned a focus on “social justice.”)

That, perhaps, speaks to how effective Russia’s disinformation war has really been. The indictment claimed that from November 2023 to August 2024, Tenet network members created over 2,000 videos among them, which generated 16 million views for Tenet and its Russian benefactors. At the time the scandal broke, Tenet Media’s YouTube channel had a not-insignificant 300,000 subscribers.

That’s not a shabby number by any means, but it pales beside the larger, unquantifiable scale of influence itself.

Rubin’s Rubin Report and Johnson’s YouTube channel each have over 2.4 million subscribers, while Tim Pool’s Timcast IRL channel has nearly 1.9 million. Many of those audience members are actively engaged in political conversations online, disseminating these views further. It’s unclear what opinions began as propaganda and what opinions the commentators came by honestly, but in either case it seems their backers are willing to pay for the output.

The Russian disinformation campaign in the US has long relied on third-party actors to do its work for it, from bots to trolls to social media farms, journalists, and hackers. (Ironically, Tenet’s last Instagram post attacked a member of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s staff who was arrested for allegedly taking bribes and committing forgery in order to further the political interests of the Chinese Communist Party in New York.)

The identification of an entire US-based content company dedicated to doing this work for Russia isn’t ultimately that surprising given what we know about the Kremlin’s tactics.

But it does raise the much grimmer question: What else is Russia doing on the disinformation front? And will we ever know how much damage they have wrought?

>>1339569
What do you stand to gain by defending gullible retards for being gullible retards?

>>1339583
So, you do it for free? That's what I am led to assume, since you didn't answer the question. You are even more gullible than Rubin, Pool, etc, cause at least they were getting paid.

>Russian disinfo bad
>Jewish disinfo good

>>1339621
Interesting /pol/-tier take

>>1339622
>you think Jews run America? You must be from... LE /POL/!

>>1339624
Yes.

>doj alleges
lmao

>>1339567
who

>russia is incapabale of doing anything
>oh but theyre totally manipulating the American public right now
which one is it?

>>1339882
Y-you have been radicalized

>>1339884
theyre incapable of successfully invading a neighboring country. Yet I'm suppose to believe theyre a serious threat still? ahahaha leftists are fucking retarded man

>>1339626
doj has internal comms and receipts and has presented them to the public.

More importantly, nobody involved is claiming otherwise. You don't get to bitch about the narrative without a counternarrative.

>>1339903
Incredible headcanon. Which democrats are demanding free speech be restricted in this situation?

>>1339903
>FBI/DOJ now has perfect propaganda cover to use as excuse to go after anti-establishment streamers
But they didn't.
>Democrats play into it and demand government restrict free speech even further
What demand are you talking about? Where? By who?

>>1339914
Redhat delusions are wild. All the streamers involved in this bullshit are sitting pretty except Chen and her husband who were active conspirators and acting as an unregistered foreign agent is already illegal.

Call me when beanie boy catches a FARA charge and shut the fuck up until then, nutbag. God damn, you must have terrible back pain living up on that cross.

>>1339907
Do you seriously believe you're talking with troon democrats on this board?

>>1339882
Words are cheap. Wars are not.

>>1339903
>>1339912
So this is the spin the Russians are banking on after getting caught red handed conspiring with MAGAs.

>>1339567
>meanwhile hasan supports human trafficking and people love and cheer him on.
>vox a far-left propaganda sites gets your claps and applaudes

>>1339932
leftists have no critical thinking skills they think if you name your organizaton antifa you can't be labels facist despite doxing assaulting and murdering people to silence them.
God you're pathetic you deserve to be raped to death.

>>1340102
weird ESL word salad
Learn to speak English if you're going to shill

>>1340103
oh boy an american talking about learning english a language you learnt 2nd hand from the brits you filthy mutts. kys and get raped to death while you're at it.
You're lucky to be alive

>>1340104
why don't you take a seat over there

>>1340107
I have a kennel for you americans when the rest of the world comes to reclaim your debt. Oh it'll be nice owning an american slave

>>1340136
at least you admit you're not american. can you do it in the other threads where you're pretending you are

>>1340138
americans aren't real you're a fake country made by british traitors. your century of freedom will soon be over and you'll be enslaved like the dogs you are.
You sir will be anal raped to death, your children will be sent to the orphanage to be trained to be an arabian richman's escort. Your wife will be fed to llamas and your pets will be set free and sent to PETA.

>>1340141
you win the mental illness gold medal

>>1340143
It's fine you win the best ass to fuck award when you're thrown into prison to be anal raped for crimes against the state

>>1340149
Seek mental health counseling for your crippling gay sex obsession

>anal raped
>child prostitution
>bestiality
>animal cruelty
>ass to fuck
>anal raped
Weird
>child prostitution
The schizo is proven to be a pedo if it has intrusive thoughts such as this

>>1340161
pause

>>1339621
Trump is the most pro-Israel president we've ever had. he says so himself

>>1339882
>>russia is incapabale of doing anything
theyre not doing well at annexing a much smaller country, but I dont htink anyone said they cant do anything

>>oh but theyre totally manipulating the American public right now
not difficult given the current state of republicans, and even just the internet at large

is this really the best defense you have? I guess it probably is, since you cant get your talking points quite as directly since the indictment

>>1339567
What other Republicans do we not know about that are being funded by hostile actors? Is the whole party completely infiltrated?

>>1340101
>>1339578
Honestly with this it just seems to me that trusting internet personalities to not be compromised in same way is stupid.
Though I would also say that having an actual spy on your team vs what you think is free money for your opinions is different lol