A major takedown. On Wednesday, September 4, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had sanctioned 10 people and seized 32 websites as part of an investigation into a number of Russian disinformation operations targeting the US presidential election. Federal investigators believe that the main component of this campaign was directly financed and controlled by senior managers at RT, the Russian state broadcaster, which has been banned from broadcasting in Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine.
At the heart of this disinformation operation aimed at dividing the population was a little-known company: Tenet Media, headquartered in the state of Tennessee, which bills itself with the tagline "Fearless voices live here." This production company publishes a large number of videos on social media, with moderate success – it has just over 300,000 subscribers on YouTube, but only 4,000 on TikTok.
However, the company has managed to attract some big names from the American far right, such as its star influencer Tim Pool, who hosts a regular podcast for Tenet Media called "The Culture War." Pool began his career in the early 2010s by taking part in the progressive Occupy Wall Street movement, which led to him being hired by the online media company Vice, for which he produced reports, before resigning. At the same time, he shifted politically, increasingly collaborating with hard-right influencers over the past 10 years. According to documents made public by the US DOJ, his contract provided for a remuneration of around €400,000 per month.
Far-right influencers
Tenet Media had also signed agreements with other content producers, including Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern, conservative YouTuber Matt Christiansen and Benny Johnson, former contributor to far-right media outlet Breitbart. These influencers, however, deny having knowingly taken part in a Russian influence campaign. Furthermore, the DOJ documents state that the company's two owners had not indicated where the funds used to pay their video producers came from. "Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims," Pool wrote on Wednesday night. "The Culture War Podcast (...) existed well before any license agreement with Tenet and it will continue to exist after any such agreement expires."
Behind this project, according to US authorities, lies the shadow of Russia Today, now renamed RT. The state-controlled Russian channel, long banned in many Western countries, continues to operate under the radar, acting on several occasions as the armed wing of the Kremlin's influence operations. According to the indictment unsealed on Wednesday, since the start of the war in Ukraine, the channel has served as an incubator for multiple clandestine operations targeting Western populations.
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