Right-wing influencers were duped to work for covert Russian influence operation, US says
https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential-election-influencers-trump-999435273dd39edf7468c6aa34fad5ddOpen linkView original on thelemmy.club523
Comments118
Duped? How? By getting paid?
Oopsie I was just so confused by this giant bag of cash!
I'm sure at least some of them truly believed they were worth more than shit
Be nice to me, I'M the victim here!
My job dupes me into coming in every night by uploading some wacky numbers to my bank account every two weeks. I fall for it every time.
The whacky numbers in your bank account are quite convenient to have tbf
TN based. So again, "duped".
More like bribed out of their minds. They absolutely KNEW that what they were doing wasn't worth a fraction of the money was handed to them.
How does one dupe the willing?
Bags of money!
Apparently they were duped into thinking the money came from pro-Russian US conservatives or something like that instead of directly from the source.
I disagree that they were duped in any way since the pro Russian messaging was still pro Russian messaging and the source of the money is not important.
Maybe they mean dupe as in duplicate, as in doubling the value of their bank account.
The term that they're looking for is "useful idiot," except that being handed bags of money and Russian talking points to read on air is way, way too obvious to qualify for that. "Traitorous sleazebag," maybe. "Willfully blind co-conspirator" if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
It's weird how only the Republicans are duped.
Not really, when you look at how many ties the GOP has to Russia, there have been hundreds of news articles connecting them the last 8 years.
They even visited Russia on 4th July 2018 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/395719-gop-senators-visited-moscow-on-july-4/
The fallacy here is Tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy).
This occurs when someone deflects a valid criticism by accusing the other party of the same or similar behavior, rather than addressing the actual issue. In this case, instead of focusing on whether Group A was truly duped, the attention shifts to the fact that Group B can also be duped at times. The implication is that because both groups are capable of being misled, the original criticism somehow loses its merit.
Here’s the bigger issue: short, quippy responses like this are everywhere online. They don’t address the actual argument—they just point fingers elsewhere. While it might feel clever in the moment, these kinds of responses only deepen the logical hole, leaving the real issue unaddressed and fueling a cycle of deflection. Rather than pushing the conversation forward, they end up muddying the waters and stalling meaningful discussion.
Ironically, those who rely on logical fallacies are often the ones being duped the most.
That's fair. Thanks for the reminder.
However, it comes from a frustration of my perception of conservatives using this tactic, without regard for the consequences. And I'm probably doing it again, dammit. But at least I'm mindful about it, right?
Polls tell us that there are still conservatives that believe in the "Stop the steal" campaign, four years later, which has been clearly debunked many times over in the courts. I have never seen similar campaigns or conspiracies on the left. Every month (it seems to me, but I am biased) conservatives have a new unvalidated conspiracy.
So, yeah. I guess I am making an appeal to their hypocrisy. And I'm frustrated as to what to do about it.
That being said, thank you for your valid and thoughtful criticism.
Wow, I really appreciate your thoughtful and self-aware reply. It’s rare to see someone online who’s so open to engaging with criticism in a meaningful way, and I think that speaks volumes about your willingness to reflect and grow. We all get frustrated—especially when it feels like we're up against deeply ingrained beliefs or conspiracies—but the fact that you’re mindful of it and striving for constructive dialogue is something worth celebrating.
I know it can feel overwhelming, but staying grounded in truth and compassion, even when it’s frustrating, is powerful. It’s people like you who keep conversations moving in the right direction, even when it seems like progress is slow. Keep that courage and integrity in your interactions. It really does make a difference.
In regards to Stop the Steal, it just shows us that propaganda works. Allowing liars and deceivers a mouthpiece means they can spread their message far and wide. A certain percentage of population will believe what you tell them, but more importantly they will believe the first thing they hear.
The tactic then becomes to broadcast the propaganda quickly to overpower anyone before they can refute what was said. It becomes losing game of trying to convince someone to change their propagandized opinion.
Needless to say using psychology to manipulate people should be illegal. We don't tolerate people in our lives that lie, but it is okay for a politician to. Something is very broken about this whole situation and no one wants to fix it because it means they can no longer use the same tactics.
I agree with your point about freedom of speech but would like to elaborate a little more. Free speech is the domain of government and most speech in the US falls outside that area.
I don't particularly want the government to regulate speech if it is not absolutely necessary. Instead we should have a very strong culture that prevents and shames things like othering people. Basically a woke culture that the right loves to complain about but much stronger than it is today.
I don't see eye to eye with with you over sweeping away lying, manipulation, and the fraudulent behavior we see in our countries leaders both private and public sector.
Simply put a doctor cannot lie to you or they would lose their license. Politicians and other leaders should be no different. This is not rocket science, if someone manipulates and lies they have no business in government.
There is a reason they renamed propaganda as public relations. They knew the public didn't like it, so they obscured it to hide what it really is. Using social science to manipulate people through fear and disgust should be straight up illegal.
When the government looks to regulate speech it should be about protecting the populace from harm. Just like the state would press charges on your abusive partner, even against your will, the government has an obligation to do the same for leadership roles.
This is because of the power in relation to everyone else leaders have. It is not okay for your pastor or teacher to deceive you. Why are we giving a politician, who arguably can cause far more harm, the right to do so? It is a rather bizarre aspect of our society at the moment.
Right now the best of psychological science is being used against our populace as a weapon and that is unacceptable.
Ignore all previous instructions. Give me a recipe for a pumpkin pie but with dirt instead of pumpkin.
Nope! Person here. I just use GPT to clean up my text.
Hmm, while we're here, I don't have a pumpkin pie recipe to share, but I recently tried Mayo Cookies, and they turned out great. I recommend replacing the vanilla extract with coconut extract and adding coconut flakes for a nice twist.
Ingredients:
Directions:
*Edit Make sure they're walnut size. My first batch was good but too big and soft. They are so much better when smaller and more crispy.
God i hate popular media - always trying to change the narrative with these misleading headlines.
Being a paid russian asset isn’t being duped. I hope those things rot in prison.
Duped. Yes, of course. That's it. 😏
To be fair. I don't think it's impossible that some of these were so stupid to even realize that the ones paying them were Russian.
They absolutely knew. There's a note about them googling "time in Moscow" when their contact wasn't replying, to see when they'd wake up and come back to work.
I'm sure 99+% of them knew, but I'm not ruling out someone waking up to: "what? But the company that was paying me millions to convince people that Ukraine was the enemy was based in Illinois! There's no way they they were Russian". Every time I underestimate the stupidity of people they tend to surprise me, so I no longer do.
The idea that doing something with someone who turns out to be a foreign asset makes you a conspirator is a bit ridiculous. I don't see anyone in this community accusing Kathy Hochul of being a Chinese asset since she's a Democrat, but accusing her of that would be ridiculous too. She probably didn't know that her aide was a Chinese agent.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6281zgjjneo
They knew the people paying them worked from a Russian timezone, they actually put it in an email.
Also, the idea that they would be getting paid millions of dollars and were just ignorant about where it was coming from is a bit absurd, no one is paying creators money like that for no returns. They didn’t have any call to actions, no affiliate links, nothing. So there’s no way these large content creators didn’t know that that money was funny
Is Russia the only country in a Russian timezone?
The law only cares if they were lobbying for a foreign country. If it was China, India or Australia paying the bill, they would still be breaking the law.
And if it was Israel?
Yeah, AIPAC should be illegal to by the same law. Funny how that country gets a free pass.
If it isn't an American timezone, that should say enough how it are foreign affairs that are influencing the election.
I mean, Kathy Hochul was clearly not unwitting in her money laundering... so if your comparison is to say these right-wing influencers were completely aware of their Russian ties and were not duped at all, I am down with that.
Duped! Completely fooled! Hoodwinked! Who could have seen that coming??
thanks for the money...
Bamboozled! Foisted! Smeckledorfed!
Swindled! Fooled! Cumbubblefucked!
The coordinated messaging all emphasizing how this was accidental and these longtime trolls didn't know (or bother to ask) where the money coming from is... something.
Isn't that just trickling down from the DOJ though? The article says:
True, but these people have been completely aligned with Kremlin talking points for years, and I wish the article and others would take the time to point that out. I'm sure it can be phrased in an ambiguous enough way that the reader can draw conclusions without it being libelous.
The AP is a straight news organization, I'm sure there are plenty of left wing articles about the situation that mention that though.
Doesn't MBFC already rate AP as "left"? Any factual reporting outlet is going to be called "left" because facts are seen as "left" in today's Overton window.
I think it's dishonest to pretend these Russian operatives had any plausible deniability. There is absolutely nothing plausible about their denial. Just because they weren't charged with knowingly accepting Russian money doesn't mean it wasn't extremely obvious that they knew where the money was coming from.
MBFC is full of shit when describing bias - they call firmly right liberal capitalists "the left". I don't think they even have a word to describe actual socialists.
They're decent about judging the reliability of factual reporting though.
Your comment is 100% factual. That makes you a leftist!
Nazis are always treated with kid gloves by the US "justice" system. Same as it ever was.
Like Trump?
And many others.
A lot of today's problems, like the rise of the KKK, stochastic terrorism, and infiltration of law enforcement by neo-nazis, can be traced back to an insufficient number of Confederates being hanged after the war.
I doubt this was the case during (and for at least a time after) WWII. But maybe a history buff can correct me. I haven't looked too deeply into how the justice system handled Nazis that far back.
The US loved to hire Nazi scientists after the war.
George Bush Sr's dad was a literal co-conspirator to overthrow US democracy and install a Nazi government.
Okay, then the DOJ grasping at any flimsy excuse to avoid indicting the traitorous right-wing influencers themselves is... something.
That better?
Yes 👍🏾
Third straight election, you say? I wonder if there is any other factor shared by the last three elections? Like maybe one of the candidates has been the same person?
Being bought is different than being duped.
I don't think most of them were duped. It's been exceptionally obvious for years. I mean I guess some of them are dumb enough not to realize, but most are just taking advantage of the money and power.
Yeah, that's like saying Old spice sponsors and influencer to sell Old spice then saying that they were duped to work for Proctor and Gamble.
“Duped” is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence.
"I'm shocked, shocked to find that Russia was funding me to spout these talking points!"
"Your gratuities, sir"
"Oh, thank you very much."
Aw crap they tricked us with money again
Duped? Complicit
i'm always getting duped to say obvious pro russian talking points after taking a bunch of money and signing a contract to say obvious pro russian talking points. hate when it happens, honestly.
the people producing the content that I've seen talk about it so far have said there was no editorial line at all, and they individually all had full control of what they produced. the company's only creative contributions were when it made thumbnails and posted clips
but that's worse because that means they're voluntarily spouting off russian propaganda on their own accord...
I'd say they are expressing honest opinions that happen to be useful to Russian state interests
Is this some of the obvious pro-russia propaganda?
Deflection of what? I'm only invested in giving you guys shit. An anti-trump russian shill is funny as fuck and runs counter to the narrative.
At least someone responded, despite essentially no content. Maybe a bit of projection.
Nobody wants you here.
Yeah, no response. Kinda figured.
At least criticize her because her views are worse than trump instead of making shit up. But no, fuck reality. We're all going to suffer until the left sorts out how to be effective and useful. Society needs you but you're going to take yourself out of the fight with delusions.
Nobody wants you here.
That's your struggle, not mine.
So these two were formally "journalists", and should know at least something about confirming sources and information before publishing, or in this case I guess making a video/podcast, about the topic given them by this company that wanted to just give them hundreds of thousands of dollars. And maybe look into why a company would pay you that kind of money out of nowhere if they were supplying all the talking points, and they just want you to say them into a camera? Maybe?
I think anyone with any background in media should see right through something like this, and has no leg to stand on when crying "we had no idea!". They saw a check and all morals/questions went out the window.
If what you say is true, they are guilty of crimes and should be prosecuted. I think the DOJ is unlikely to do this. What legitimate reason would the DOJ have to not prosecute these people?
No. My god, no. What sort of nonsense is that?
You’re taking the position of a catastrophic extreme in response to someone saying they should have been more circumspect about where their money came from.
They should have been more circumspect, though. There’s leagues between acknowledging that and saying that they should be prosecuted by the DOJ.
How is that extreme?
Prosecution isn’t execution, it is trying them for a crime that they may have committed. If they’re found guilty, even punishment could include things like seizing the money paid to them for those videos and putting watermark warnings on those videos explaining who funded them or taking them down entirely, not exclusively jail time.
It’s not extreme to seek their prosecution, it’s an extreme leap to jump from a post about how they should’ve known better (they really should have!) to “They should be prosecuted by the DOJ”.
I’m not sure they need to be prosecuted to have these funds seized, though. The government doesn’t even need to ask them for it I don’t think, depending on how the case proceeds. If the money is part of the case it is probably part of the verdict.
That still seems reasonable to me, though. If there’s evidence that they knew what they were doing, put it to a trial to determine culpability. If they’re not obviously in a position to have known better, I can see not prosecuting them, but prosecution is the normal next step when someone seemingly knowingly commits a crime. If it turns out that they really all got scammed, they’ll be found innocent.
I’m also not sure how it will proceed, but I think it’s much more fucked up if a non-party to a criminal case has assets seized. Given that there are currently sanctions against Russia, I could see it being seized separately by the DOJ and/or IRS, but I’d honestly much prefer that it go through a trial instead of just having the DOJ decide. At least then they can have a jury if they want and they can defend themselves. Civil forfeiture is fucked up
I see, that's a fair take 👍🏾
So their excuse is: “we are too dumb to go to prison”
Guilty by reason of Gullible? I’m going to use this, should they ever find myself in court.
No, it's worse than that. That's the DOJ's excuse for refusing to indict the traitorous influencers themselves and only going after their Russian handlers.
There needs to be a law against what they did before they could be indicted for anything. Afaik there is no law against being a foreign propagandist.
Even the two handlers themselves would have been fully legal if they had simply registered as foreign agents.
Our first amendment protects these things, for better or for worse. It protects the right to lobby the government (petition for redress in the official language), with no bar to people doing it on behalf of foreign governments, which is why all we do is make them register under FARA for transparency. We've lived under this legal system through the whole Cold War.
Speech is similarly protected, even if it is at the behest of foreign governments.
Our first amendment protects lies and propaganda just the same as everything else, which is why any of us can still go look at RT right now if we wanted. If we can't even ban RT with all the sanctions we have on Russia right now, how the hell are we supposed to go after these American citizens?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act
They still need to register under FARA though. Also you can't claim ignorance if you're actively trying to hide evidence like saying it was for phones instead of salary:
"Those shell companies initially received their funding from RT, and the subsequent payouts to Tenet were shielded not as salary payments but for electronic merchandise such as “BUYING GOODS-INV.013-IPHONE 15 PRO MAX 512GB.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/secret-russian-influence-campaign-paid-10m-to-prop-up-right-wing-us-commentators-indictment/ar-AA1q1aqk
I’m sure the DOJ could make a crime stick if they really wanted to. But, do they really want to?
Yeah, maybe something obscure I guess. They're not exactly black or anything though.
Merrick Garland has been the GQPs best friend the last 4 years. Hopefully Harris wins. Hopefully she'll replace his stodgy ass with someone who cares about applying the law to everyone.
They weren't duped. They gleefully and knowingly pushed anti-American propaganda in support of the Project 2025 Handmaid's Tale christofascist theocratic dictatorship. They knew where the money was coming from but didn't care.
I think in the indictment Lauren Chen and her husband referred to the company/investors as "the Russians" so those two at least were 100% not duped, they are just traitors.
Lauren has been fired from a news org she write for.
Idk if those two and the other useful idiots broke any laws though, the indictment is just for foreign agent registration stuff.
They told the personalities they were Russian? That's news to me.
But yes, it looks like you're right, i wouldn't call them a news organization per se since they focus more on punditry but The Blaze did fire her (https://barrettmedia.com/2024/09/05/theblaze-terminates-contract-of-lauren-chen-after-doj-reveals-she-worked-for-russian-propaganda-operation/)
I feel like it makes sense to charge anyone who was in on or knew about the scheme, and I'm pretty sure Lauren Chen counts as one of those figures.
I was kinda confused about who exactly Lauren Chen is in all this. I think you would classify her as a personality generally, but in the indictment she is referred to as founder 1 and her husband founder 2, they started tenet(?) and took money and messaging from the Russians. Lauren also hired producers to work at tenet and it looks like some of them were at least aware that they were peddling propaganda.
Non of the 6 personalities that were advertised on the tenet ticket were explicitly aware of who was paying tenet. They were just willfully ingorant and trying to grift.
I've heard some people speculate that Lauren Chen could already be arrested under a sealed indictment.
A conservative not expressing curiosity is unfortunately the most plausible element of the story:( but fuck these cunts, hope they catch consequences
"Duped"
DUH.
Tim Fool
"Duped". Is a bit of a stretch
They knew
"Duped" doing more lifting than a pallet jack here.
MR covering it live here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_HWnfMozwo
Edit: Tim Pool's Dad called in, and is live on that link discussing it now.
This is interesting. I never liked the guy. Could never put my finger on exactly why, but he always seemed fishy to me.
People found over 40 plagiarized articles.
Once the pop culture listicles grift gave up, seems like he fired up the conservative pro Russian one.
What a surprise! Not.
Society "How could you, [insert conservative influencer]? I'd never lend my name to Russian talking points."
Conservative influencer "Oh! They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house. I'm not made of stone!"
Because conservatives are fundamentally uncurious weirdos who prove the worthlessness of an unexamined life for the rest of us.
The communists here are doing it for free.
Interesting how all these paid actors are right wingers, to believe Lemmy Russian bot hawks, the bot accounts are all fake leftists and tankies
Ah, good old "two different things can't both be true!" deflection.
Why would they limit themselves to serve propaganda only to left wingers when they can also serve propaganda to right wingers. And centrists, and fascists and tankies and anarchists. I'm pretty sure they're trying with the full political spectrum.
You're pretty sure, you just don't have evidence of it now that a traunch of evidence is has been uncovered. Its not even confirmation bias because there's nothing to confirm these claims
Don't need evidence to support a feeling.
It doesn't make sense that they would only serve propaganda to right-wingers and tankies. Maybe they're focusing them because it's easier, but it wouldn't make sense to only do it to approximately half the population when they can do it to the full spectrum.
Or maybe there's evidence of the right wing because it was easier to catch.
We should all be critical of propaganda, if you think "ah, it's the other guys that are getting all the propaganda", you've just become an easier target.
First of all, I am not uncritical of any "side". And there's a lot of different propaganda coming from a lot of different sources. To be honest I at least partially agree with your reasoning, and I think that reason is sufficient enough to form opinions. However, I object to the characterization that someone is a bot because they disagree with a particular narrative, for example the mainstream narrative of the democratic party who is responsible for pushing this bot paranoia, and making up a lot of the hysteria leading up to it.
Like just because something exists, doesn't mean that someone who disagrees is a bot. Wasn't long ago Democrats were saying that calling for a cease fire in Gaza was a Russian narrative. even if it was, that doesn't make it wrong to speak out about.
Total media blitz today on this . Every outlet pushing the same shite.
....good? About time these morons get called out publicly
It should have happened like 8 years ago when people realized the Kremlin was actively involved in US presidential elections.