Published 6 September 2024 at 09.09
Foreign. American social media celebrities Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson were paid by Russian authorities to post videos with messages from the Kremlin, NPR reveals.
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Several prominent American right-wing figures, including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson, have received payments from Russian authorities to spread the Kremlin's message on social media.
This recently emerged in connection with a federal indictment by the US Department of Justice against two employees of the Russian state media channel RT, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva.
The duo is accused of using a Tennessee-based company, pro-Trump production company Tenet Media, to finance and direct the production of video content posted on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and X.
According to the Justice Department, some videos, carrying the Kremlin's message, reached millions of viewers and became part of a larger Russian influence campaign ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The Tennessee company, which is mentioned in the indictment but not named, has recruited several right-wing profilers and conservative commentators to produce content that appeared on the surface to be independent, but was in fact funded by the Russian government.
The indictment reveals that Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva have been charged with money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Act. According to the indictment, they allegedly channeled nearly $10 million to the Tennessee-based company, which in turn recruited online profiles with large followings to produce videos that pushed an agenda aligned with Kremlin interests.
Among those recruited the profiles include several well-known names within the American right, such as Tim Pool, a popular YouTuber and commentator, as well as Dave Rubin, another prominent conservative voice.
However, the profiles in question are not accused of knowingly participating in the spread of Russian propaganda. The indictment makes it clear that the company that hired them hid its connections to Russian authorities and RT.
It is stated in the indictment that the right-wing profilers did not know that their employer was funded by Russian authorities.
Tim Pool and Dave Rubin have both denied any knowledge of the project's Russian funding. In a statement on X, Pool wrote:
«If these allegations turn out to be true, I, like other personalities and commentators, have been misled.»
Rubin expressed a similar position and wrote:
«I knew absolutely nothing about this fraudulent activity. Period.»
The US security service has previously warned that both Russia and other foreign actors have intensified their attempts to influence US elections and create division in the country. What makes this particular operation unique, however, is that it involved real, well-known American voices, rather than fake accounts or botnets, which have been more common in the past.
«Buying authentic influencers is a much more efficient use of funds than creating fake profiles, because these influencers already have their own loyal following and are actually, you know, real,» wrote Renée DiResta, the author of the book Invisible Rulers, which discusses how influencers spread propaganda and rumors online.
RT's role in the influence campaign has long been known. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, RT America, RT's American channel, was shut down by many cable companies. To continue reaching an American audience without depending on traditional television channels, RT instead developed strategies to spread its content on social media through famous American profiles. This is exactly what happened in the current case, according to the indictment.
The company that allegedly funded the right-wing profiles was started by Lauren Chen, a conservative Canadian YouTuber, and her husband Liam Donovan, according to the indictment. The company, Tenet Media, launched in November 2023 with six well-known right-wing figures, including Lauren Southern, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin, as cast members.
The videos they produced often covered conservative heartland issues such as mass immigration, transgender privilege and claims of censorship of conservative voices on social media.
According to the indictment, Chen and Donovan knew they were working with Russian actors, and it appears they deliberately recruited influencers to spread material aligned with Kremlin interests.
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Among other things, Afanasyeva is said to have instructed the company to spread information about a terrorist attack in Moscow, in which Ukraine was named as the culprit, even though IS claimed responsibility.