"We underestimated influencers in 2016. How do we neutralize them?"
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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So, in America is Russia just classified as a terrorist organization now or something? How is taking money from Russian investors even a crime?
Someone mentioned something about registering as a foreign agent. But I always assumed only individuals working in government had to do that. Not youtubers.
No.
https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara/frequently-asked-questions
"FARA is an acronym for the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, 22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq. (“FARA” or “the Act”). FARA requires the registration of, and disclosures by, an “agent of a foreign principal” who, either directly or through another person, within the United States (1) engages in “political activities” on behalf of a foreign principal; (2) acts as a foreign principal’s public relations counsel, publicity agent, information-service employee, or political consultant; (3) solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value for or in the interest of a foreign principal; or (4) represents the interests of the foreign principal before any agency or official of the U.S. government. "
and
"An “agent of a foreign principal” is any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or otherwise acts at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a “foreign principal” and does any of the following:
Engages within the United States in political activities, such as intending to influence any U.S. Government official or the American public regarding U.S. domestic or foreign policy or the political or public interests of a foreign government or foreign political party.
Acts within the United States as a public relations counsel, publicity agent, information service employee, or political consultant.
Solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value within the United States.
Represents within the United States the interests of a foreign principal before U.S. Government officials or agencies.
See 22 U.S.C. § 611(c); 28 C.F.R. § 5.100."
and "What is a “foreign principal”?
A “foreign principal” can be a foreign government, a foreign political party, any person outside the United States (except U.S. citizens who are domiciled within the United States), and any entity organized under the laws of a foreign country or having its principal place of business in a foreign country. It can also include a foreign faction or body of insurgents whose legitimacy the United States government has yet to recognize.
See 22 U.S.C. § 611(b); 28 C.F.R. § 5.100."
It doesn't matter if you're in government or not. Now, to be fair, this is very vague and doesn't include knowingly acting, which should be a component of crimes like this (but that's a different discussion). This isn't a "you disagree with the US on something, directly to jail". There is some level of proof required.
If that proof is legitimate or not, or obtained legally, is a different question as well.
Of course, it doesn't apply to AIPAC or their ilk.
They're probably registered, which is all you have to do in order to not get penalized.
AIPAC is not registered through FARA.
The way I read the information I found, the individuals would be. Not the org itself
The org probably falls under other laws, or should
Individuals at AIPAC are not registered through FARA either.
Despite them getting caught actively spying for Israel multiple times.
Also, yes, organizations register through FARA. RT, for example, is FARA-registered, as are Chinese news agencies.
Effectively, having anything to do with Russians gets you tagged as a permanent enemy of the US government. You'd probably end up on a watchlist for buying a copy of the Always With Honor comic book at this point.
Who are these referring to? I haven't heard anything about this
Tenet Media. It's all over the place.
AFAIK all that happened is they got kicked off YouTube. YouTube is in service of foreign agents.
How can you lie to the FBI if you refuse to answer any of their questions?
This is a really bad take.
This is the US government going after independent creators.
Agreed. Lauren Chen was just some innocent Christian lady that was as mundane as it really came.
Apparently they weren't independent at all, were they?
Where the fuck do you expect their money to come from? Perfectly symmetrical sources spread out evenly across the world?
It would have to be from the audience for them to be independent. Once you have a big benefactor or investor, you're not longer independent.
My only problem is with calling them independent. They're not independent.
What if someone in the audience has more disposable money than the rest of it. Is he an investor now?
Depends on whether there is some form of contract, but also whether there is influence.
You're an idiot. I'll let other people tell you why since you clearly can't figure it out for yourself.
I didn't want it to be me, but he's being so thick I had to step up.
So no different than usual?
https://kotakuinaction2.win/p/17ty2oGNSi/x/c/4ZDu3lAhqDL
Thank you for your service. I know tard wrangling is a difficult endeavor.
Dude, quit being retarded.
This isn't about fanboyism. The government is the enemy, and this attack is coming from them. Fuck the DOJ, and fuck Mayorkas, that slimy rat.
Well, you should get attached. This matters. This is about free speech, not any individuals. Of the batch, I mainly like Matt. I'd have more negative things to say than positive about many of the others. (Benny Johnson is boring and adds nothing to his content. Lauren Southern has flipflopped way too much. Dave Rubin is a washed up shill. Lauren Chen goes way back and is kind of cool [and hot], but can also be a bit flipfloppy and milquetoast. Tim Pool is obnoxious, but I think useful. Taylor Hansen seems cool, from the little I've seen. As mentioned, I like Matt Christiansen.) Doesn't mean I'm going to toss them out as Russian agents, because that's complete and utter bullshit, and I'm not retarded enough to believe the DOJ.
None of these people are Russian assets. I could give you an "at worst" scenario, and it wouldn't even be that bad...but I don't even want to give the fed fuckers even that much credibility. This is too convenient; until proven otherwise, I just assume this was the US DOJ pulling their standard bullshit.
Again, quit being retarded.
This is the best tl;dr of all those talking heads.
And this is what the DOJ is punching at. Milquetoast flip-floppers against Kammunism.
If nothing else, I can respect you sticking by your absolutely retarded take, and doubling down.
'If the massive globalist government claims to get someone near someone you might know, you totally deserve getting your shit destroyed by the powers that be.'
Shit, dude. You're smarter than this. You live in the UK, and area always going on about the nefarious and dystopian shit they get up to. But now if you can get six degrees of separation from a fedboi you're complicit? Again, just absolutely braindead take.
The glowies are the ones doing this. What is your hangup on this? You're the one "sticking up for the glowies," if anything.
What are you even talking about at this point? That's not even close to anything anyone but retarded leftists are saying...
Shit.
Off topic, but how do you feel about Calvin Robinson leaving the LE to flee to a parish in the US?
I suppose that indicates he's jabbed as well.
I happened to catch his farewell episode on the LE this week. He also had an interview with Dan Wootton discussing it in more detail.
Apparently it's been in the works since he was fired from GB News. An American church contacted him shortly thereafter asking if he would lead them.
He gave reasoning that there are not enough "'soldiers" currently in Britain to fight the evil. He also claimed several times that he fears for his personal safety as the UK media has essentially declared a fatwa against him.
He did allude that he was thinking of returning in 5 years to run for public office. But five years is a long time from now.
So why did you take money from glowies?
First, why are you taking what the DoJ says on face value? How many "Muh Russia!" hoaxes have we had now?
Are you seriously expecting youtubers to backtrack all of the finances of everyone they ever work with?
Building off 2, how would anyone short of a massive multinational corporation with an army of attorneys and accountants even do that? But, hey, it's a basic rule so I'm sure you'll be happy to provide us with a full list of the steps you've personally taken for every financial interaction you've had for, say, the last decade.
And, even if this is 100% a Russian Propaganda operation to warp the minds of poor innocent Americans (which I don't), and even if we accept that all of those youtubers could and should have been reasonably expected to perform a full audit of Tenant's books (which I don't), there's been multiple reports of Kamala paying influencers to shill for her campaign. So what's the issue here? Show me the legal statue which says "It is a crime for you to receive money from a Russian". Oh, wait, the DoJ doesn't charge the youtubers with anything! It charges a couple Russians with money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration act.
It's 100% obvious what is going on here. The DoJ cooked up something (maybe legitimate, maybe entirely faked) to slander and try to shut down well-known online personalities because they're not 100% parroting the line that Washington wants them to take. And if you seriously don't expect the same thing to happen to Dank, the Lotus Eaters and every other online personality soon, you are hopelessly naive.
Anyway, I'll wait for your full list of steps for an average person to cheaply and easily perform a full audit on the books of every company they ever do business with, since it's an easy and basic rule.
Edit: It's also worth noting that THIS is what the DoJ is spending time on, when some of the main oil fields in the US are literally getting raided by Cuban and Venezuelan gangsters. Yeah, I get it, different people work on different things, but when a major story is "more Russian Propaganda! Be afraid of those evil right-wingers!" when oil fields are being robbed and sabotaged and no major outlet talks about it should also make it pretty clear what's going on here.
Plenty of them are?
And most, if not all, had no reason to be suspicious.
Not sure why you're going so hard on making the victims the bad guys here.
Also, you never answered my hypothetical if you'd condemn Lotus Eaters if the UK government went after them, the BBC exaggerated the claims to to boost the attack, and an obvious army of bots were unleashed on them to harass them on all their online platforms.
Because that's exactly what's going on here with Tenet.
But that's not what's happening...and that wasn't even my fucking question!
Video content creators who talk about anything not approved by the establishment don't get ad revenue from their content. Youtube will still play the ads on their videos, but keep all the ad revenue. The only way those content creators can make any money off of making content is through advertisers that sponsor the videos, where the content creator will shill for the service or product in video. It's extremely common for guntubers, homesteaders, and anyone to the right of Stalin.
All a government would have to do is "sponsor" a video for a content creator, lie about where the money comes from, and bam, you magically have "foreign influence", and the content creator unknowingly becomes a "foreign agent". There would be no realistic way for a content creator to vet where the money comes from. Most are usually just happy to pay the bills, as Youtube actively censors their content and prevents it from gaining the traction it otherwise would, due to the "algorithm", just like Google does with wrongthink.
Doesn't this defy the point of being advertiser-friendly? Maybe they have a pool of advertisers that don't GAF.
So, how exactly are you supposed to know if any glowies laundered any money into the company offering to invest in your company? And that's assuming that our government, with its multi-decade track record of being pathological liars to its own citizens, is actually telling the truth for once.
Do you not understand the concept of money laundering? The whole point is to hide where the money is coming from. So you don't think a government agency, with a budget in the millions at the least, can conceal the source of funds well enough to fool a private investigator with a budget in the thousands at the most?
Assuming our lying government is telling the truth this time, some people got scammed by government agents and you're blaming the victims. How much due diligence is enough so you'll blame the scammers? Or do you just think anyone who falls for a scam is at blame for being a sucker?
You will not convince me that Matt Christiansen is anything other than a pathologically honest man.
I haven't seen any specific reporting on what Tenet was actually compensating Matt.
But if the lump sump reported in seed money was 10 million. And Pool and Rubin were each promised ~ 5 mil/yr. I saw another report that Chen and her husband were paid around 760k.
Adding these numbers together, there’s very little left to pay Commentators 3 through 6.
TL;DR - Christiansen likely had no cause to be suspicious because they offered him so little compared to Pool & Rubin.
I don't get why you're so hung up on this.
*Tencent laughs in Chinese*
And the stock market in general. Any public company is taking in massive money from people they don't know, and any individual millionaire or billionaire can throw money at them too. Private companies have investors too and, no, you don't always know exactly who everyone is, or where the money is coming from.
If your friend reaches out to you with a good deal, says they have investors on board, everything looks good, and you're not being asked to change your opinions or content...you take the deal.
In this Tenet situation, especially the littler guys. As the above person mentioned, if you want to pass blame on the creators (which I think is absolutely asinine), only Tim Pool and Benny Johnson were probably making enough for it to be "suspicious." But, again, I'm not condemning them either. This is an attack by the DOJ. It probably all did pass initial scrutiny, and it certainly didn't look like any Russians and fedbois were involved.
They were targeted and smeared by one of the most powerful organizations on the planet.
But, you're not doing everything the same...your content is the same, but you're bringing it to a different platform, which benefits that platform.
Take your game, for example. And this was actually happening all the time when Epic Game Store was trying to get in on the market. Say your game gets some level of fame before your 1.0 release. You're independent, doing your thing. Now say Epic reaches out, and says they want your game exclusively on their platform for X time, but you retain all control. You're doing the exact same thing, you're not beholden to anyone, but you're now giving Epic value by being on their platform, and drawing people who were interested in your game there.
Now, I'm not even saying you should take that hypothetical deal, and I'm personally no fan of Epic, but it's not inherently sleezy (unless you've made promises to other platforms, which was part of the controversy around Epic), it's above board, and it may very well be an excellent deal for you. Again, you don't have to change anything, and you get more money. It's why so many people did jump at that.
That's essentially what Tenet was doing; they wanted names with some draw to provide some exclusive content, but did not themselves have any editorial control over said content. Take Tim Pool; they had him license a show he was already producing to their network. Everything was the same but the channel.
I sent the man a check, and he sent back a handwritten thank you note. There aren't many like him.