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.
These are not average people, that's what you guys aren't getting, Tim Pool for example earns fucking millions, yes I know Lauren Chen for example is not the same and it would be unfair to compare her but this is why it all seems ridiculous to me. Even if she doesn't earn a massive amount it's still likely a fair chunk of change compared to most people.
They should as professionals be capable of doing some kind of audit and if they can't they shouldn't trust them and know when to walk away. This is where I respect TheQuartering and Count Dankula's business acumen because have you noticed they've had no drama as of yet? For the record, I'm not taking the DOJ at face value, however if they were able to nab them on something it likely means that their financials are not exactly above board unless the whole thing turns out to be completely bogus which is something I find unlikely.
Why do I find it unlikely? You don't spend that level of resources on a wild goose chase just to send a message because it would make them look ludicrous even to leftists who would get extremely squeamish themselves over it. Do I think they've done anything malicious? No probably not, however I do think they've probably been morons.
It will be interesting seeing them chat on TheIncredibleSaltMine about this because I bet they'll have some interesting takes. Count Dankula and TheQuartering have both said they've walked away from certain sponsorships and TheQuartering mentioned he walked away from $10,000 once. That's a fucking lot of money, which is why I respect him for that and I suspect this is likely a situation where they got greedy and now their financials have bit them in the arse.
You have to remember even reasonably successful youtubers are full on business operations these days with more than one employee, so yes they should be doing due dilligence on their finances constantly especially in this day and age because that's how they always get you.
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.
If the Lotus Eaters turned out to have taken foreign money while larping as dissidents I absolutely would condemn them, I don't like fakery and I dislike glowie assets even less especially if they pretend to be a friend of the every man.
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.
These are not average people, that's what you guys aren't getting, Tim Pool for example earns fucking millions, yes I know Lauren Chen for example is not the same and it would be unfair to compare her but this is why it all seems ridiculous to me. Even if she doesn't earn a massive amount it's still likely a fair chunk of change compared to most people.
They should as professionals be capable of doing some kind of audit and if they can't they shouldn't trust them and know when to walk away. This is where I respect TheQuartering and Count Dankula's business acumen because have you noticed they've had no drama as of yet? For the record, I'm not taking the DOJ at face value, however if they were able to nab them on something it likely means that their financials are not exactly above board unless the whole thing turns out to be completely bogus which is something I find unlikely.
Why do I find it unlikely? You don't spend that level of resources on a wild goose chase just to send a message because it would make them look ludicrous even to leftists who would get extremely squeamish themselves over it. Do I think they've done anything malicious? No probably not, however I do think they've probably been morons.
It will be interesting seeing them chat on TheIncredibleSaltMine about this because I bet they'll have some interesting takes. Count Dankula and TheQuartering have both said they've walked away from certain sponsorships and TheQuartering mentioned he walked away from $10,000 once. That's a fucking lot of money, which is why I respect him for that and I suspect this is likely a situation where they got greedy and now their financials have bit them in the arse.
You have to remember even reasonably successful youtubers are full on business operations these days with more than one employee, so yes they should be doing due dilligence on their finances constantly especially in this day and age because that's how they always get you.
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.
If the Lotus Eaters turned out to have taken foreign money while larping as dissidents I absolutely would condemn them, I don't like fakery and I dislike glowie assets even less especially if they pretend to be a friend of the every man.
But that's not what's happening...and that wasn't even my fucking question!
What?
What what? lol
$10,000 isn't pocket change, but it isn't a "fucking lot of money" either.