I am not a fan of larpers on either side of the aisle who fake what they are and deceive their audience.
Again, the issue is evidence. Of course I'm no fan of LARPers or frauds either. But I'm not going to side with the government and media against people accused by leftist retards of being that.
Unfortunately youtubers get caught doing this all the fucking time, it's very common, more common than people might think.
So you just have a massive chip on your shoulders about YouTubers? Is that what all this is about?
From the detail I'm getting they're not going to be coming out of this looking good...
Not sure how many times I and others have to say this but...duh, that's the whole point of the orchestrated attack. They're not looking good. That doesn't mean they did anything wrong though.
It would be an amazing coincidence if all these people the government hated just happened to get connected to Russians. It's a setup, by the government.
I personally don't like youtubers who turn themselves into glowie assets.
And that's not what's happening.
Fyi, I have never once claimed that the government are the good guys...
I don't think anyone has said you have. I've said you are giving them the benefit of the doubt, when they're proven liars. You're not saying they're the good guys, but you're saying their claims have merit.
That's never how glowie ops work and you know it
Which is my point?!
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 just think it discredits us all if you have a bunch of people coming down on the side of grifters who larp as dissidents
I think it's a much worse look to condemn people who have been accused and attacked by known liars who are known to hate everything they stand for. Heck, the US government has shown concern over Tim Pool in the past.
that are quietly taking money from a foreign government on the side to push certain types of videos.
Again, never even the fucking allegation. Why are you taking the accusation, taking it at face value, and then making it worse?! It's insane. You're doing the exact same thing the leftists and bots are doing, and I don't get it.
Even if they're not officially with a government agency or organisation they still could be taking government money.
"Could" being the word there. Why are you taking the DOJ at their word, and then going further with your accusations?
I don't understand why people on this site are being such blatant fanbois
Again, no one is fanboying here, as has been explained multiple times. I can't speak for everyone, but it seems like the majority opinion is unfavorable toward many of the individuals. Heck, the prime target was Tim Pool, who gets a lot of hate here.
No one is "fanboying," yet you keep pulling that out.
...over this particular issue when not five seconds ago they were attacking Dustborn devs for doing exactly the same thing.
I'm not sure of the Dustborn situation, but I assume they took government grants or something? Openly? If so, my objection would be that taxpayers funded that shit. I don't hate the Dustborn devs for taking money that's on the table, and I doubt anyone else here was saying they did either. That's not the issue; in that case the issue is the government spending, not receiving the money.
If the government sets you up to make it look like you're taking money that you didn't even know about...well, I still blame the government in that instance.
Dustborn and Tenet are two completely different situations, but the government deserves the blame in both instances. This isn't hard.
The youtubers in question could have taken money from suspicious sources they should have done due diligence on
It sounds like they did do due diligence. It's not like this was a pile of cash from Russians, in Russian currency, with Cyrillic bands holding the cash together, and men in suits with DOJ badges were hanging around in the room. Their friend said they had investors lined up.
These are not average people
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.
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.
I don't get why you're so hung up on this.
You can't just flail your arms about and go "But they paid me a huge sum of money!" and accept such a large amount from an unknown source you know nothing about, holy fuck.
*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.
you guys aren't paying attention to what I post because you're going full fanboi.
Literally no one is fanboying. Tim Pool, who most people here don't like, is probably the primary target. I already explained I don't even like most of the people involved.
Also, we're paying attention to what you're saying. You're just wrong.
...at the end of the day, they took money from glowies and got greedy.
Says fucking who? You're so off base it's just sad.
...the fact that they agreed to such a shady deal in the first place.
Again, says who? I don't even get where you're getting any of this, or why you're jumping to the absolutely worst conclusion, and giving the DOJ, leftist media, and leftist bots and shills the benefit of the doubt, and fully condemning the right wing independent creators.
It would be like if the UK government said Lotus Eaters were terrorists, the BBC ran with the story, and a bunch of bots were obviously weaponized to harass the Lotus Eaters. And I just said, "wow, really disappointed in the Lotus Eaters, how could they be so scummy?" I'd never do that though, because I'm not retarded.
You guys might find me annoying and retarded...
I don't usually mind you, but you're certainly being retarded on this issue, sadly.
...I promise you that none of them are going to come out of this looking good...
Yeah, because all of our enemies have decided to try to end them, because they were a threat, and are a useful tool to try to shout 'foreign interference.'
This will absolutely hurt their reputations...that's the whole point of the fucking attack.
it's not going to be a good look for them if they're getting taken down.
You edited that it, so I'll address that too. Holy shit, stop. If YouTube takes them down, it will make them look bad? YouTube is complicit. It's Google/Alphabet, who works with the government. Holy fuck, it's the whole point. To get rid of them. This isn't rocket science.
...it's easy to see they got duped at best which doesn't make them look good...
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.
Edit: Honestly surprised with the usual paranoia on this site about glowies that you guys are going out of your way to stick up for them...
The glowies are the ones doing this. What is your hangup on this? You're the one "sticking up for the glowies," if anything.
...they are not looking good if they got greedy and took money under the table for videos, this does reek of fanboism and I'll call it out regardless.
What are you even talking about at this point? That's not even close to anything anyone but retarded leftists are saying...
Shit.
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.
Do I know who they are really? No, I don't so I'm not going to get that attached about it...
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.
Tenet itself, and Lauren Chen were also banned. Lauren and her husband were raided. The FBI wants to "talk" to everyone involved.
This continues to stink.
You think they'll do it? You think they'll remove Tim Pool before the election? Love him or hate him, he's massive and successful, and good at staying within terms of use. He would be a massive canary. So far they seem to only be going after the smaller guys, but they could be working up to it.
This feels like the Crowder bullshit all over again, which felt like the Alex Jones bullshit all over again, which felt like the Milo shit all over again, which felt like...
I hate it all. Free speech, my ass. Fuck our gay government.
If nothing else, I appreciate how open she is with being an absolute piece of shit. Keeps things simple.
Fuck Nikki Haley, the evil bitch.