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Right-wing and right-leaning online show hosts, including Nick Fuentes, are getting millions of views pushing extremely racist rhetoric

After the Belfast riots, Henry Nowak murder case, and Karmelo Anthony trial, online show hosts defended, supported, and even encouraged more protests and violence, earning over 5.3 million views combined. Nick Fuentes alone earned 2.4 million views.

Written by Reed McMaster, Gideon Taaffe & Jack Wheatley

Published 07/15/26

Right-wing and right-leaning online shows and hosts earned millions of views pushing extreme rhetoric in the wake of Karmelo Anthony's trial in the U.S., the murder of Henry Nowak in Britain, and race riots in Northern Ireland following an alleged knife attack by a Sudanese immigrant.

Media Matters found that white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ online show America First earned at least 2.4 million combined views on Rumble for 3 episodes that defended people resorting to violence in the wake of these events. We also found at least 13 episodes from 11 other right-wing and right-leaning online shows from June 2 through June 11 that contained incendiary rhetoric against immigrants or people of color while discussing those events, with over 2.8 million combined views on YouTube and Rumble.

Hosts of the 11 online shows we identified range from well-known staples of conservative media like Glenn Beck to far-right commentator Stew Peters, who suggested that “all of us should be” recreating the Belfast riots. After Anthony's trial, during which the Black teenager was tried and found guilty of murdering a white peer, these online hosts echoed rhetoric usually relegated to white nationalist circles: The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh used the incident to attack the 20th century Civil Rights Movement, saying its “purpose” was “eliminating the civil rights of every white American,” while Stew Peters Network podcaster Frankie Stockes claimed, “These types of things have been happening in this country since the integration of schools.”

Recent incidents in America and Europe have sparked racist commentary from right-wing and right-leaning media, with many commentators mirroring Fuentes' extreme rhetoric

• In June, an alleged knife attack by a Sudanese man in Belfast, Northern Ireland, led anti-immigrant rioters to burn down multiple homes and vehicles, and some participants allegedly threatened people of color during the riot. WIRED noted the influence of outside agitators, specifically a white supremacist youth group that helped organize the riot.

• Violence also erupted in Southampton, England, following a trial for the December 2025 murder of a young man named Henry Nowak by a Sikh man who reportedly “lied to the police by falsely claiming that Nowak, who was white, had racially abused him.” The story ignited widespread anti-immigrant protests as news broke that the assailant in Nowak’s murder was convicted on May 28 and police bodycam footage was released that, according to the BBC, showed “Nowak being handcuffed as he lay dying.”

• In the U.S., a Black teenager named Karmelo Anthony was convicted on June 9 of stabbing and killing a white teen, Austin Metcalf, at an April 2025 track meet. The trial became a cultural flash point — as Forbes reported, “some claimed the response to the facts of the case would have been different if the races were reversed; others lamented that Anthony’s fate was decided by [a] jury that included no Black people.” During the trial, Jake Lang, who Forbes described as a “right-wing provocateur,” appeared at the courthouse and reportedly shouted that Anthony should be “lynched.”

• Many popular figures within the right-wing and right-leaning podcasting world responded to news coverage of these three cases with extreme racist rhetoric, often mirroring the kind of language used by white nationalists like Nick Fuentes.

• Since 2025, Fuentes — who last year was named Media Matters’ Misinformer of the Year — has been making the rounds on numerous online shows, getting millions of views, and sparking debate about whether the conservative movement should embrace him and his positions. At the same time, right-wing and right-leaning media personalities have also been echoing language and ideas from white nationalists — for example, by endorsing the concept of remigration, a form of ethnic cleansing that reflects exactly the kind of harsh anti-immigrant ideas Fuentes espouses.

• As Media Matters’ John Whitehouse wrote last year, the fact that there’s even a debate regarding whether the conservative movement should embrace Fuentes can be attributed to “the right's continued embrace of extremism as the fractured MAGA coalition jockeys for power in a second Trump term and beyond.”

Right-wing and right-leaning online shows pushing extreme rhetoric over these events earned over 5.3 million views across YouTube and Rumble

• Media Matters reviewed transcripts of episodes from right-wing and right-leaning online shows and found at least 16 episodes from 12 programs that were published between June 2 and June 11 and pushed extreme anti-immigrant, racist, and anti-civil rights rhetoric while discussing the Karmelo Anthony trial in the U.S., Henry Nowak’s murder in the U.K., and the Belfast riots. These episodes earned over 5.3 million views combined on YouTube and Rumble.

• Three of these episodes came from Nick Fuentes’ America First, with these episodes earning at least 2.4 million views combined on Rumble, or roughly 825,000 average views per episode. The other 13 episodes earned at least 2.8 million views combined, with over 1.3 million views earned on YouTube and nearly 1.5 million on Rumble. These episodes garnered roughly 218,000 average views.

• While Fuentes’ three episodes earned the most views on Rumble, The Daily Wire's The Matt Walsh Show garnered the most on YouTube, with at least 766,000 views over two episodes.

Right-wing and right-leaning podcasters defended the riots in Belfast, with some suggesting they should spread to other countries

• • Nick Fuentes: “It is refreshing to see white people riot. I do love to see it actually because you know what, it is our fucking turn.” He continued, “Clearly, that's the only way anything gets done. That's just how we do things. That is just how we do things. Now that society has become open warfare between tribes, this is clearly just how we resolve disputes and differences. Muslim thugs, African thugs, Black thugs, gangsters and gangbangers from every group, this is how they get their way. Violence, intimidations, tribalism, rioting — that is how they get their way. That is how they push white people around. That’s how they push government around.” [Rumble, America First, 6/10/26]

• • Podcaster Benny Johnson said “Belfast is set completely ablaze” because a “70 IQ or less Third World invader from Sudan” was “brought there from Paris.” Johnson added, “We, the civilized taxpayers who uphold society and whose ancestors built society and who play by the rule, we're tired of being preyed on, raped, murdered, pillaged. We're sick of it.” Johnson continued, “Belfast is set completely ablaze. Why? Well, because a 70 IQ or less Third World invader from Sudan, who should have never been in Belfast — couldn't have built a plane, couldn't have built a train, couldn't have built a boat to get to Belfast — was brought there from Paris.” [YouTube, The Benny Show, 6/10/26]

• • War Room host and former Trump administration official Steve Bannon reacted to the riots in Belfast, saying, “Hopefully it gets channeled into positive nationalism,” adding, “You got to throw down at first, because they don't listen until you throw down hard.” Referencing Nowak’s murder as well, right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec responded, “You saw people — we were talking about this before — how it's uniting all of Europe, how the old tribalisms of Europe have now kind of been broken down because there's a new situation going on. The migrant invasion of 2015 is now finally being responded to. And you've got people in Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, England, Western Europe, all over, rising up and saying enough is enough.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 6/9/26]

• • Podcaster Steven Crowder on the Belfast riots: “I think there's a turning point in the Western world, and everyone is seeing it right now.” Crowder said, “Even though I don't support political violence, indiscriminately, at all, whatsoever, people in Belfast breaking windows in the public housing for asylum-seekers that they pay for — I understand it.” He also commented on Anthony's verdict, claiming people have “Black fatigue, I get it.” [Rumble, Louder with Crowder, 6/10/26]

• • Host Glenn Beck said the probable cause of the attack which inspired the Belfast riots was “the cultural clash rooted in Islamic patterns of violence that have no place in Western society.” He also said, “Enough is enough. People are rising up because the elites ignored them for too long.” He later continued, “You know, towns just didn't slide into Third World violence by accident. It happened when leaders prioritized open borders and brought the Third World in.” [YouTube, The Glenn Beck Program, 6/10/26]

• • Podcaster Dave Rubin reacted to the Belfast riots saying, “If you import people, for whatever reason, who do not have approximately the same views as you, who are willing to do unimaginably evil things on their religious or cultural conquest, or anything else, then your society will die.” He continued, “We have so much empathy for these brown people who, you know, they just — they're just different from us and OK, they rape, OK, they behead, but let's just invite them into our country and see what happens. And that is how you will get the collapse of the West. Quite literally.” [YouTube, The Rubin Report, 6/10/26]

• • After guest Anthony Pompliano said he thought the Belfast riots were “something where you’re going to see other people in other countries get inspired by it,” PBD Podcast host Patrick Bet-David responded, “Hopefully, hopefully.” Pompliano said, “This is something that is much more systemic. And, again, it goes back to — there's an economic reason that we got to this point. But now when you get this type of response, I think that this is something where you're going to see other people in other countries get inspired by it.” Bet-David replied, “Hopefully, hopefully.” [Valuetainment, PBD Podcast, 6/10/26]

• • Far-right commentator Stew Peters — who has promoted white nationalism and antisemitism, including on his show — argued that “all of us should be” recreating the Belfast riots. Peters stated, “Until just recently, Scotland had a Muslim invader as their first minister, the equivalent of their head of state. Just think of that. The country where King Robert the Bruce, upon his death, ordered his men to cut his heart out of his body and take it with them around the world to fight the enemies of Christianity. That place was conquered by Jews and had a Muslim installed as its head of state. Really, the people of Scotland should have been out in their streets doing exactly what they're doing in Northern Ireland right now a long time ago. All of us should be.” [Stew Peters Network, The Stew Peters Show, 6/10/26; Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed on 6/25/26; Media Matters, 3/13/23]

Reacting to the trials for the killings of Metcalf and Nowak, right-wing and right-leaning online hosts attacked the Civil Rights Movement, promoted violence, and fearmongered about the death of “Western civilization"

• • Nick Fuentes claimed, “What we find emerging is a pattern where it is always — the interracial violence is always — nonwhite people killing white people,” adding later, “They're crossing over into our communities and killing our own people.” He continued, “They're migrating to our countries and turning our countries into war zones, centers of conflict. And again, throughout history, these things happen too. Tribal conflict happens. Sometimes the barbarians breach the perimeter and get inside the city gates. ... When this happens, it is incumbent on a people, and in particular its government, to get together and protect the sovereignty and safety and the well-being ... of our society.” [Rumble, America First, 6/9/26]

• • Fuentes celebrated violence against minorities, saying, “I actually do love to see … some white men show up and just start beating the shit out of these people.” He then added, “Sadly, you can't even do that because that would be the solution. It would be.” [Rumble, America First, 6/10/26]

• • Fuentes argued Western civilization is “going to die” unless white people fight back in the face of Nowak's murder. He said, “This is the state of the Western white world. And the future without white civilization is ugly. It's ugly and it's bleak and it's poor and it is primitive and it is sad. And ultimately, unless white people are willing to fight for a place in this world where we are not being stabbed to death, where police are not arresting us for being stabbed, unless white people are willing to take a stand and fight for space, fight to take up space, fight for power as whites, not just incidentally holding power and being white, but holding power as whites, then we are going to die and our civilization will be wiped out.” [Rumble, America First, 6/2/26]

• • Benny Johnson called Nowak’s story a “massive red-flashing warning sign” about “how pernicious and evil our current leaders are in the West, how much they seek the destruction of everything Western, good, and Christian.” He continued, “They seek the destruction of our culture, and it's permissible, and they're using the authorities to do it. Whether that's locking us down during COVID, burning our cities during the George Floyd riots, or letting Henry Nowak bleed out. It is those institutions that must be ripped up. They were founded well before any of us were born. They were founded in post-World War II, modernist thinking, nihilistic thinking. They're antithetical to God and creation and a harmonious culture that was established by our founding.” [YouTube, The Benny Show, 6/2/26]

• • The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh reacted to the Anthony trial by claiming that the civil rights era “achieved in the rest of the Western world” the “purpose” of “eliminating the civil rights of every white American.” He said, “Ever since the civil rights era, our leaders have conditioned millions of white Americans to accept their debasement, humiliation, and discrimination on the basis of race. And once white victims are held responsible for their own murders, on top of all that, then the civil rights era will have achieved its ultimate purpose. The purpose that's already been achieved in the rest of the Western world — eliminating the civil rights of every white American.” [The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, 6/2/26]

• • Walsh called for British men to “transform their entire society and their entire legal system to avenge Henry Nowak.” He said, “And if British men responded to this murder with one-tenth of the intensity that leftists used in response to George Floyd's overdose, the problem will be solved overnight. So, when does that happen? When are the riots starting? When will British men transform their entire society and their entire legal system to avenge Henry Nowak? And it doesn't even need to be riots because rioting is not the answer to anything. But actual anger and real systemic change in the country.” [The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, 6/2/26]

• • Referencing Nowak's murder and protests outside a New Jersey immigration detention center, Turning Point USA's Andrew Kolvet said: “You have Henry Nowak in the U.K. All of these forces, they feel like civilizational-defining forces that are clashing and colliding all the time. And the question I sort of have right now is, do we have the coalition that can save the West?” Kolvet added, “The forces arrayed against us are so vast and so demonic that we need to stick together.” [Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 6/3/26; PBS, 6/6/26]

• • Frankie Stockes of the Stew Peters Network reacted to the Anthony verdict by asserting that “the social contract is white” and “these types of things have been happening in this country since the integration of schools.” He went on to add: “You still have idiot adults out here who will continue to tell their children after seeing this and cases just like it, Everyone else is just like you, everyone else is playing by the same set of rules that you are, everyone else has the same morals that you do. … Little Tyrone, little Raphael, little Abdul, little Ari, little Avi, they’re not so different than you, little Bobby. Yeah they are.” [Stew Peters Network, The Based Report, 6/10/26]
  • Media Matters is maintaining a database of online shows with a right-leaning or left-leaning ideological bent, including those that self-categorize in nonpolitical categories such as comedy, sports, and culture but which we determined regularly cover news and politics. This report draws upon that ongoing research in categorizing the online shows mentioned.

//

Right-wing media are split on white nationalist Nick Fuentes

1. 06/17/26 10:15 AM EDT

Megyn Kelly reacts to Supreme Court TPS decision: “Go back to fucking Haiti”

1. 06/25/26 1:52 PM EDT

Jesse Watters on New York elections: “This is what happens when you import the third world”

1. 06/24/2

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ideol entre meets soc med: but vpn?

hcr 11 25

...last week a new feature on X that permitted users to see where accounts originate revealed that a number of high-engagement MAGA accounts that claim to be those of patriotic Americans are in fact from Russia, Eastern Europe, India, Nigeria, Thailand, and Bangladesh. Since X pays certain content creators for tweets that drive engagement, posters from other countries have a financial incentive to post material that feeds the anger of American users and thus will get reposted.

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mojo 12 24

n 2016, Jarrod Fidden, an Australian entrepreneur living in Ireland, announced that he’d launched a dating app for conspiracy theorists—or, as he put it at the time, for those who engage with “socially inconvenient truths.” The app was written up in dozens of news outlets in multiple languages as a funny curiosity. Fidden himself was described the same way: a jaunty, voluble character who liked to tell reporters how he and his wife had “woken up” together a few years before to the sinister, hidden hands shaping the world, generating the idea for the site.

Elon Musk’s version of X has proven especially helpful for the science-denying account.

While Awake Dating soon vanished from the headlines, the man behind the app seems to have moved on to more impactful pursuits. Less than a decade later, Wide Awake Media, a Twitter account that Fidden appears to operate, has become a major voice for climate denialism. Its more than 500,000 followers on X include former Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone; Craig Kelly, a former member of Australian Parliament and an overt climate change denialist; former General Mike Flynn, who was briefly Trump’s national security adviser before becoming a QAnon promoter; and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an opponent of early Covid lockdown measures and a professor of health policy at Stanford, whom Trump has tapped to lead the National Institutes of Health in his second term.

Wide Awake Media is a huge player in a small but exceedingly noisy echo chamber of climate denial accounts on X, which parrot each other’s paranoid assertions that climate change is a “hoax” and that green energy proposals are a pretext to impose global control. With the help of Twitter’s monetized verification system, Wide Awake has grown an exceedingly large audience, mostly on the right; Elon Musk himself recently replied to the account, further raising its visibility.

The fact that a single conspiracy entrepreneur has been able to gain such a large foothold in Twitter’s information ecosystem is concerning to experts who research climate denialism and its dissemination.

Jennie King is the director of climate research and policy for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a UK-based think tank that studies how extremism and disinformation spread online. “The Wide Awake story is indicative of various online trends,” she says, “including the diversity of actors who are piggybacking on the climate crisis as a way to generate both clout and revenue.”

In its current form, Wide Awake Media began as a Telegram channel promoting primarily anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown content before joining Twitter in 2022 and becoming more active after Musk’s purchase of the site. (The Telegram channel remains, but is less frequently updated.) At the same time, the account also shifted to focus largely on climate denialism.

The Twitter account is verified, meaning its operator pays for a subscription, and in return has its visibility and replies boosted by the site’s algorithm. A verified account also means Wide Awake Media can make money from popular content.

In 2023, the account saw a huge boom in traffic; between April and November of that year, King says, “they had gone from having 322 followers to 250,000 followers. This morning they’re at 577,000. So in the course of 18 months, that is a 1.7 thousand fold increase.”

The account focuses on several themes, King says, that reliably drive grievance-based engagement, including perceived government overreach during early days of Covid and its tension with “individual liberties,” and “fundamental changes to infrastructure and our lived environment,” like proposals for so-called 15-minute cities.

“There was a diverse community of people with grievances around these themes,” she explains. “Trauma and anger from the pandemic were then directed towards something new, in this case climate action.”

The transition was especially pronounced in 2023, King says. At that time, with the worst days of Covid infections over, you couldn’t “generate the same engagement with pandemic-related content,” she explains. “So you need to expand the business model and think about how you’re going to maintain your relevance, visibility, traction, and profit drivers.”

Acting in a “mutually reinforcing” echo chamber with other online climate deniers is a huge part of Wide Awake’s strategy, King says. “It’s a tiny minority of accounts, probably less than 50 in the Anglosphere, who are really driving this ecosystem. They are constantly citing each other, appearing in each other’s channels, using each other to provide a veneer of credibility, and doing what disinfo needs to in order to survive: create the impression of critical mass.”

Wide Awake Media also uses Twitter to promote an online store selling T-shirts with conspiratorial slogans—another way the operator has monetized their presence on the platform. (It also periodically promotes donations through fundraising platforms.) As Media Matters noted in a September 2023 analysis, the account’s “seemingly scrappy operation offering little original content besides t-shirts, proves that becoming a climate denial influencer is easier than ever.”

A previous email for Fidden is no longer operational, and whoever is behind the Twitter account didn’t respond to several requests for comment—except to post a screenshot of one email I sent, warning that a “hit piece” was imminent. But there are strong indications Fidden is the person behind the Wide Awake Media Twitter account.

For one, Wide Awake Media LLC was the name of the company he founded to promote Awake Dating. A previous website, wideawakemedia.ie, which advertised Awake Dating, began redirecting to an identical US-based site, wideawakemedia.us, in 2018. Both the Irish and US sites linked to the Wide Awake Media Twitter account as methods of contact. So does the vendor that sells Wide Awake Media’s T-shirts, suggesting one common operator behind the Irish site, the US site, and the T-shirt seller.

(The Twitter account has claimed to be a “one man operation” based in the UK, uses British spelling, and engages heavily with conspiracy theories about Australian politics, where Fidden is from, and local issues affecting the UK and Ireland.)

“Trauma and anger from the pandemic were then directed towards something new…climate action.”

In the transition from conspiracist dating to climate denial, Fidden seems to have lost at least one ally. Daniel John Sullivan, a Seattle-based software engineer, was previously identified as Awake Dating’s CTO. On one of several blogs he maintains, Sullivan has called Fidden a “shit head” and “a grifter.” In a brief email exchange, Sullivan emphatically stated that he’s no longer involved with Fidden or any of his projects.

Wide Awake Media could be viewed as what the Pew Research Center, in a recent report, called a “news influencer”—a poster with no journalism background or news outlet affiliation, that nonetheless helps shape how their audience reads and interprets current events.

Musk’s version of X has proved especially helpful for Wide Awake Media as it expands its audience and promotes paranoia, given that under him, the company has dismantled its trust and safety teams and fundamentally ceded the fight against disinformation. That can, King says, “create a culture of permissibility within a platform.”

“People know they’re likely to be able to act with impunity,” she adds. By removing the safeguards, “You create an enabling environment where certain accounts are suddenly able to accumulate enormous followings overnight.”

Of course, individual climate disinformation peddlers are always joined by the much more powerful industry lobbyists. At this year’s UN climate summit, known as COP29, oil and gas lobbyists outnumbered “the delegations of almost every country,” the Guardian reported.

But responses to the climate denialism industry, and the individuals who spread it, are also starting to take shape. Brazil, the United Nations, and UNESCO recently announced a project to respond to climate disinformation. Their Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change will, the groups have said, “expand the scope and breadth of research into climate disinformation and its impacts.” (Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has also announced support for the move.)

Meanwhile, King says, climate disinformation is likely to continue to be a major area of focus for conspiracy peddlers, because of the grim reality that climate change and its harmful impacts are increasingly impossible to ignore.

“Judging from what we know about the climate crisis, and how its effects are becoming more directly experienced by the general public, this topic is going to have a long shelf life,” she says.

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alternet-no lnx

Revealed: Deceptive political ads thrived on Facebook in run-up to 2024 election

Craig Silverman, Propublica, And Priyanjana Bengani, Tow Center For Digital Journalism October 31, 2024

Reporting Highlights

Deceptive Political Ads: Eight deceptive advertising networks have placed over 160,000 election and social issues ads across more than 340 Facebook pages in English and Spanish.

Harmed Users: Some of the people who clicked on ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges or lost health coverage, among other consequences.

Spotty Enforcement: Meta removed some ads after first approving them, but it failed to catch others with similar or identical content — or to stop networks from launching new pages and ads.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

In December, the verified Facebook page of Adam Klotz, a Fox News meteorologist, started running strange video ads.

Some featured the distinctive voice of former President Donald Trump promising “$6,400 with your name on it, no payback required” just for clicking the ad and filling out a form.

In other ads with the same offer, President Joe Biden’s well-known cadence assured viewers that “this isn’t a loan with strings attached.”

There was no free cash. The audio was generated by AI. People who clicked were taken to a form asking for their personal information, which was sold to telemarketers who could target them for legitimate offers — or scams.

Klotz’s page ran more than 300 of these ads before ProPublica contacted the weather forecaster in late August. Through a spokesperson, Klotz said that his page had been hacked and he was locked out. “I had no idea that ads were being run until you reached out.”

Klotz’s page had been co-opted by a sprawling ad account network that has operated on Facebook for years, churning out roughly 100,000 misleading election and social issues ads despite Meta’s stated commitment to crack down on harmful content, according to an investigation and analysis by ProPublica and Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, as well as research by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that researches large tech platforms. The organizations combined data and shared their analyses. TTP’s report was produced independently of ProPublica and Tow’s investigation and was shared with ProPublica prior to publication.

The network, which uses the name Patriot Democracy on many of its ad accounts, is one of eight deceptive Meta advertising operations identified by ProPublica and Tow. These networks have collectively controlled more than 340 Facebook pages, as well as associated Instagram and Messenger accounts. Most were created by the advertising networks, with some pages masquerading as government entities. Others were verified pages of people with public roles, like Klotz, who had been hacked. The networks have placed more than 160,000 election and social issues ads on these pages in English and Spanish. Meta showed the ads to users nearly 900 million times across Facebook and Instagram.

The ads are only a fraction of the more than $115 billion Meta earns annually in advertising revenue. But at just over $25 million in total lifetime spend, the networks collectively rank as the 11th-largest all-time advertiser on Meta for U.S. elections or social issues ads since the company began sharing data in 2018. The company’s failure to block these scams consistently highlights how one of the world’s largest platforms struggles to protect its users from fraud and deliver on its nearly decadelong promise to prevent deceptive political ads.

Most of these networks are run by lead-generation companies, which gather and sell people’s personal information. People who clicked on some of these ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges, among many other schemes. Some, for example, were conned by an unscrupulous insurance agent into changing their Affordable Care Act health plans. While the agent earns a commission, the people who are scammed can lose their health insurance or face unexpected tax bills because of the switch.

The ads run by the networks employ tactics that Meta has banned, including the undisclosed use of deepfake audio and video of national political figures and promoting misleading claims about government programs to bait people into sharing personal information. Thousands of ads illegally displayed copies of state and county seals and the images of governors to trick users. “The State has recently approved that Illinois residents under the age of 89 may now qualify for up to $35,000 of Funeral Expense Insurance to cover any and all end-of-life expenses!” read one deceptive ad featuring a photo of Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois state seal.

More than 13,000 ads deployed divisive political rhetoric or false claims to promote unofficial Trump merchandise.

Meta removed some of the ads after initially approving them, the investigation found, but it failed to catch thousands of others with similar or even identical content. In many cases, even after removing the violating ads, it allowed the associated Facebook pages and accounts to continue operating, enabling the parent networks to spawn new pages and ads.

Meta requires ads related to elections or social issues like health care and immigration to include “paid for by” disclaimers that identify the person or entity behind the ads. But its rules for verifying advertisers and publicly disclosing who paid for such ads are less stringent than those of its main competitor, Google, ProPublica and Tow found. Many of the disclaimers on Facebook ads listed nonexistent entities.

A Meta spokesperson said it invests heavily in trust and safety and uses a mix of humans and technology to review election and social issues ads.

“We welcome ProPublica’s investigation into this scam activity, which included deceptive ads promoting Affordable Care Act tax credits and government-funded rent subsidies,” spokesperson Margarita Franklin said in an emailed statement. “... [A]s part of our ongoing work against scams, impersonation and spam, our enforcement systems had already detected and disabled a large portion of the Pages — and we reviewed and took action against the remainder of these Pages for various policy violations.”

Our analysis showed that while Meta had removed some pages and ads, its enforcement often lagged or was haphazard. Prior to being contacted by ProPublica and Tow, Meta had taken action against roughly 140 pages affiliated with these eight networks, representing less than half of the total identified in the investigation.

By then, the ads on those pages had been shown hundreds of millions of times, resulting in financial losses for an untold number of people.

Meta ultimately removed a substantial portion of pages flagged by this investigation. But after that enforcement, ProPublica and the Tow Center found that four of the networks ran more than 5,000 ads in October. Patriot Democracy alone activated two pages a day on average in the first half of this month.

“Their enforcement here is just super spotty and inconsistent, and they’re not actually attacking root problems,” said Jeff Allen, the chief research officer of the Integrity Institute, a nonprofit organization for trust and safety professionals.

He said networks like Patriot Democracy exploit the fact that a single Facebook page can be connected to multiple ad accounts and user profiles, creating a complex challenge for enforcement. “But these cracks have existed for the past eight years,” said Allen, a former Meta data scientist who worked on integrity issues before departing in 2019.

“There are a lot of gaps in the system, and Facebook’s overall strategy is to play Whac-A-Mole.”

Franklin noted that scammers use a variety of tactics to conceal their activity. Meta constantly updates its detection and enforcement systems and works with industry and law enforcement partners to combat fraudulent activity, she said.

“This is a highly adversarial space, and we continue to update our enforcement systems to respond to evolving scammer behavior,” Franklin said. She added that Meta has taken legal action against several operators.

Meta’s Rules

Misleading election ads have posed a challenge for Meta since at least 2016, when Russian trolls purchased thousands of Facebook and Instagram ads targeting Americans ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Amid public outcry and pressure from Congress, Meta has created special rules for political and social issues advertisers, launched a public Ad Library to archive such ads and hired additional people to review ads. An integrity team has been tasked with enforcing Meta’s community and advertising standards.

In 2022 and 2023, Meta laid off over 20,000 employees, including members of its integrity team. The company said it has more than 40,000 people working on safety and security around the world, an increase since 2020. It declined to say whether it has more people working on election ad reviews this cycle compared with the last presidential election.

One of the team’s key responsibilities is to verify that election and social issues advertisers are who they say they are, and that their ads adhere to the company’s rules. Since 2019, Meta has required political and social issues advertisers to submit an Employer Identification Number, a government or military website and an associated email address, or a Federal Election Commission registration number.

Meta also allowed state and local organizations and candidates who aren’t federally registered to run ads by providing a corresponding website and email address, a “valid” phone number and a mail-deliverable address. It later relaxed the rules to allow advertisers to simply display the name of their Facebook page as the entity that paid for the ad.

Google, Meta’s main U.S. election ads competitor, doesn’t have similar carve-outs for ad disclaimers. It accepts only an FEC registration number, state elections ID or EIN to verify an organization. Google’s political ad disclaimers list the organization name or the name of a person who completed the ID verification process.

Franklin said Meta has rules to ensure that page name disclaimers aren't abused. The company’s guidelines say that regardless of how much information advertisers disclose, the ads must “Accurately represent the name of the entity or person responsible for the ad.” But more than 100,000 ads identified by ProPublica and the Tow Center did not.

Patriot Democracy

The “paid for by” disclaimers on the ads that mysteriously started appearing on weather forecaster Klotz’s hijacked page listed “Klotz Policy Group” as the advertiser. Klotz Policy Group is not affiliated with Adam Klotz, and the email and website address in the disclaimer do not point to a dedicated website. The group is also not listed in OpenCorporates or other business registration databases.

The advertiser disclaimer information for Klotz’s page listed the email admin@patriotdemocracy.com and the website patriotdemocracy.com/klotzpolicygroup. That URL led to a page that promoted dental coverage for Medicare recipients and used the branding of a site called Saving Tips Daily. Similar URLs with the patriotdemocracy.com domain appeared across other pages in the network, which enabled ProPublica, Tow and the Tech Transparency Project to link them to the same network. (For more details on how the ads and networks were identified, see the methodology section at the end of this story.)

Patriot Democracy is the biggest of the eight networks identified during the course of the investigation and has been active on Meta’s platforms for nearly five years. It includes 232 pages that have spent more than $13 million on more than 110,000 ads.

Allen said operations like Patriot Democracy spend millions on Meta ads because it helps them find victims.

“If they gave over $10 million to Facebook, then they may have extracted $15 million from American seniors with this garbage,” he said. “The harms add up.”

The pages often have official-sounding names such as “Government Cash Program,” “US Financial Relief” and “USA Stimulus Fund,” and their ad disclaimers list organization names that do not correspond to registered entities or websites.

Meta also allowed the page owners to falsely identify themselves as affiliated with the federal government. If a user looked up the page details of “Government Cash Program,” they would see a notation showing that it’s a “Government Website.” US Financial Relief is listed as a “Government organization.” More than 20 pages claimed to be a “Public Service.”

One of the most common types of ads run by Patriot Democracy pages is for Trump merchandise, including coins, flags and hats.

One of these ads ensnared Sam Roberson, a 57-year-old Texas resident, last month. While browsing Facebook, Roberson was drawn to an offer for a Trump coin from a page called Stars and Stripes Supply. The coin was embossed with an image of the former president raising his fist after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. One click took him to the site patriotprosnetwork.com, where Roberson paid $39.99 for 11 coins that he planned to give to his grandkids. He received the coins. But two weeks later, his card was charged another $29.99.

Roberson told ProPublica that he didn’t realize that he had signed up for a subscription. He contacted customer support to request a refund, but is skeptical the company will follow through.

“With these knuckleheads and how deep they are dug in, I may end up having to cancel the card,” he said.

When ProPublica called the site’s customer service line, a person who did not give their name said that customers who choose the “VIP” checkout option receive a discount on their purchases and are automatically enrolled in a monthly membership. The spokesperson said that customers are informed on the site and by email “how they got involved [in the membership] and how they can cancel.”

They said that someone else from the company could answer questions about advertising but hung up when asked how often they receive customer complaints about the membership fee.

ProPublica also sent an email with detailed questions about the coin offer and the subscription but did not receive a response.

The Stars and Stripes Supply page spent over $700,000 on Meta ads for Trump merchandise and ran ads as recently as Sept. 28 before it was removed by Meta. The page and the store have received online complaints about the billing scheme. It’s unclear who controls the page or the store, or how they are connected.

In addition to the billing schemes, the Trump merchandise ads often draw clicks with false claims and divisive language. Stars and Stripes Supply ran ads for Trump and JD Vance yard signs that falsely claimed “liberal activists are ripping Trump-Vance yard signs from the ground, sparking a wave of controversy across the nation.”

A page called Truly American ran a video ad for a “free” Trump flag and coin offer that was narrated by a female voice claiming to be Melania Trump. “Today we see free thinkers and independent voices like gay conservatives and Log Cabin Republicans silenced, censored and bullied by cancel-culture mobs. Donald stood against this and they tried to silence him for good,” the voice intoned, as the ad showed an image of Trump with his bloodied ear.

It’s unclear who ultimately controls the Patriot Democracy pages and associated Instagram accounts or who paid for the ads. Along with listing fake advertiser names, Patriot Democracy ad disclaimers show addresses that often correspond to WeWork co-working spaces or UPS stores. And the phone numbers, which are shared among multiple pages, led to generic voicemail messages — with one exception.

A man who answered one number said he’d never run ads on Meta and didn’t know why his phone number was listed. He said he was on his way to court and asked the reporter to call back later. He did not answer a subsequent call, and the phone number was soon disconnected.

The ownership information for patriotdemocracy.com and its related domains is also private, making it impossible to know who registered the domain. Meta did not answer specific questions about the network.

Before ProPublica and Tow reached out, Meta had removed less than half of Patriot Democracy pages for violating its advertising standards. It also failed to take action against the larger network, even after some of its pages were exposed in earlier reports by Forbes and researchers at Syracuse University.

Of the more than 110,000 ads on Patriot Democracy pages identified by ProPublica and Tow, Meta stopped just over 7,000, or roughly 6%, from running for violating standards. These ads were shown nearly 60 million times before Meta took action. Meta also consistently failed to detect and remove copies of ads it had previously banned due to policy violations, according to the analysis.

Franklin said Meta uses a variety of automated approaches to detect and remove duplicate ads. This includes training systems to recognize the images and videos used in previously removed ads in order to prevent them from running again. It also looks at a variety of signals, including user and payment information and the devices used to access accounts, to restrict or ban people who break its rules, she said.

One of the most popular lures used by Patriot Democracy and other networks is the promise of free government cash.

More than 30,000 ads across the networks identified by ProPublica and Tow falsely claimed that nearly all Americans could receive government subsidies or are eligible for a “FREE Health Insurance Program.” People who clicked were often directed to unethical insurance agents who altered their existing ACA plan details or signed them up for plans they weren’t eligible for, pocketing a commission in the process. These ads were shown to users at least 38 million times.

The scheme has caused victims to lose their existing ACA health insurance or to be hit with unexpected tax bills from the IRS. In those cases, the agent falsely reported a lower income to enroll clients and secure a commission. In response to the surge in fraudulent enrollments, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that administers the ACA, implemented stricter rules this summer for insurance agents.

A CMS spokesperson declined to comment on specific ads or platforms. But insurance marketers and other industry experts told ProPublica that Facebook ads are a scammer’s preferred method for ensnaring victims. Meta declined to comment on whether it’s in touch with CMS.

“It’s clear from speaking with a lot of different consumers that were ripped off that the Facebook ads played a big part,” said Jason Doss, an Atlanta lawyer who filed a class-action suit against a group of companies and individuals who allegedly used online ads, high-pressure insurance call centers and other methods to commit mass ACA enrollment fraud. The companies have moved to dismiss the case, citing a lack of jurisdiction and failure to show that any laws were broken, among other defenses. “We deny the allegations made and will be defending the case,” the CEO of one company named in the suit told ProPublica. The suit is ongoing.

Since 2021, Google has required U.S. health insurance advertisers to verify their identity and license status prior to running ads. Meta does not have this requirement. The company did not respond to questions about health insurance advertisers.

Taking on a Network

Meta’s failure to stop deceptive ads about government programs has forced some state and local officials to step in.

In January 2023, investigators in the Alaska Division of Insurance received complaints from consumers who said they were shown misleading ads on Facebook.

The ads used the state seal of Alaska and in some cases a photo of the governor to falsely claim that the state was offering new funeral and burial benefits. “The State of Alaska approved NEW affordable Funeral programs, designed to cover 100% final expenses up to 25,000 or more. Not just a portion,” read one ad.

As with other types of deceptive ads, the burial ads tricked people into filling out a form. In this case, they often ended up on the phone with someone trying to sell life insurance.

Alex Romero, Alaska’s chief insurance investigator, was alarmed. There weren’t any “new” state benefits. It’s also illegal in Alaska, and just about every state, to use a state seal without permission.

Searching the Meta Ad Library, he found hundreds of deceptive ads that used state seals. Romero warned his fellow state insurance investigators on a scheduled conference call soon after his discovery. “There was a proliferation of advertising using the same deceptive marketing,” Romero told ProPublica.

Around the same time, officials in Ventura County, California, were alerted to the unauthorized use of its county seal in Facebook ads. A local news outlet sent the county examples of burial insurance ads that used the Ventura County seal. Tiffany North, the county counsel, began an inquiry. She and Romero connected last spring and realized the same person was connected to the Facebook ads: a lead-generation marketer and insurance broker named Abel Medina.

Public records show that Medina, 35, owns companies such as Heartwork Global and Kontrol LLC, which have run election and social issues ads on several Facebook pages.

Romero said his research showed that Kontrol LLC was a key source of Facebook ads with state seals and images of governors. “Practically every state, a bunch of counties, several cities, they’re all getting tagged by this guy Medina,” he said.

Two other companies, Final Expense Authority LLC and American Benefits & Services LLC, ran similar ads on some of the same Facebook pages, ProPublica and Tow found. Their websites had text that was nearly identical to text on Heartwork Global’s site.

Corporate records show that Final Expense Authority LLC is registered to Tiffani Panyanouvong, a 24-year-old former insurance broker. She told ProPublica that Medina registered the entity in her name without her permission when they were dating.

American Benefits & Services LLC is registered in Delaware and does not publicly list an owner. Panyanouvong said that Medina used that company and Final Expense Authority to run ads on Meta and that she “had nothing to do with his lead-generation services.”

“This is all because of him, and I was just his girlfriend at the time,” Panyanouvong told ProPublica in a WhatsApp message. “And he used me as another person to hide behind to get through the Facebook advertising loop holes.”

On his LinkedIn profile, Medina touts his Facebook ad expertise. He says he generated “$1.6 Million in sales in under eight months with only Facebook Final Expense Media Buying and growing other verticals.”

He’s also teaching others how to do it — for a fee. His profile points to a website, Scale Kontrol, which promises to help clients create a “cash cow advertising machine” by using Facebook ads to generate customer leads. The site also assures customers that it knows “work arounds” to avoid having ads “flagged, banned, restricted.”

Medina did not respond to phone messages or to a detailed list of questions sent to three email addresses, his Facebook account and a home address.

ProPublica and Tow found that the four companies have operated at least 40 Facebook pages and spent $2.1 million on more than 21,000 election and issues ads. Thousands of ads reviewed by ProPublica and Tow across pages linked to the companies made deceptive claims and appeared to break one or more Meta rules.

The pages used deepfake audio of Biden to make false claims about government subsidies, ran deceptive auto insurance ads that promoted nonexistent “Biden Gas Relief Checks” using images of a U.S. Treasury check, and falsely claimed that “The State has approved a NEW Mortgage Protection Plan that protects your home and family in the event of an unexpected tragedy.” No such state plan exists.

Prior to being contacted by ProPublica, Meta had removed about half of the pages. Ten pages connected to these companies ran ads in the last three months.

In March 2023, North sent a cease-and-desist letter to Final Expense Authority. “Your use of the County’s official seal and your actions in misleading the public are unauthorized and unlawful,” she wrote.

The following month, Romero sent a similar letter to Medina, Panyanouvong and three of the companies. It cited five criminal and civil statutes that the state of Alaska believed they had violated and demanded they stop running ads with the state seal and images of the governor.

North and Romero said the ads with their respective seals stopped soon after the letters were sent. (Neither contacted Meta directly, telling ProPublica they focused on the companies running the ads.)

Final Expense Authority, the company registered to Panyanouvong, is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Monterey County district attorney’s office over its use of the California county’s seal. Emily Hickok, Monterey County’s chief deputy district attorney, confirmed the investigation to ProPublica and said her office reported the ads to Meta in February. She declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

Panyanouvong’s California insurance license was revoked in January. An attorney for the state Department of Insurance cited the use of Ventura County and Alaska seals in ads, among other alleged violations, state records show. Due to a prior criminal conviction for petty theft, records show that in 2019 Medina received a California insurance license on a probationary basis. It has been inactive since last November. He holds an active license in Texas.

Panyanouvong, who now works as a waitress, said she hopes to get her license back. “I’m pretty disheartened about this matter constantly haunting me,” she said.

The California Department of Insurance declined to comment on any investigations into the companies. “While we do not comment on open investigations, deceptive advertising on social media platforms can be a cause for licensing action or criminal prosecution,” it said in a statement to ProPublica.

Meta removed all of the active pages linked to the four companies after ProPublica and Tow shared them. It declined to say whether it had taken additional action. But as recently as early October, an ad from American Benefits & Services offered $100K to homeowners: “Claim cash back with these new home owners benefits programs that just became available.”

Still Locked Out

After ProPublica emailed Klotz, the meteorologist, in August to ask about the ads running via his page, his employer, Fox News, contacted Meta to get the ads removed and to restore his access. His verified page continued running ads promising easy money to Americans until early October. As of this week, he still doesn’t have access to his page.

“As far as I know the account is still hacked and in their control,” Klotz said.

Methodology

...

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AN 10 24 THE CONV

There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.

They are opportunists. These people share conspiracy theories to promote conflict, cause chaos, recruit and radicalize potential followers, make money, harass, or even just to get attention.

There are several types of this sort of conspiracy-spreader trying to influence you.

Coaxing conspiracists – the extremists

In our chapter of a new book on extremism and conspiracies, my colleagues and I discuss evidence that certain extremist groups intentionally use conspiracy theories to entice adherents. They are looking for a so-called “gateway conspiracy” that will lure someone into talking to them, and then be vulnerable to radicalization. They try out multiple conspiracies to see what sticks.

Research shows that people with positive feelings for extremist groups are significantly more likely to knowingly share false content online. For instance, the disinformation-monitoring company Blackbird.AI tracked over 119 million COVID-19 conspiracy posts from May 2020, when activists were protesting pandemic restrictions and lockdowns in the United States. Of these, over 32 million tweets were identified as high on their manipulation index. Those posted by various extremist groups were particularly likely to carry markers of insincerity. For instance, one group, the Boogaloo Bois, generated over 610,000 tweets, of which 58% were intent on incitement and radicalization.

You can also just take the word of the extremists themselves. When the Boogaloo Bois militia group showed up at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, for example, members stated they didn’t actually endorse the stolen election conspiracy, but were there to “mess with the federal government.” Aron McKillips, a Boogaloo member arrested in 2022 as part of an FBI sting, is another example of an opportunistic conspiracist. In his own words: “I don’t believe in anything. I’m only here for the violence.”

Combative conspiracists – the disinformants

Governments love conspiracy theories. The classic example of this is the 1903 document known as the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” in which Russia constructed an enduring myth about Jewish plans for world domination. More recently, China used artificial intelligence to construct a fake conspiracy theory about the August 2023 Maui wildfire.

Often the behavior of the conspiracists gives them away. Years later, Russia eventually confessed to lying about AIDS in the 1980s. But even before admitting to the campaign, its agents had forged documents to support the conspiracy. Forgeries aren’t created by accident. They knew they were lying.

As for other conspiracies it hawks, Russia is famous for taking both sides in any contentious issue, spreading lies online to foment conflict and polarization. People who actually believe in a conspiracy tend to stick to a side. Meanwhile, Russians knowingly deploy what one analyst has called a “fire hose of falsehoods.”

Likewise, while Chinese officials were spreading conspiracies about American roots of the coronavirus in 2020, China’s National Health Commission was circulating internal reports tracing the source to a pangolin.

Some people just want to stir up trouble.

Chaos conspiracists – the trolls

In general, research has found that individuals with what scholars call a high “need for chaos” are more likely to indiscriminately share conspiracies, regardless of belief. These are the everyday trolls who share false content for a variety of reasons, none of which are benevolent. Dark personalities and dark motives are prevalent.

For instance, in the wake of the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump, a false accusation arose online about the identity of the shooter and his motivations. The person who first posted this claim knew he was making up a name and stealing a photo. The intent was apparently to harass the Italian sports blogger whose photo was stolen. This fake conspiracy was seen over 300,000 times on the social platform X and picked up by multiple other conspiracists eager to fill the information gap about the assassination attempt.

Commercial conspiracists – the profiteers

Often when I encounter a conspiracy theory I ask: “What does the sharer have to gain? Are they telling me this because they have an evidence-backed concern, or are they trying to sell me something?”

When researchers tracked down the 12 people primarily responsible for the vast majority of anti-vaccine conspiracies online, most of them had a financial investment in perpetuating these misleading narratives.

Some people who fall into this category might truly believe their conspiracy, but their first priority is finding a way to make money from it. For instance, conspiracist Alex Jones bragged that his fans would “buy anything.” Fox News and its on-air personality Tucker Carlson publicized lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election to keep viewers engaged, while behind-the-scenes communications revealed they did not endorse what they espoused.

Profit doesn’t just mean money. People can also profit from spreading conspiracies if it garners them influence or followers, or protects their reputation. Even social media companies are reluctant to combat conspiracies because they know they attract more clicks.

Common conspiracists – the attention-getters

You don’t have to be a profiteer to like some attention. Plenty of regular people share content where they doubt the veracity, or know it is false.

These posts are common: Friends, family and acquaintances share the latest conspiracy theory with “could this be true?” queries or “seems close enough to the truth” taglines. Their accompanying comments show that sharers are, at minimum, unsure about the truthfulness of the content, but they share nonetheless. Many share without even reading past a headline. Still others, approximately 7% to 20% of social media users, share despite knowing the content is false. Why?

Some claim to be sharing to inform people “just in case” it is true. But this sort of “sound the alarm” reason actually isn’t that common.

Often, folks are just looking for attention or other personal benefit. They don’t want to miss out on a hot-topic conversation. They want the likes and shares. They want to “stir the pot.” Or they just like the message and want to signal to others that they share a common belief system.

For frequent sharers, it just becomes a habit.

The dangers of spreading lies

Over time, the opportunists may end up convincing themselves. After all, they will eventually have to come to terms with why they are engaging in unethical and deceptive, if not destructive, behavior. They may have a rationale for why lying is good. Or they may convince themselves that they aren’t lying by claiming they thought the conspiracy was true all along.

It’s important to be cautious and not believe everything you read. These opportunists don’t even believe everything they write – and share. But they want you to. So be aware that the next time you share an unfounded conspiracy theory, online or offline, you could be helping an opportunist. They don’t buy it, so neither should you. Be aware before you share. Don’t be what these opportunists derogatorily refer to as “a useful idiot.”

H. Colleen Sinclair, Associate Research Professor of Social Psychology, *Louisiana State University

===

Officials have begged people to not spread misinformation about Hurricane Helene. YouTube has monetized it.

10/10/24

https://www.mediamatters.org/google/officials-have-begged-people-not-spread-misinformation-about-hurricane-helene-youtube-has) mma

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wapo

Democracy Dies in Darkness

How Trump’s allies amplify his Truth Social messages to the wider world

By Sarah Ellison and

Clara Ence Morse

May 8, 2024

On the second day of his civil fraud trial in New York last fall, Donald Trump posted a photo of a young woman, Allison Greenfield, standing next to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). Trump claimed falsely that she was “Schumer’s girlfriend” and was “running this case against me.”

Donald Trump's Truth Social profile picture

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Schumer’s girlfriend, Alison R. Greenfield, is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately!! https://www.instagram.com/greenfield4civilcourt/A photo of Allison Greenfield standing next to New York senator Charles E. Schumer displayed as a silhouette.The Washington Post is not displaying this image.

October 3, 2023 at 6:56 p.m.

Trump’s post about Greenfield, the principal law clerk for New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, received only around 1,400 shares, modest activity for a former president whose Twitter account once had nearly 90 million followers.

Engoron, who oversaw the trial, ordered Trump to take down the post, which he did the same day. But the message was already out. The next day, insults directed at Greenfield flooded right-wing podcasts and social media.

X/Twitter

alt text

Laura Loomer

LauraLoomer

President Trump posted this on Truth Social. Judge Arthur Engoron’s Principal Law Clerk Allison Greenfield appears to be a Democrat political operative who is collaborating with @SenSchumer who has openly proclaimed his desire to “get Trump” and see him jailed. WITCH HUNT

October 3, 2023 at 3:13 p.m.

TimCast podcast

|

October 4, 2023

“These people have an agenda. They have had a bias, obvious bias against Donald Trump from day one.”

— Tim Pool

The Michael Knowles Show podcast

|

October 4, 2023

“Trump took a swipe at one of the judge's staff members and pointed out that she's a huge lib, Alison Greenfield. She's a big lib. She's a big Democrat.”

— Michael Knowles

Over the next two months, dozens of articles focused on Greenfield’s role. Conservative media personalities such as Laura Loomer and the cable TV news channel Newsmax kept the spotlight on the clerk by frequently repeating Trump’s complaints.

Breitbart

|

November 3, 2023

A Breitbart headline reading: Conniption in Court: Gasps as Breitbart Exposé on Trump New York Judge’s Clerk Takes Center Stage

NewsMax

|

November 3, 2023

A NewsMax headline reading: Judge Blasts Trump Lawyers for Attacking Staff

NewsMax

|

November 3, 2023

New York Post

|

November 15, 2023

A New York Post headline reading: Trump seeks mistrial in 'tainted' $250M civil fraud case — citing judge's 'overwhelming' bias

The Epoch Times

|

December 7, 2023

A The Epoch Times headline reading: NY Judge Argues Against Trump Suit, Says Relationships Between Judge and Staff 'Sacrosanct'

With the attention from Trump’s backers came threats and abuse — a torrent that compelled Greenfield to tighten security at home and avoid public transportation.

When transcribed, the harassing voice-mail messages left for Greenfield covered more than 275 single-spaced pages.

Those concerned about the impact of Trump’s incendiary and often inaccurate messages have long sought ways to limit his reach. Cable news networks stopped airing his speeches live. Social media companies adopted new rules to slow the spread of false information. The targets of his bogus election conspiracy theories sued him and his proxies.

Perhaps the most significant move to limit Trump’s audience came after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol: bans on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, blocking him from some of the most influential social media platforms of the era.

And yet, three years later, a Washington Post analysis shows how those efforts have failed.

Now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump is as potent a political force as ever, with an army of amplifiers ensuring that his messages — true or untrue — reach a broad swath of the American public. He is set to face President Biden in November, with Trump running roughly even in national polls.

When Trump was initially suspended from the major social media platforms, he issued a statement: “We will not be SILENCED!”

He then created his own social media platform, Truth Social, where he would never be banned and which would allow him to profit financially from his own messages.

Former president Donald Trump is reflected in a mirror as he speaks to supporters in Laconia, N.H., on the day before the New Hampshire Republican primary. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Truth Social was estimated to have 5.4 million website visits in the United States in March, with another 800,000 on its app. By comparison, X, which was formerly known as Twitter, claimed more than 200 times that, with over 1 billion visits. Facebook is estimated to have had 3 billion visits in the same period, according to audience tracking firm Similarweb. Even though Trump has now been reinstated on the larger platforms, he has stuck with Truth Social, a platform that gives him greater freedom but a far more limited reach.

Yet despite its relatively small user base, Truth Social is influential because it sustains the networks of MAGA influencers, culture warriors and election deniers who power the right-wing media and guide the rhetoric and policies of many Republican elected officials. It directly connects Trump to influencers with enormous networks and audiences outside the platform, The Post’s analysis found.

Press Enter to skip to end of carousel

How Trump has become angrier and more isolated on Truth Social

Here on his company’s social network Trump is offering followers an intimate view of what his second term could look like: isolated, vitriolic and vengeful.

End of carousel]

The Post analyzed 14,101 of Trump’s posts from the day he announced his presidential campaign on Nov. 15, 2022, through March 15, 2024, including 7,716 original text posts as well as reposts and image-only posts. He posted to Truth Social, where he now has 6.96 million followers, an average of 29 times a day over that period.

Those messages were in turn shared by followers with wildly popular Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, podcasts and cable news shows, some of which reach tens of millions of people. The Post’s analysis focused on nearly 200 right-wing political influencers who have active accounts on Truth Social and other social media sites.

“The people around Trump know better than anybody how to spread a message,” Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump senior adviser and influential podcaster, said in an interview. They also benefit personally from their role.

Supporters of former president Donald Trump try to get his photo as he walks out to announce his bid for president at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 15, 2022. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)

By “recirculating golden nuggets from Trump, influencers provide the bonding of this media ecosystem,” said Yochai Benkler, a Harvard Law School professor who has long studied propaganda. “The more outrageous and trolling of the libs it is,” added Benkler, “the more attractive it is for those who want to make money and get credibility inside the political community for being a true believer.”

Trump recently praised Truth Social for its effectiveness. “When I put out a statement or message, it is SPREAD all over the place, fast and furious. EVERYBODY SEEMS TO GET WHATEVER I HAVE TO SAY, AND QUICKLY,” he wrote on the platform in early April.

Shannon Devine, spokesperson for Truth Social, said in a statement that “since users can express themselves on Truth Social without censorship and without their message being filtered through biased media outlets, it’s unsurprising that Donald Trump would use the platform or that people would spread his statements elsewhere.” The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s biggest amplifiers include well-known political figures and media organizations, as well as those who have built their brands almost entirely based on their habitual echo of the former president’s words, The Post’s analysis found.

Influencers such as conservative radio and TV host Mark Levin, former Trump adviser and media commentator Sebastian Gorka, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, and online personalities such as Philip Buchanan, who posts using the handle Catturd, regularly share Trump’s Truth Social posts within the platform and amplify his messages to their massive followings off it. Levin, Gorka, Flynn and Catturd each boast over a million followers on X, and Levin and Gorka host popular podcasts. Levin, Flynn and Buchanan did not respond to requests for comment. Gorka responded by saying, “You are scum and a hack. Go to Hell.”

Sebastian Gorka greets supporters on the first day of CPAC on March 2, 2023, in Fort Washington, Md. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Former Trump national security adviser and retired three-star Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn greets visitors during the ReAwaken America Tour on Oct. 21, 2022, in Manheim, Pa. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Trump uses Truth Social to promote his campaign and personal brand, attack political rivals and solicit donations. He also makes false claims of election fraud, spreads far-right conspiracy theories and hurls vitriol at the judges, witnesses and prosecutors involved in his court cases. Posts that make claims of election interference, discuss his court cases or include aggressively insulting language, tend to get the most attention. Five of Trump’s 10 most reposted messages involve election denial.

Early in his campaign, almost all of Trump’s election-denial posts focused on the 2020 presidential race. But after his first indictment in April 2023, Trump began alleging that prosecutors, by charging him, were interfering in the 2024 election. Around the time of his June indictment for mishandling classified documents, his posts on alleged 2024 election interference began to outnumber claims of 2020 election fraud, a trend that continued throughout the year, the Post analysis found.

On Aug. 14, when Trump was indicted in Georgia, he posted three messages equating the indictment with election interference. “THOSE WHO RIGGED & STOLE THE ELECTION WERE THE ONES DOING THE TAMPERING, & THEY ARE THE SLIME THAT SHOULD BE PROSECUTED,” he wrote in his typical all-caps style.

His language was repeated dozens of times in the two following days on right-wing media, podcasts and television. Internet personality Catturd posted a screenshot of Trump’s post to Twitter an hour later, where it garnered 150,000 views. That afternoon, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.) wrote on Facebook and Truth Social that the justice system was rigged against Trump, ending the post with an allegation of “election interference!”

The phenomenon is a “steroidal version of political messaging,” according to Chris Stirewalt, politics editor at NewsNation and a former political editor at Fox News. “Trump says or does something egregious and the people who are currying favor with him say, ‘Well, let’s workshop this,’ and they share his message on their own account, but add their own twist.”

One of the reasons Trump has not regularly posted on X is that he wants to create and keep financial value for his Truth Social site, which he carefully tracks, according to people close to him who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

He has relentlessly tried to promote it, telling his advisers that he wants to break news on the platform to bring in more users. That focus paid off with an early, heady valuation of the company that peaked at more than $10 billion in late March, though shares in parent company Trump Media and Technology Group have fallen sharply since then.

Supporters use their phones during a rally in Erie, Pa., on July 29. (Dustin Franz for The Washington Post)

Trump has posted on X only once since leaving the Oval Office — his mug shot last year from an Atlanta jail, where he was booked on charges of trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

But “even though Trump had been kicked off Twitter, people like me can get out Trump’s message on Twitter,” said Mike Davis, a former Senate aide who helped guide the confirmation of Supreme Court justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Davis, who founded the Article III Project, a judicial advocacy organization, is a frequent podcast guest on shows hosted by influencers such as Charlie Kirk, Benny Johnson, Jack Posobiec and Bannon. He estimates that he’s done over 3,000 media appearances, “and that’s in addition to constant social media and writing opinion pieces defending Trump.”

Davis said that being kicked off social media is galvanizing for conservatives, and he would know. He has been suspended from Twitter five times. But each time, “it was the best thing ever, because then I would go on Fox News and talk about how I was being censored and that would build a bigger audience.”

An ideal testing ground

The day before the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Bannon hosted a “force amplifier” event for influencers to discuss the most effective ways to support Trump’s causes.

Truth Social is an ideal testing ground, Bannon said, because it provides a way to test a message among a relatively small group that can then pass along the most effective lines to a wider audience.

“This entire industry is predicated upon the Trumps of the world creating compelling content daily,” said Bannon. “From YouTube to Facebook to Twitter to Instagram, the whole thing. People are making businesses and careers out of his content.”

A radio show is live-streamed as supporters of Donald Trump gather to watch election results following the presidential primaries on March 12 in Smyrna, Ga. (Megan Varner/For The Washington Post )

On July 27, new charges against Trump in the mishandling classified documents case were filed by special counsel Jack Smith. The following day, Trump wrote three posts on Truth Social referencing the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice or FBI, including one post that garnered over 8,400 reposts and 29,000 likes. The language quickly found its way off Truth Social.

“People are not stupid,” Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said that night on Sean Hannity’s show, which typically reaches 2.3 million people. “As a whole, they are starting to understand that the weaponization of the justice system is full throttle right now.”

“This morning, I joined Fox and Friends to discuss the illegal weaponization of the DOJ against Joe Biden’s top political opponent,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) posted on her Facebook page, which has 360,000 followers, that afternoon.

Newsmax posted a video to its YouTube channel, which has 2.2 million subscribers, promoting an interview with former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, who said the Biden administration had “weaponized the justice system in a shameful and disgraceful way.” (A Newsmax spokesperson said the network covers both sides of Trump’s trials. Guilfoyle said that the “censorship of President Trump is un-American, a total assault on the First Amendment.”)

Despite his frequent public complaints about how Fox treats him, Trump is also still amplified by its major prime time shows. The night he posted about the Georgia indictments, guests on the popular Hannity, “Jesse Watters Primetime” and “Fox News @ Night” shows, cited the indictments as evidence of election interference.

“For mainstream outlets, it’s the laziest kind of rage revenue because TV producers and web editors go out to find the posts that online rage merchants have already made,” said Stirewalt, who is also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “And then you can bring it back to your more mainstream audience and say: ‘Aren’t you enraged by how enraged they are?’”

From anonymity to influencer

Some of the former president’s biggest boosters have built their identities almost entirely online, with no credentials beyond their instinct for amplifying his words.

Philip Buchanan, a 59-year-old living in the panhandle of Florida, is the person behind the social media personality Catturd. Buchanan began tweeting in 2018 as a so-called “Reply Guy,” someone with a small social media following who communicates primarily in the comments section of prominent users. Today, his X account boasts 2.4 million followers, including former Fox host Tucker Carlson, billionaire X owner Elon Musk, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Trump.

Buchanan, who is behind the social media personality Catturd, has 2.4 million followers of his X account. (Screenshot from social media)

Buchanan’s interactions with Trump highlight how each benefit from the other. Through much of 2020, the Catturd account had featured pandemic-era jabs at Democrats, often with a scatological twist. But after the election, Buchanan — like Trump — became fixated on false claims of a rigged vote. Trump retweeted him three times that November.

More recently, Buchanan posted a screenshot of an April 6 Trump post on Truth Social attacking New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s hush money case. “Trump just violated the gag order and dares the corrupt activist hack judge to put him in jail,” Buchanan wrote on X. He followed up with a flame emoji to express his appreciation for Trump’s stance.

Buchanan, whose identity was revealed by Rolling Stone and confirmed by The Post, has credited his social media fame with changing his financial life. In January, he told Carlson, the former Fox News personality who now hosts a show on X, that he bought a new truck, started a podcast and now sells a line of Catturd-branded merchandise.

A clerk under threat

The public scrutiny of Allison Greenfield began with a Wisconsin man named Brock Fredin, who unearthed the photo of the law clerk with Schumer. Fredin posted the photo on X, using the handle @JudicialProtest, and added a caption asking why she was “palling around with Charles E. Schumer?”

Fredin did not respond to a request for comment.

Days later, Trump took a screenshot of Fredin’s post, added a link to Greenfield’s Instagram account, and pushed the message out to his followers. His campaign sent out an email blast targeting Greenfield minutes later.

Although Trump did not directly threaten Greenfield, he clearly voiced his disapproval to his many followers. Right-wing influencers publicized Greenfield’s cellphone and social media accounts, and she scrambled to hide her personal information and that of her family. Court security directed her to stop taking the subway and instead travel by car.

Judge Arthur Engoron, right, sits on the bench with principal law clerk Allison Greenfield, center, during former president Donald Trump's civil business fraud trial in New York on Nov. 2. (John Taggart for The Washington Post)

Laura Loomer speaks during protests against the indictment of former president Donald Trump outside the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Miami on June 13. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)

Greenfield, who is now running to be a Manhattan civil court judge, declined to comment for this piece. But her experience was described in court papers and by Jerry Skurnik, a consultant for her campaign.

Trump’s post resulted in roughly 20-30 calls per day to Greenfield’s personal cellphone and approximately 30-50 messages per day across social media, Linkedln and two personal email addresses, according to court papers. The threats, many of which were sexist and antisemitic in nature, included several death threats.

Loomer was among those who focused attention on Greenfield, sharing Trump’s Truth Social message about the clerk to her nearly 1 million followers on X and proclaiming the case against the former president a “WITCH HUNT.” When reached for comment, Loomer said that “it is important for me and the MAGA base to be Donald Trump’s bullhorn,” a role that she said has only become more crucial since he has been subjected to multiple gag orders.

Once an appellate judge temporarily paused the gag order on Nov. 16, Trump lashed out again at Greenfield and Engoron on Truth Social. “His Ridiculous and Unconstitutional Gag Order, not allowing me to defend myself against him and his politically biased and out of control, Trump Hating Clerk, who is sinking him and his Court to new levels of LOW, is a disgrace,” Trump wrote.

Trump continues to attack several of the judges overseeing his cases, and recently flouted a gag order in his hush money case in New York by lashing out against two potential trial witnesses and the jury.

Trump said he would be “honored” to go to jail for violating the gag order. Instead, in late April, Merchan fined Trump $9,000.

The same day, Trump posted on Truth Social that the judge was “Rigged, Crooked, and above all, and without question, CONFLICTED.”

Loomer shared Trump’s post on X, and Catturd reshared the message to his followers, adding three fire emojis.

===}:

Right-wing YouTuber Tim Pool has raised over $1.3 million from Super Chat donations on the platform | Media Matters for America

March 14, 2024 rww

• Tim Dickinson @ Rolling Stone: Trump Campaign Ads Are Monetizing Pro-Nazi Content on Rumble

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is running online advertising to raise cash for 2024 — and a portion of that ad spending is monetizing pro-Nazi content on the streaming service Rumble, Rolling Stone has observed.

• Justin Horowitz @ Media Matters: Misogynistic manosphere influencers embrace Nazism

Right-wing “manosphere” influencers including Sneako, Jon Zherka, and Myron Gaines are embracing Nazism and defending Adolf Hitler online.

• Matt Shuham @ HuffPost: Election Deniers Have Taken Over The RNC After A Trump Shake-Up

Donald Trump never gave up his lies about the 2020 election. Now, party leadership is stocked with his picks.

• Matthew Choi @ The Texas Tribune: Political novice Brandon Gill seeks to be Trump’s biggest advocate in Congress

Brandon Gill is on a glide path to becoming the next congressman of Texas’ ruby red 26th Congressional District, after beating a crowded pool of Republicans in the primary to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess. For those wondering how the likely congressional newcomer intends to conduct himself on Capitol Hill, Gill says it’s simple — he will follow Donald Trump’s lead.

• Wendy Suares @ KOKH: Oklahoma tax dollars funding national promotion of State Superintendent Walters

A DC-based firm is pocketing tens of thousands of your tax dollars to promote State Superintendent Ryan Walters on a national stage.

• Telling Jefferson Lies: Wolfe in Wolf’s Clothing

Stephen Wolfe’s book The Case for Christian Nationalism ignited a firestorm of controversy when it was released in 2022. In the book, Wolfe calls for revolt against tyranny and for Christians to mobilize at the state and local level to enact self-conscious Christian governments. In principle, according to Wolfe, Christian state’s could use violence to maintain a Christian social order.

Meta profited from ads featuring Alex Jones, despite banning Infowars content from its platforms | Media Matters for America

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aha used to be verboten fringe, anyone assoc w/ wd disavow, but tucker mainstream racism

corp picks target demo then platform serves up relevant sites?

also $ = amplify/ escalator?

earn 20K recriutment incentive cbp

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/dish-samsung-wall-street-journal-and-others-are-advertising-twitter-account-leading-white

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Meta users are being bombarded with ads for shady “generic” Ozempic prescriptions | Media Matters for America

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mma 6 23

Ads for major brands including Dish, Samsung, and The Wall Street Journal have been appearing on the verified Twitter account of VDare, a leading white nationalist group.Those companies are associating with a site that is largely dedicated to complaining about the alleged danger and inferiority of nonwhites, especially immigrants.

Musk has turned Twitter into a nightmare for advertisers, with accounts featuring antisemitism, racism, anti-LGBTQ hate, and misinformation thriving on the platform. Media outlets and researchers, including Media Matters, have documented that corporate ads have appeared next to toxic accounts, including those that promote Holocaust denialism, and major advertisers have left Musk’s platform.

The advertisers remaining on Twitter are having their ads placed directly on the accounts of white nationalists, including VDare’s verified account. Information on that account states that it’s been “verified since February 2023.” (Musk stated in June that “Twitter will start paying creators for ads served in their replies. First block payment totals $5M. Note, the creator must be verified and only ads served to verified users count.”)

VDare is a white nationalist site and organization. Headlines on its site have included:

• “One Problem With These Hispanic Immigrants Is Their Disgusting Behavior.”
• “Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…Hispanic Immigrants Taking Over FBI’s Ten Most Wanted.”
• “Indians Aren't That Intelligent (On Average).”
• “America Does Not Need ANY Immigrants From Africa.”
• “New Wave Of Failure Migration: Ethiopians On The Way.”

Tags on the site include: “Immigrant Mass Murder,” “Anti-White Hate Crimes,” “White Guy Loses His Job,” “Birthright Citizenship Reform,” “Minority Occupation Government,” “Disgruntled Minority Massacre,” “Death Of White America,” “Black Serial Killers,” “War On Whites,” “Jewish Fear and Loathing of Donald Trump,” and “Immigrants And Disease.”

It also runs regular “great replacement” updates designed to warn white readers that they are being replaced by nonwhites. (The so-called “great replacement” conspiracy theory is a white supremacist trope that’s motivated violence, including mass murders.)

VDare has previously posted content praising Musk for calling out supposed “anti-white racism from U.S. Media” and responded to his complaint about the newLord of the Rings series on Amazon by tweeting, “Elon Musk is /ourguy.”

Numerous companies and even the U.S. government have been advertising directly in VDare’s Twitter account. Media Matters found ads for the following while looking at VDare’s feed:

• Alibaba
• Dish Network
• Golf Channel/**PGA Tour**Superstore
• Hootsuite
• Samsung
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• The Wall Street Journal
• Wimbledon

The advertisement for CBP was an invitation to apply for jobs. Border Patrol has a history of problems with online racism and bigotry in its rankS[TWT]

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https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/daily-wire-has-earned-millions-facebook-interactions-amplifying-anti-trans-content

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https://www.mediamatters.org/google/youtube-has-monetized-videos-baselessly-connecting-celebrity-deaths-covid-vaccines

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matt is carnival barker, sez shit ben can't?!

aha: hype/fear (esca / echo algo amplify) --> clicks / names email contact--> cash

aha rw media = grift info extraction

mma 11 22

As he gears up for a potential 2024 showdown with former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has enlisted a leading right-wing outlet for advertising: Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire. The Republican governor paid over $100,000 since last year in fundraising expenses to the site, which has aired commentary supporting DeSantis over Trump.

DeSantis and his associated PAC Friends of Ron DeSantis have paid $110,429.01 for fundraising expenses and list rental to the site since July 2021, according to a search of campaign data with the Florida Department of State. The Miami Herald noted some of DeSantis’ payments to the Daily Wire and other right-wing outlets in April. 

Shapiro co-founded The Daily Wire, which publishes podcasts, videos, and commentary pieces. The site frequently pushes anti-LGBTQ, racist, and bigoted content.

The Daily Wire and its personnel have recently been friendly voices for DeSantis, who won his 2022 reelection bid.

Shapiro, as summarized by the website he co-founded, has “faulted Trump” and “made no secret of his support for DeSantis.” He also said in September that DeSantis is a “very effective governor” and a better potential president than Trump.

After Trump tried out the nickname “Ron DeSanctimonious,” Daily Wire host Matt Walsh tweeted: “DeSantis is an extremely effective conservative governor who has had real policy wins and real cultural wins. Trump isn't going to be able to take this one down with a dumb nickname. He better have more than that up his sleeve.”

And the Daily Wire has featured pieces such as “Trump Launches Unprovoked Attack On Ron DeSantis For His Handling Of COVID Pandemic”; “With Trump The Big Loser In ’22 Midterms, DeSantis Now Frontrunner For ’24”; and “‘Original’ Trump Backer Michael Savage: ‘DeSantis Is The Future … This Is About A Nation, Not About Any Man.’”

The National Republican Congressional Committee,which is the House Republicans’ official campaign arm, has also heavily advertised in the Daily Wire,paying $321,100.18 from 2021 to 2022 so far for list rentals.

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/24/2130859/-Google-s-Selling-Climate-Disinfo-Ads-Despite-Policy-Against-It-YouTube-Too-Still

Google's Selling Climate Disinfo Ads, Despite Policy Against It. YouTube, Too. Still.

Daily Kos

Hate speech test case Mark Steyn interviewing pro-J6-insurrection Marc Morano and debunked-by-deniers Monckton about their recent invitation to be ...

...In October of 2021, Google announced that it was banning climate disinformation from its advertising system, including on YouTube. That (should have) meant videos denying the scientific reality that fossil fuels are causing climate change shouldn't have ads on them, and websites that publish such false claims would also be barred from using Google's ad services.

In October of 2022, it's still all too easy to find climate disinformation on YouTube that's selling ads. 

FoxNews clips that get fact checked? Still monetized. UK's version of Fox, GBNews, having a PR exec turned professional denier on to say the "'UK Government has been taken over by sleeper agents"? Making ad money.Hate speech test case Mark Steyn interviewing pro-J6-insurrection Marc Morano and debunked-by-deniers Monckton about their recent invitation to be a laughing stock? Monetized! Amateur that depends on professionals Tom Nelson's podcast videos, Alex Epstein on Glenn Beck, John Stossel tapping deceased denier Pat Michaelsto deny hurricane science, and our favorite, the canonically bad climate denial video, the Great Global Warming Swindle, that Avaaz called out in 2020, are all monetized.

And that's just on YouTube! There's also Google's sprawling advertising display business. Google gets paid to place ads on websites across the internet. Its policy against climate disinformation should mean that it doesn't place ads on websites that publish climate disinformation. And the company should care about that, because big name advertisers are very clear about not wanting their products to appear next to the casual bigotry, hatred and lies found on websites that carry climate disinformation.

But apparently a year is still not enough time for Google to actually enforce its demonetization policy, because a new report from Dewey Square Group found Google "is by far the most significant advertising supplier on websites that promote climate disinformation both in terms of the share of sites they enable and the ad traffic they monetize."

Using weekly visits as the metric, of the total 113 websites analyzed, Google ads accounted for 97.7% of the projected weekly visits. Assuming an average price, "Google would potentially have pulled in $7.6 million in display advertising revenue over the past year from such sites" the report states.

Of the top 50 climate disinfo websites by traffic, like Breitbart and The Dailies Wire and Caller, Dewey analysts found that Google was serving ads on 39 of them.

Not only is Google still monetizing climate disinfo, it's the biggest player in the game, and it's working with the biggest, most obvious publishers of harmful climate denial. 

Despite its own rule saying it explicitly would not do that. Apparently it’s less of a policy, and more of a request...

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mma 10 22

New data shows Google is earning revenue directing traffic to fringe right-wing platforms and websites

Google is responsible for nearly half of U.S. display ad traffic used by fringe social media platforms to drive traffic and new users to their extremism-filled sites

WRITTEN BY KAYLA GOGARTY

PUBLISHED 10/21/22

New analysis provides some insight into the extent to which far-right social media platforms — such as Truth Social, Gab, Parler, Gettr, and Rumble — use Google’s enormous advertising network to expand their audience. In the past 12 months, these fringe platforms have spent roughly $258,000 on ad networks including Google, likely just a fraction of their full spend and a sum that Google’s $210 billion advertising business could surely do without.

Media Matters and others have reported on Google’s history of letting far-right actors monetize extremism, such as helping the monetization of racist and dangerous anti-Muslim articles from the fake news website Freedom Daily, allowing anti-abortion centers to target women with misleading and unlabeled ads, and letting former Trump aide Steve Bannon monetize his website even as he was banned on Google-owned YouTube.

This week, Media Matters reported that a Dewey Square analysis of data from traffic analytics company Similarweb found that Google’s ad network is driving traffic and new users to fringe video-sharing platform Rumble, while also monetizing some of its traffic. Notably, Rumble had 622 million U.S. visits in the last year (from October 2021 through September 2022), and nearly 48% of U.S. display ad traffic driving users to Rumble during that time came from Google Display Network ads.

Additional analysis from Dewey found that Google is similarly generating revenue from other fringe platforms and far-right websites that are filled with extremism. In fact, Google’s ad network promotes traffic to multiple fringe platforms, monetizes visits to the platforms with ads to third-party sites including far-right websites, and then monetizes visits to those websites with ads to other sites.

Google’s ad network generates revenue and promotes traffic to these alternative far-right social media platforms grx]

In addition to Rumble, Dewey’s analysis found that Truth Social, Gettr, Gab, and Parler — fringe platforms that boast minimal content moderation policies and allow hate speech, misinformation, and conspiracy theories — had over 124 million U.S. visits combined in the last year (from October 2021 through September 2022).

Google’s ad network is responsible for some of the traffic to the fringe platforms. In the last year, more than 46% of U.S. display ad traffic driving users to these fringe platforms came from Google Display Network ads. Of this traffic, 63% went to Rumble and 20% went to Gettr, while another 11% went to Gab, and 6% went to Parler.

Dewey traced the estimated sums of money that Gettr, Parler, Gab, and Rumble spent on U.S.-based advertising over the last year and found that they spent at least $397,000 and earned at least 108 million ad impressions combined. More than 65% of this advertising spend, or over $258,000, was through ad networks, including Google.

Here is an example of display ads used to drive new traffic to the fringe platforms:

fringe platforms' google ads

Far-right platforms use Google’s ad network to monetize traffic

While some of the platforms do try to earn revenue by selling merchandise or offering paid account upgrades, advertising monetization is another source of income.

Dewey’s analysis found over 246,000 U.S. display ad visits monetizing the fringe platforms in the last year (from October 2021 through September 2022). Of these visits, Google Display Network made up more than 65%, with 220 advertisers using the network.

:{:{}:

}:

These advertisers on fringe platforms using Google Display Network include right-wing media outlets, such as Washington Examiner and The Epoch Times, and right-wing websites, such as the American Center for Law & Justice, Republican fundraising website WinRed, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (Notably, Dewey found that the NRSC was the largest advertiser on Rumble over this last year, spending over $577,000 on ads on the platform.) These right-wing sites also used Google’s display ad network to monetize their sites.

Additionally, these large companies are advertising on fringe platforms through Google’s ad network:

Amazon

Lending Tree

Chevrolet

Subaru

Walmart

Ancestry.com

:{:{}:

}:

Google is providing a valuable source of revenue to these still relatively small and fringe far-right social media platforms that are allowing the spread of harmful content and extremism. They need Google far more than Google needs them.

Related

Google’s ad network is driving and monetizing traffic to the fringe video-sharing platform Rumble

10/20/22 6:28 PM EDT

Google Play approved the Truth Social app, even though nothing has changed since it was initially rejected

10/17/22 1:43 PM EDT

Parler promised Apple and Google it would change, but harmful content still plagues the platform

10/18/22 3:58 PM EDT

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https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/anti-vaccine-accounts-instagram-are-using-link-bio-loophole-monetize-their-content-and

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may or may not be signif that these bad msg went out on soc med b/c all does? my question is cd stefanik also use for fundraising? pols get less/no scrutiny by moderators? dark post // direct mail b/c no filter/pushback

an 5 22

in a blunt column for theconservative Bulwark, Cato Senior Fellow Cathy Young raged against the spread of the so-called "replacement theory"that played a major part in prompting an 18-year-old white man in New York to go on a shooting rampage Saturday afternoon in a Buffalo-area grocery store situated in a community that is reportedly 80 percent black.

As Young put it, "Those who follow the news know that this is far from the first time “replacement theory” has figured in the ravings of a mass shooter," before adding, "We know these ideas are floating out there. We also know that, disturbingly, “replacement theory” is being mainstreamed on the right," the columnist specifying Fox News host Tucker Carlson who has repeatedly claimed that Democrats are trying to "replace" Americans with immigrants.

As Young notes, two prominent Republican lawmakers have also taken up the "replacement theory" banner, withRep Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeting, "The Left/Media think of replacement solely on race/ethnicity terms. I don't at all. Democrats failed voters who relied on them to run their states/cities. Now they are importing new voters. That is my argument. Those reading more into it are projecting their own bias."

Add to that, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who Young explained, ".. jumped on the bandwagon as well with a Facebook ad claiming that the Democrats were going to use amnesty for illegal immigrants to 'overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.'"

"This is hateful, stupid, paranoid nonsense," she wrote before adding, "It is also, need I point out, the epitome of collectivist 'identity politics' the right sometimes likes to deplore in its progressive guises."

Noting that a recent poll shows that a third of Americans "agreeat least somewhat that 'There is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views,'" Young wrote, "In a sane and decent political climate, both media figures and political figures on the right would quickly and emphatically disavow “great replacement” as un-American, race-baiting nonsense. Which means … don’t hold your breath."

"That was a joke. Cue bitter laugh," she lamented.

You can read more here.

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posted on realclear investigations oct 2021

https://www.axios.com/googles-climate-denial-crackdown-misinformation-e0925b26-76ff-4c1d-8b11-c498cc8527d9.html

interesting this is axios, good news [for planet anyway] tho they think it will be read as big tech censorship?!

google's new policy of demonetizing climate denial content marks a significant step in its efforts to rein in climate misinformation.

Why it matters: Videos promoting clear falsehoods about the existence of global warming or its causes have long found a home on YouTube, which Google owns.

• Meanwhile, on search, ads for climate contrarian websites have consistently appeared next to search listings for sites offering politically neutral and scientifically rigorous evidence.

Driving the news: The company's announcement Thursday that the new policy takes effect Nov. 1, during the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, could cool the political polarization around climate in the U.S.

How it works: Per a Google statement, the policy affects the monetization of "content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."

• "This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change."
• Google plans to use "automated tools and human review" to put the policy into practice.
• The system does not seek to limit policy debate, making Google's job easier but potentially allowing the promotion of partisan assaults on established science.
• Discerning denial can be tough. Google says it will "look carefully at the context in which claims are made, differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim."

Our thought bubble, from Axios' Scott Rosenberg: Facebook and Google have both faced censorship accusations from conservatives who object to measures that have sought to limit misinformation on COVID, elections and other topics.

• YouTube's move on climate is likely to encounter similar objections, given the politically polarized views on this issue, especially in the U.S.

Between the lines: The policy also brings Google's ad revenue strategy more in line with its sustainability agenda.

• The company aims to run on 100% carbon-free energy by 2030.
• On Wednesday, Google rolled out new features to help travelers limit the carbon footprint of their flights via Google Flights.

What's next: The policy will immediately be put to the test with COP26 taking place.

• Spikes in social media activity around climate change over the last six months coincided with major news events, according to data from Keyhole.
• Peaks in search activity also tend to occur around news events, including climate summits, according to Google Trends.

What we're watching: Whether Google's move boosts pressure on Facebook to modify its efforts to limit climate misinformation.

• Facebook expanded its Climate Science Center last month and steers users there when they search for climate-related terms. Facebook also pledged $1 million to a grant program to combat misinformation.
• But activists say the platform still allows denial to flourish.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/google/youtube-making-money-false-ukraine-biolabs-conspiracy-theory-tied-russian-disinformation-and

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[[aha yikes 2nd a = 2nd civil war

monetezation of hate/violence algo amplify

an 222

U.S. Congressman is calling on Americans to own “sufficient” weaponry to overthrow the government, suggesting they should do so “if 30 to 40 percent agree” the nation is living under “tyranny.”

“If 30 to 40 percent could agree that this was legitimate tyranny and it needed to be thrown off they need to have sufficient power without asking for extra permission – it should be right there and completely available to them in their living room in order to effect the change,”U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said in a video (below) posted by Right Wing Watch.

Congressman Massie, who recently came under fire for tweeting a quote by a pedophile-pornography possessing neo-Nazi and falsely attributing it to French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, appeared on far-right Youtuber Tim Pool’s show.

Pool’s videos get “millions” of views each day, according to The Daily Beast, which adds he “has racked up more than a billion views and millions in earnings while dangerously whitewashing the far right.”

Massie, known for his assault-weapons brandishing Christmas family photo this week was widely mocked for arguing against Medicare for All, because “Over 70% of Americans who died with COVID, died on Medicare.”

During Pool’s show, according to Right Wing Watch, theYouTuber added that he believes the Second Amendment entitles Americans to own nuclear and biological weapons.

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aha yikes they are monetizing victimization, grievance, polarization, demonization see crensharrrrh vs mtg

mtg huge fundraiser 7m 2/22?  demon is flipside of victim: tyranny gazpacho pelosi; likes/donation is a cheap fast hit way to feel you are taking action/sticking it to the woMAN who is oppressing you, stealing US and ruining Am dr = commie socialist; fear anger amplified by soc med algo

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aha: note trumpista reptile brain sensitive plus soc med algo amp --> qanon?

HYPE FEAR

origin of xian nat'l trumpism? recall his BS about ppl dancing in streets in NJ? birther obama other foreigner secret muslim; muslim travel ban

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/christians-are-right-wing-radical/]]

see 420 google online ad promote sparked by exxon knew tanker data science -->

[Ads

ExxonMobil Don't be Misled | Understanding the Facts.?

Ad·

corporate.exxonmobil.com/getthefacts

Read here about the real facts from ExxonMobil.

Climate ChangeHydraulic FracturingEnergy EfficiencyEnvironmental Initiatives]

online ads in broad early sense took out newspapers

it is the revenue base for ggl and facebook, soalgo drives engagement over all, thus pathologies and polarization

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Marc Morano

Weekly update · October 8, 2021

NEWS

Google's Climate Crackdown: A conversation with Marc Morano | Washington Examiner

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In this interview, ClimateDepot.com founder Marc Morano tells Doug McKelway, the tactic is another step that big tech and its progressive allies have ...

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Marc Morano Debunks #COP26 Climate Extortion in "Green New Deal: The Great Regret ...

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Marc Morano will debunk COP26 climate extortion in his presentation "Green New Deal: The Great Regret" on Oct. 6, 2021, at 7 p.m. MDT for part two of ...

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Marc Morano, who is anti-vax, anti-mask and pro-insurrection, is suddenly worried about (left ...

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Marc Morano, who is anti-vax, anti-mask and pro-insurrection, is suddenly worried about (left) political violence? 0. Published on October 4th, 2021.

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7h ago. More From. Washington Examiner. Washington Examiner. Google's Climate Crackdown: A conversation with Marc Morano. 31m ago. Washington Examiner ...

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White House wants Central America to step up as new wave of migrants heads north - Yahoo News

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Google's Climate Crackdown: A conversation with Marc Morano. 29m ago. Washington Examiner. Most of world agrees to set 15% global minimum tax as holdouts ...

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EXCLUSIVE: Experts BASH Big Tech for Reported Demonetization of So-Called 'Climate Denial'

NewsBusters

Climate experts Steven Milloy and Marc Morano bashed Google/YouTube for reportedly vowing to prohibit ads on videos questioning climate change.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/catherine-salgado/2021/10/08/exclusive-experts-bash-big-tech-reported

no lnx

EXCLUSIVE: Experts BASH Big Tech for Reported Demonetization of So-Called ‘Climate Denial’

Catherine Salgado

October 8th, 2021 12:48 PM

The atmosphere for content creators with Google just reached a new freezing point. YouTube and parent company Google reportedly plan to demonetize all content from so-called “climate deniers.”

Climate experts Steven Milloy and Marc Morano bashed Google/YouTube for reportedly vowing to prohibit ads on videos questioning climate change. “This is Big Tech Collusion with the government,” Morano stated. “Google’s demonetization is an admission that we are winning, a treasure far more valuable than Google ad revenue,” Milloy said.

Climate Depot publisher Morano said, “Google is simply doing the bidding of the federal government and global groups like WHO and the UN. Google is implementing a policy that says you officially cannot disagree with the claims of your government or quasi-government organizations. This is Big Tech collusion with the government.”

Morano compared the Google/YouTube climate video ban to recent COVID-19 restrictions: “They have labeled as ‘misinformation’ any COVID claims that were not in line with WHO, and now they will do the same with any climate claims that are not in line with the UN climate panel.” Morano said, “For decades the progressive movement has tried to impose and sought a one-party state in America.Climate activists [like] Tom Friedman on the pages of The New York Times extolled the virtues of China’s one-party system.”

He continued: “When COVID came along, they were able to achieve their long-sought vision of no dissent under essentially a one-party state in the once free West. John Stossel has already faced the wrath of the climate censors of Big Tech.” Morano warned, “Big Tech has shut down COVID lockdown dissent [and] vaccine mandate dissent, and now they have their sights set on climate ‘denial.’” Morano also indicated he fears his video series, the Morano Minute, will soon be banned.

Milloy, founder of JunkScience.com, told MRC Free Speech America, “Demonetization of websitesthat expose the climate hoax does nothing but validate what climate realists have been saying for years: It’s not about the climate; it’s about the political power. If what we were saying was wrong, we would have been laughed off the Internet long ago. Instead, reality is validating us and public support for climate idiocy is going nowhere.”

Milloy even added that “Google’s move will have no effect on climate realist web sites for the simple reason that the ad revenue is pretty trivial.” “We do it because we oppose the abuse of science, especially as it is being used to advance totalitarianism.”

Google and YouTube will no longer allow ads or creator payments which allegedly contradict “‘well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change,’ the company’s ads team said in a statement,” reported Axios. Google promised to consider “context” and said it consulted “experts,” including from the United Nations, Axios wrote. Axios called the move “one of the most aggressive measures any major tech platform has taken” regarding climate change.

Google and YouTube are increasing censorship through demonetization. YouTube has also reportedly demonetized fishing and hunting videos. Grabien, “which provides a suite of tools for newsmakers and curates its own original news content,” had its channel on YouTube demonetized in August. Google also demonetized a Daily Mail column from Piers Morgan criticizing gymnast Simone Biles for abandoning her fellow U.S. gymnasts at the Tokyo Olympics in August.

Conservatives are under attack. Contact YouTube here or send feedback and contact Google at (650) 253-000 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

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commodification monetization of person /brand

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/bitclout-the-dystopian-crypto-based-social-app-popularized-by-stop-the-steal-leader-ali-alexander/

bitClout: The Dystopian Crypto-Based Social App Popularized by ‘Stop The Steal’ Leader Ali Alexander

ByKarim Zidan | April 21, 2021 12:49 pm

Website of the BitClout social media network with sing up button on the smartphone screen. (Viktollio / Shutterstock.com)]

“The future of social media just got a lifeline.”

These were the words spoken by Ali Alexander, the far-right organizer behind the so-called Stop the Steal movement, during a recent interview on” YouTube show. Dressed in his signature plain orange sweater and seated against a beige backdrop that gave no hints as to his whereabouts, Alexander spoke about BitClout, a decentralized social media platform developed on blockchain technology that allows users to buy and sell tokens based on people’s reputations or “clout.” Creators and celebrities can monetize their internet presence by allowing their fans to invest in their “creator coins,” while general users can speculate and invest in people and posts to drive up their value as they would on the stock market.

In a nutshell, BitClout is a combination of Twitter, Patreon, and Robinhood—a one-stop shop that provides a social media platform and crypto-exchange for influencers and content creators.

Alexander’s fascination with BitClout is unsurprising. The application serves as an alternative to mainstream social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, both of which have banned his accounts after the events of Jan. 6. And while sites such as Parler and Gab have fashioned themselves as censorship-free alternatives to Twitter, BitClout stands out because of its decentralized nature. According to BitClout’s official website, the application has “no company behind it—just coins and code.”

“It is the most exciting thing I have seen on the internet—ever,” Alexander, who refers to himself as “The BitClout Oracle,” explained during the interview. “This is going places.” 

While BitClout has excited users clamoring for a censorship-resistant social media platform,  the application has already courted plenty of controversy since its launch in March 2021. The start-up has been criticized for prepopulating its network with some 15,000 accounts created around popular Twitter profiles without their account-holder’s permission, allowing users to invest in coins for people like Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian, YouTube sensation Mr. Beast, and Ariana Grande.

BitClout’s commodification of individuals is eerily dystopian. It also raises questions about the future of decentralized social media and the people who profit off it.

A Decentralized, Dystopian Social Space

When a Twitter user informed William Shatner, the renowned Canadian actor best known icon for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in the original “Star Trek” series, that he had an account on BitClout, the actor was not impressed.

“It’s a scam and I’ve not authorized my name or likeness to be used,” Shatner wrote on Twitter in March. “So if you see my name or photo there it’s not been authorized.” 

Shatner, whose coin price is currently valued at $553 despite never signing up for an account, is not the only public figure to complain about BitClout’s controversial tactics. Other celebrities have complained about having their likeness monetized without their permission, while prominent crypto law firm Anderson Kill P.C. sent a cease-and-desist letter to the BitClout’s alleged founder on behalf of their client Brandon Curtis, the chief research officer at decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Radar Relay, for using his private information without his consent.

“Adopting Bitcoin’s aesthetic to raise VC funding to carry out unethical and blatantly illegal schemes like BitClout: not cool,” Curtis tweeted.

...

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121

zuck bans trump at least 2 wks after insurrection

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judd leg--- alert to rove gps? ad darken warnock, elong nose of ossof jewish; pulled then put back 3x cf gaslight nation

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"dark posts"? disinfo?

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/experts-warned-facebooks-ad-bans-wouldnt-stop-election-misinformation-they-were-right

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/mark-zuckerberg-testified-facebook-performed-well-during-2020-election-media-matters-has

1120

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 3, 2020 — With the digital-dominated 2020 election shifting into high gear, OpenSecrets is releasing a new searchable, sortable online ads database that provides comprehensive details about political ad spending on Google and Facebook. 

OpenSecrets is tracking over 80,000 online political advertisers, more than four times the number of committees registered with the Federal Election Commission. Each advertiser has its own profile, which includes:

• Its total spending on both Facebook and Google ads over time
• Information about and links to each of the Facebook and Google pages where it runs ads
• Its total Facebook ad spending in each state

Online ads are at the center of strategies to misinform and deceive voters ahead of Election Day. This section will help users identify the online forces behind political messages and better understand their affiliations with political groups. Mysterious “dark money” organizations, industry groups and fake news websites are among the advertisers pouring millions into ads to influence voters. 

OpenSecrets used machine learning to group numerous Facebook and Google pages into one distinct profile, allowing users to see the full extent of each advertiser’s political spending. Our partners at the Wesleyan Media Project and the NYU Online Political Ads Transparency Project contributed substantially to the data collection for this project, which was made possible by support from Democracy Fund and Media Democracy Fund.

Visit the new Online Ads section here

==

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSYhXn3t1bM

how to decode pol Ads

Issue One and the Center for Responsive Politics host an hour-long seminar about the paid political advertising policies on Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Twitter, and other social media platforms ahead of the 2020 election. Guests: Michael Beckel, Issue One, Research Director Anna Massoglia, Center for Responsive Politics, Researcher Background: Issue One recently released a report, "Digital Disaster: The failures of Facebook, Google, and Twitter's political ad transparency policies" https://www.issueone.org/digital-disa...Issue One is the leading crosspartisan political reform group In Washington. We unite Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the movement to fix the broken political system. www.issueone.org The Center for Responsive Politics is the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effects on elections and public policy. www.opensecrets.org

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koch facts

judicial hellholes early use for attack

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aha a systemic solution (intersectionality // occupy?), thus MODERATION is widest sense

~ inequality, polarization?

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5/19 ggl top results = ads:

Search Results

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