YouTube has removed five channels linked to Tenet Media following a Justice Department indictment that tied the company to the Russian government. The now defunct Tenet Media channel hosted hundreds of videos from right-wing influencers like Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, and Benny Johnson.
The DOJ has alleged that Tenet Media founders Lauren Chen and husband Liam Donovan took money from employees of the Russian state to fund videos that echo Kremlin-friendly talking points. Chen and Donovan allegedly contracted a lot of the work to influencers like Pool, Rubin, Johnson, and Lauren Southern. Now many of those videos, which often had less than five thousand views, are gone from YouTube.
“Following an indictment from the US Department of Justice and after careful review, we are terminating the Tenet Media channel and four channels operated by its owner Lauren Chen as part of our ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations,” YouTube said in a statement.
YouTube isn’t the only company cutting ties with Chen. Hours after the DOJ unsealed the indictment, Blaze Media—a company founded by Glenn Beck—announced it had fired Chen. She worked there as a contributor and appeared in videos for the company. “Lauren Chen was an independent contractor, whose contract has been terminated,” CEO Tyler Cardon told Semafor.
The unsealed indictment did not name Chen, Donovan, or Tenet Media but various journalists were able to independently confirm that they’re the unnamed people at the heart of the charges. According to the indictment, Chen and Donovan knew that they were being paid by Russians. The two joked about it in private Discord messages seen by investigators. Many of the influencers involved have denied any knowledge of the scheme and the DOJ has asserted that they were unaware.
The unsealed indictment was part of a broader set of actions from Washington this week aimed at dismantling Russian influence campaigns in the U.S. The Treasury Department sanctioned more people, the DOJ seized 32 internet domains accused of spreading misinformation and also charged former National Interest president Dimitri Simes with scheming to evade U.S. sanctions.
A 277-page affidavit Justice released on Wednesday included internal documentation alleged to show the planning of a Russian disinformation campaign. According to Wired, some operations specifically targeted gamers as well as “users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4chan.”
According to the affidavit, Russia’s Social Design Agency (SDA) has a list of 2,800 influencers and 1,900 anti-influencers that it’s constantly monitoring. “I assess that ‘anti- influencer’ indicates that the account posts content that SDA views as contrary to Russian objectives,” the affidavit said. It did not name the thousands of influencers Moscow is supposedly monitoring, but did note that 21% of them are based in the U.S.
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