Influenced Influencers – The Tenet Media Incident

Influencers have front-row seats this election cycle. They have been invited to party conventions, rallies, and even the White House; President Biden has called them the “new source of news.” This “royal treatment,” as the Associated Press put it last month, stems from the fact that influencers may be able to swing votes. And this, of course, presents the potential for manipulation. This week, for instance, Semafor reported that a mysterious network paid influencers to promote sexual smears about Kamala Harris. The rates were generous; one participant made more than twenty thousand dollars over several weeks by boosting certain messages. And, in an even bigger scheme revealed last week, the Department of Justice alleged that Russia has been funding six unwitting right-wing US influencers—who collectively have millions of followers—with the goal of pushing Kremlin-friendly talking points ahead of the election.

The allegations dropped by the DOJ created a splash in both left- and right-wing media circles, not only because of their alarming content, but because the case was so bizarre—in the words of The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, the scheme seems more like a “bad sitcom pitch than a top-notch intelligence operation.” According to the federal indictment, two employees from RT, a Russian state-controlled news network, helped launder ten million dollars in payments to a Tennessee-based media company that was not named in the indictment but has been widely identified in the press as Tenet Media. The company was founded by two conservative media personalities: Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan. Prosecutors say that Chen and Donovan knew that RT was funding the company but made a significant effort to conceal it. The cofounders also did not register with the US attorney general as an agent of a foreign principal, which is required by law. Neither of them, however, are the subject of criminal charges, according to the CBC. (Chen and Donovan have yet to speak publicly about the allegations.)

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