YouTube takes down Tenet Media and four other channels after the US DOJ alleged that Russia was paying US right-wing political influencers to produce content
The reverberations from indictments this week over Russian influence buying continue to spread. Will Shanklin / Engadget : YouTube terminates five right-wing channels linked to the DOJ's Russia indictments PZ Myers / Pharyngula : I'm getting flashbacks to the internet atheism of yore Matthew Gault / Gizmodo : YouTube Deletes Tim Pool's Embarrassing Kremlin-Backed Videos Michael Kan / PCMag : YouTube Pulls Tenet Media Channel After US Claims It's a Russia-Funded Op Katie Paul / Reuters : Tenet Media's Facebook posts and 2.5K Instagram videos are still accessible, despite claims by the US that it is at the center of a Russian influence campaign Harold Hutchison / Daily Caller News Foundation : YouTube Takes Down Conservative Podcast Network Tied To DOJ Russia Indictment Lisa Needham / Public Notice : Russia's useful idiots Hillary Keverenge / TechIssuesToday.com : New YouTube changes will likely get a thumbs up from teenagers' parents Joe Jervis / Joe.My.God. : YouTube Removes All Channels In Podcaster Scandal Akash Pandey / NewsBytes : YouTube deletes Russia-funded channel hosting some pro-Trump influencers Threads: Jonathan V. Last / @jvlast : Some inside-baseball on the Tenet Media / Tim Pool / Benny Johnson / Dave Ruben story: I know a fair amount about the economics of YouTube and when you look that the channels these guys are running, you can tell pretty quickly . . . 1/6 Jonathan V. Last / @jvlast : This scheme was so shady that SEB GORKA looked at it and said, Bro that money is dirty: 5/6 @katieboue : The way I just GASPED when I heard that number on the radio earlier. For a very, very brief moment I chuckled and thought “get that bag content creators” 😂💀 Katie Drummond / @katiedrumm : Using closed captioning of the Tenet Media videos we downloaded before YouTube removed them, @wired compiled lists of terms frequently mentioned in them, along with a searchable database: https://www.wired.com/... Taylor Lorenz / @taylorlorenz : My Substack post on how we need to stop letting far right influencers cosplay as independent media is featured on Mediagazer! Read it here: https://taylorlorenz.substack.com/ ... Jonathan V. Last / @jvlast : TL;DR: These Tenet guys aren't victims. They're not even dupes, or profiteers. They're collaborators. /fin https://www.thebulwark.com/... Mastodon: Steve Thompson / @SteveThompson@mastodon.social : “What Right-Wing Influencers Actually Said in Those Tenet Media Videos” — https://www.wired.com/... “A WIRED analysis shows that right-wing stars like Tim Pool and Benny Johnson focused on topics like Elon Musk and supposed racism toward white people in hundreds of videos allegedly paid for by Russia.” … @researchbuzz@researchbuzz.masto.host : #politics #Russia #disinformation #propaganda #InformationWarfare #TenetMedia — 'A contributor for Tenet Media announced on Twitter Thursday night that the company has abruptly shuttered, one day after the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment that accused it of being covertly funded by employees of a Russian state-controlled media outlet. … Bluesky: @chickenpuppet.bsky.social : “We need to kill all the f*gs” - completely fine — “We need to kill all the f*gs. This video sponsored by Russia” - very bad [embedded post] David Slack / @slack2thefuture.bsky.social : Good. Now take down all the anti-vax nonsense that's getting people killed. [embedded post] X: Tayler Hansen / @taylerusa : Announcement: TENET Media has ended after the DOJ indictment and I will now be pursuing other job opportunities so I may continue to report on vital news stories this election season. If you'd like to independently fund my work or think I'd fit in well at another source let @jason : Page 25 in the indictment of the *Russians*: there is a troubling section where the TENET executives and Russians *allegedly* conspired to get “Commentator-3” to place blame on Ukraine for a terrorist attack in Moscow that ISIS took credit for. key section: “Founder-I responded [image] Jake Broe / @realjakebroe : The Kremlin paid for Tenet Media YouTube channel has now been deleted by YouTube. All of the creators that took payment from this Russian operation should be removed from the YouTube Partnership Program and the AdSense Program until the DoJ concludes their investigation. [image] Anna Merlan / @annamerlan : I wonder if media companies generally roll up like faulty umbrellas and blow away without a single word? @tendar : After being exposed of receiving Russian money, YouTube has eliminated the channels of the Tenet Media, as well as several more aligned to it. Around 1 million subscribers worth of Russian influence operation gone. [image] Dhruv Mehrotra / @dmehro : We analyzed hundreds of deleted Youtube videos of right-wing influencers working for Tenet Media—a company the DOJ alleges was financed and guided by a state-backed Russian news network. Here's what the paid influencers talked about: https://www.wired.com/... Justin Baragona / @justinbaragona : YouTube told NBC that it's taken down the Tenet Media channel and four others owned by Lauren Chen following the DOJ's Russia indictments, saying it is part of their “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.” https://www.nbcnews.com/... Dhruv Mehrotra / @dmehro : Transcripts of 405 of videos are available here: https://github.com/... Yashar Ali / @yashar : NEWS YouTube has taken down all of Lauren Chen's personal channels and the Tenet media channel. A spokesperson tells NBC: “Following an indictment from the US Department of Justice and after careful review, we are terminating the Tenet Media channel and four channels [image] Anna Merlan / @annamerlan : One day after the DOJ accused Tenet Media of receiving $10 million in covert funding, a “reporter” for the company announced that Tenet “has ended.” Tenet's founder Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan still haven't commented on any of this. Normal! https://www.motherjones.com/ ... Luke LeBrun / @_llebrun : I managed to document most of Tenet Media's Canadian content on its YouTube channel before YouTube took it down At least 51 videos mentioning Canada or Canadian topics viewed 434,500 times, most in the last several months LinkedIn: Zoe Scaman : Taylor Lorenz's latest piece uncovers something we need to be paying attention to: who is funding our creators? … Forums: r/Kamala : DOJ: Russia Aimed Propaganda at Gamers, Minorities to Swing 2024 Election r/politics : Russia Secretly Worms Its Way Into America's Conservative Media — Federal prosecutors say Russia paid an American media company to push pro-Kremlin messages … r/ToiletPaperUSA : Tenet Media Shutters After Being Accused of Taking $10 Million in Covert Kremlin Funding r/neoliberal : DOJ: Russia Aimed Propaganda at Gamers, Minorities to Swing 2024 Election r/ActiveMeasures : DOJ: Russia Aimed Propaganda at Gamers, Minorities to Swing 2024 Election r/FreeSpeech : YouTube takes down right-wing channels linked to DOJ Russia indictments (Washington Post) r/DeclineIntoCensorship : YouTube takes down right-wing channels linked to DOJ Russia indictments (Washington Post) r/inthenews : YouTube takes down right-wing channels linked to DOJ Russia indictments See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
YouTube has previously acted at scale against war-related policy violations, including its removal of Ukraine-war videos and channels in 2022. But its later decision to stop removing some election-fraud claims illustrated the political-content moderation retreat that made enforcement boundaries more contested.
This case shifts the basis for action from the truth of political speech to the alleged provenance and financing behind it. That matters because the DOJ allegations connect a media outlet, creator distribution, and foreign-state-linked funding in one enforcement chain.
First-order effects
- Tenet Media and four additional YouTube channels lose distribution and any channel-linked audience or monetization following the terminations.
- The named influencers and Tenet Media face immediate scrutiny over content produced through the outlet; Tenet Media was reported to have shuttered after the indictment.
Second-order effects
- Other platforms hosting Tenet-related material face pressure to assess whether content and accounts implicated by the allegations remain available; the article notes that Facebook posts and Instagram videos were still accessible.
- Political creators and media networks have stronger incentives to document funding sources and commercial relationships, since platform action can follow law-enforcement allegations about covert financing rather than a conventional content-policy violation.
Third-order effects
- If this approach persists, major platforms may treat attribution, funding provenance, and coordinated distribution as core signals for countering foreign influence operations—not only the words in individual posts.
- The result could be a more formal distribution-layer liability model for politically sensitive networks, though its reach will depend on platforms' willingness to act consistently when official attribution is absent or disputed.
The trend: Foreign-influence enforcement is moving toward tracing the financing and distribution infrastructure behind political content, rather than moderating claims one post at a time.