Meet the right-wing Canadian influencers caught up in an alleged Russian propaganda scheme
CBC
The social media accounts of two of Canada's most vocal far-right pundits have fallen unusually silent after U.S. officials accused them of being collaborators of a covert Russian propaganda campaign.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment against two Russian nationals, accusing them of setting up a conservative media outlet as a front for pro-Kremlin propaganda.
The media outlet was unnamed in the indictment, but it was clear from details within that the charges referred to Tenet Media, founded in 2023 by the Canadian influencer known as Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donavan.
Among the people they hired last year was Chen's longtime friend and occasional collaborator Lauren Southern, another Canadian far-right influencer with a massive social media following.
In the few short months it operated, the outlet produced a steady stream of content favourable to Donald Trump, including an appearance by his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump.
Since the indictment was made public, several Tenet Media collaborators have come forward to claim they were unaware of how the company was funded.
"These allegations clearly show that I and other commentators were the victims of this scheme," Dave Rubin, a right-wing pundit with 2.45 million YouTube subscribers, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
But Southern and Chen have yet to speak publicly. Reached by phone on Thursday, Chen told CBC News, "We're not commenting at this time." Southern did not respond to email.
Neither has posted anything online since the indictment was made public.
Neither Chen, Donavan nor Southern are the subject of criminal charges, and none are named in the indictment.
But the allegations have jeopardized their standing within right-wing circles.
Chen has already been fired from another conservative website, Glenn Beck's The Blaze. Her YouTube channel, which had more than 572,000 subscribers, was terminated on Thursday. And her bio page on the website for Turning Points USA, a pro-Trump campus activist group, has been deleted.
YouTube also removed Tenet Media's channel on Thursday, saying "it violated our community guidelines."
Born in Quebec and raised in Hong Kong, Chen rose to fame as a YouTuber under the moniker Roaming Millennial.
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