Incident Update 3︱Exploring Impacts of Using Influencers for Foreign Interference
Authors: Elizabeth Dubois, Michelle Hennessey, Michelle Bartleman, Louise Stahl
Key takeaways:
Influencers are incredibly important actors for the production and spread of political information
Influencers amplify content by spreading their message across platforms, frequent collaborations with other influencers, and by accessing audiences of more traditional political actors
The reach and influence of these kinds of campaigns extends beyond the initial viewers of the videos paid for by Russia
This update characterizes some types of impacts associated with using influencers as a conduit for propaganda in light of the recent US indictment of two Russians on charges related to the illicit funding of the American right-wing media company, Tenet Media (see more about this story here). The real power of using influencers in propaganda and disinformation campaigns is the potential for their messages to spread across a network of online communities. As shown by the examples sketched out below, the messages conveyed in the alleged Russian-funded social media content spread through online networks, reaching well beyond the accounts that were paid and their direct followers.
We look at three examples of Tenet-associated influencers (Lauren Chen, Lauren Southern and Tim Pool) to illustrate the broader network and relevance of these revelations. As a co-founder of Tenet Media, Canadian-born influencer Lauren Chen is widely reported to be referred to as “Founder-1” in the indictment. Former Rebel media commentator and Canadian Lauren Southern is believed to be “Commentator-4” in part because they later referred to as “she” in the indictment, leaving her as the only possibility, presuming Chen is “Founder-1.” Political commentator, podcast host, and YouTuber Tim Pool is believed to be "Commentator-2," based on the subscriber count mentioned in the indictment.
What we mean by a “network of influencers”
Content creators, whom we also call influencers, on social media are sometimes thought of as small independent media outlets, each broadcasting their own messages. But this metaphor misses a crucial aspect of what makes using influencers to spread messages so valuable: their network. Influencers rely on relationships with their audiences and with other influencers in order to build even bigger audiences and reach more people. Indeed, most social media platforms are designed to promote re-sharing and commenting on content which means that once a message is posted online, it can spread across the platform. This spread is a process influencers are often highly skilled at extending.
How Influencers increase their engagement and reach
Influencers’ messages often reach far beyond their immediate followers on a single platform. Three strategies they employ are: 1) leveraging multiple platforms; 2) collaborating with other influencers; and 3) diversifying their network beyond influencers.
1. Leveraging Multiple Platforms
Making use of a variety of platforms enables influencers to reach audiences in different ways, sometimes sharing different kinds of content or sharing the same content in different forms. For example, Discord, Telegram, and subscription-based access to websites are sometimes used to create more secluded spaces for communities to comment on and discuss content posted on more open platforms like YouTube and Rumble. Prior to the indictment, Chen was active on platforms including: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Telegram, Truth, Gab, and Discord. Similarly, Pool has maintained a presence on YouTube, X, Instagram, Rumble, Facebook, Discord, Minds, and has his own network of podcasts and a website which includes a subscription-only section.
Different platforms allow these networks to cast a wide net, reaching larger audiences and spreading similar content over a multi-day period. For example, Roseanne Barr's podcast interview (also shared on YouTube) with Bill Maher on December 3, 2023, was later discussed by Tim Pool on one of his podcasts. A week later, Barr posted a clip from Pool's episode on X. While Pool's commentary - an hour into the episode - could have been missed by many listeners, Barr's concise one-minute video likely captured the attention of many more users. In this way, a single conversation was extended over a week-long period.
2. Collaborating with other influencers
Collaborations are an important way influencers are able to obtain new subscribers or followers. The algorithms underpinning most social media platforms tend to amplify collaborations, which reinforces and supports the creation of networks. Similarly the trend of reaction videos builds connections across influencers wherein one influencer creates a video reacting to content someone else previously created.
For example, Chen’s debate with three other female influencers on Tenet Media’s The Culture War with Tim Pool generated at least 14 third-party reaction videos. While the original video generated 236K views (now removed), the reaction videos garnered over 80k views combined. There were also nearly 448K views of clips of the debate shared by Tim Pool directly to his YouTube channel, and over 151K views on video clips of the debate posted by Pearl (one of the other influencers involved in the debate). Together, these reaction videos, promotional snippets, and behind the scenes clips generated nearly three times the attention of the original video itself, demonstrating the ripple effects that a single piece of content can have on the wider media environment.
There are many examples of collaboration among the Tenet media influencers. For example, In 2023, Lauren Southern released her video on American gun rights through Timcast, the online home of Tim Pool, who has three times her number of YouTube followers.
Other collaborations took place beyond Tenet media. For example, Chen was a guest on a pro- versus anti-Trump Republicans panel debate hosted by Jubilee Media (1.9M views), sparking multiple reaction videos with a combined 373K views.
3. Diversifying their network beyond influencers
Finally, influencer networks extend beyond other influencers and include connections to more traditional political actors including journalists, elected officials, and more. Coverage of disinformation and their creators can be an important way conspiracy theories are amplified in the wider media ecosystem which incentivises off-platform network building. For example, Lauren Southern has made regular media appearances as a political commentator, including with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, The Daily Wire, as staff for Sky News in Australia, and even for RT. She has also appeared as a guest on podcasts or YouTube channels of other influencers.
Consequences of influencer networks for propaganda and disinformation spread
As influencers use these strategies to increase reach they are bringing additional influencers into the process of spreading propaganda messages without those additional influencers necessarily being aware they are part of the propaganda campaign.
Influencers are each embedded in a much wider network of not just followers but other influencers and other kinds of political actors, each with their own audiences. One podcast episode or YouTube video can spark discussions that spread across these networks, with people potentially sharing propaganda messages they have no way of knowing were paid for by Russia.
And it isn’t just the extremely online folks or conspiracy theorists, many people now rely on online personalities for their news (Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024). We also know people tend to believe information more if they have seen it repeatedly, something a network of influencers can quickly facilitate. This makes influencer networks a particularly useful tool for spreading propaganda and disinformation.
From a legal perspective it makes sense to track the money, but we need to dig deeper if we are trying to understand the impact of these kinds of campaigns on our information environment and on potential threats to democracy. We need to be thinking about the structure of the influencer networks foreign actors are injecting messages into, about the people unwittingly re-sharing those messages, and about how much wider the reach of messages like these really can be. Understanding the structural and dynamic dimensions of influencer networks is needed to mitigate and prevent the spread of disinformation, to get high quality information out, to encourage critical digital media skills, and ultimately to strengthen the media ecosystem which underpins our democracy.