This investigation traces it back to unscrupulous grifters in the Netherlands, but you have to wonder whether they have found other sources of income apart from YouTube ad revenue. We need an investigation that follows the money trail from these guys further back.
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And the sooner people start acting like it, the better.
Stop spending money at any American businesses. If you can't afford a non-American version, do without or until you can.
If you're in poverty this doesn't apply to you, you do what you need to do to survive.
I really wish I had a better understanding of how to use peertube and that more of the creators I follow used it, for now I am stuck watching youtube via the iOS app Unwatched that blocks the ads! It hurts knowing that I am hurting the non US content creators doing this but I know there has to be alternatives that people are willing to use that will make them their money.
Um, isn't the money in this case coming from a Dutch company? Youtube is being used to propagate this misinformation campaign, but they're not driving it.
It doesn't matter that Youtube is an American company, what matters is that there is a large audience on Youtube to influence with this campaign. Similar campaigns are done on every major platform, regardless of what country they're based in.
Oil companies tend to be fairly multinational, and are perfectly able to spawn shell corporations or even hire local authentic corporations to push their aims. As an example, you can look at Lauren Chen, who operated Tenet Media, essentially a shell company to pay north americans to push a certain narrative to advance the aims of another group.
Would it be a huge shock to find out some conglomerate like Koch Industries or ExxonMobil were involved in an astroturf campaign in Alberta, or maybe the western cape, or other similar oil rich areas?
Would it be a huge shock to find out some conglomerate like Koch Industries or ExxonMobil were involved in an astroturf campaign
Maybe not, but there's no evidence of that here, it's pure speculation.
The influence campaign being perpetrated here looks very similar to Russian operations against former Soviet states, where they encourage or create a "separatist" movement within the target nation and then antagonize both sides until the separatists eventually break off a chunk of territory from the target nation, and then wouldn't you know it Russian troops show up and "help" establish a new orderly, Russia-aligned government. For example:
"... the South Ossetia war and the Abkhazia war resulted in Georgia's loss of territory in what had been the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast and the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, respectively, to two internationally unrecognized separatist movements that were supported by the newly independent Russian Federation."
"... the Transnistria War, in which Russian-backed Transnistria managed to stay separate from Moldova."
"The referendum was held under Russian occupation and, according to the Russian-installed authorities, the result was overwhelmingly in favor of joining Russia."
"Intercepted phone conversations of Sergey Glazyev, a top advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, disclosed the specifics of the project Novorossiya to take over not just Crimea, but also the Donbas, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, which Russia apparently aimed to annex following Crimea. The plan involved fomenting widespread unrest using pro-Russian agents on the ground, and then orchestrating uprisings that would announce rigged referendums about joining Russia, similar to the one that took place in Crimea on 16 March 2014."
This fits the pattern, with the obvious major difference being that Canada is not a former Soviet nation.
Also speculation, of course. But to me it looks like Russia has this strategy which they play over and over, and with which they've been getting more ambitious and seeking larger targets.
Somebody is watching the videos and giving these Dutch guys money via YouTube views. It makes me angry that CBC didn't push a bit harder to try and find out why these Dutch guys thought to start separatist YouTube channels. Why did they think it would make money, particularly since the movement only has a bare few percent support and only in Alberta? And what are their viewership statistics?
CBC only went far enough to say "nothing to see here, just some Dutch guys making untraceable money on something that they have no earthly reason to know about and even less of a reason to suspect would be profitable, because under normal circumstances it absolutely would not be."
The whole thing stinks like bullshit, and CBC dropped the ball. We are all way too fucking complacent for the magnitude of these problems and the forces driving them.
CBC?
Nah, better question is... Where the fuck are CSIS and CSE? This is a foreign influence campaign that's an existential threat to Canada -- why are CBC journalists the ones taking action, and not our "spy" agencies that are tasked with this sort of shit.
At least CBC picked up the ball, it's unlikely any of the corporate media will mention this.
It's wild to me that the USA administration / theorists supported by the administration can publish work specifically praising Russia/Dictators and fascists, and that they can explicitly comm things about "operationally preparing the environment" (sowing discord, prior to further action, to ensure greater chances of success), and that they can also explicitly note in the news last year that they view Alberta as path to annexing Canada... and that this is all occurring on an American platform, which is providing payment to these 'influencers' through click-revenue.... But we've still got people trying to refocus it on Russia.
The same Russia that the USA removed from their national security lists, and dismantled their counter-signals programs for, because they view Russia as an ally (which makes the whole "we need greenland!" even more funny, like if Russia's a threat, why'd you discontinue all those programs America?? The "threat" they're referencing is the EU, and an independent Canada at this point ;p). In fact, using an EU country to launch these things, would fit perfectly into the USA administrations current ideological mindset, as they want to break apart middle nation alliances / blocks -- and it'd be a potential wedge they can push between Canada and the EU.
It's sorta like Freeland screaming about how China or Russia is the greatest threat to Canada, when the USA is right next door, is incredibly militaristic, is increasingly fascist/authoritarian, is overtly targeting Canada with economic warfare -- made explicit by social media posts by their administration even. Like, yes, sure, Russia and China are potential threats -- but there's a crazy orange diaper shitting pumpkin man with the largest military in the world actively attacking us / threatening us, right next door.
For people who don't watch the video but read the commentary here. CBC found that "faceless" YouTube entrepreneurs have been churning out disengenuous content. They seemingly have no ties to governments or businesses with ulterior motives, instead they are just chasing revenue and posting stuff that gets views.
What I don't think the video does a good enough job of though is explaining that algorithms monetise rage bait and thereby amplify fringe viewpoints.
I think you're suffering from the same lack of curiosity that the CBC suffers.
I want to know why random Dutch guys thought that it would be profitable to get into the separatist influencer game, and go through the effort of setting all this up in the first place. Why didn't the CBC ask them why they even know about this issue or why they figured a maximum audience of 6% of the population of Alberta would be enough to give them thousands a month in income? What are their viewership statistics anyway?
Eh, the piece's take on it being "just some youtubers tryin to make a few bucks" is nonsense.
It's on an American platform, who's algorithms push this narrative and amplify the views. If Canada made a way for individuals to profit off of destabilizing / undermining the USA, paid non-Canadians to use that system, it'd still be an issue originating from Canada and impacting the USA. Or, like if China got Huawei to make compromised devices for foreigners, and then paid people outside of China to hack those Huawei devices.
Just because the USA / Tech oligarchs have crowdsourced their clandestine undermining of foreign nations, doesn't make it any better in my view.
I'd like to know where the fuck are CSIS/CSE in all this. This is an operation aimed at dismantling Canada, an existential threat to the nation, and a complex foreign influence campaign funded by a tech-giant propaganda company, a company that is directly tied to a hostile nation government. It's an influence campaign occurring out in public, on a hostile nation's tech platform, aimed at destroying Canada. If the dutch have businesses that're training people to do this sort of fraudulent shit, Canada should be lodging formal complaints with the netherlands, and given the content/intent of this material, naming people connected to it as terrorists or something similar. Sanction Youtube for paying these people to destabilize Canada, and for amplifying their messages -- it's absurd that we punish individuals for funding terrorist activity, but we turn a blind eye to it when its a US company paying people to attack Canada. That'd be the polite Canadian way -- if we were the USA, I'm sure they'd just send the CIA to eliminate this sort of issue.
CBC journalists are dunkin on our "spy agencies".
This literally exists for everything. There are housing people who all they do is push a crashing housing bubble narrative, people that say the currency is failing and you need to buy bitcoin, then people like this who want to push seperation to a specific audience. An audience like these investigators ironically.
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