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Lauren Chen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lauren Chen
Personal information Born Lauren Yu Sum Tam Nationality Canadian Spouse Liam Donovan Children 1[1] YouTube information Channel YouTube channel Years active 2016–2024 Subscribers 572 thousand[2] (September 2024) Total views 100,717,306[2] (September 2024) Channel is now suspended Lauren Chen (born Lauren Yu Sum Tam) is a Canadian conservative[3][4][5][6][7] political commentator and former YouTube personality. She has been involved with Glenn Beck's BlazeTV and Turning Point USA. She has also contributed opinion pieces to RT, a Russian state media outlet.[8][9] Her husband, Liam Donovan, is the president of Tenet Media, a company they co-founded.
Early life and education Lauren Yu Sum Tam[10] was born in Ontario, Canada, and spent much of her childhood in Hong Kong. She attended university in the United States, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Middle Eastern Studies, and Arabic.[11][12][better source needed]
Career Chen gained prominence through her (now suspended) YouTube channel, "Roaming Millennial," where she discussed various cultural and political issues from a conservative perspective.[13][14] She later transitioned to hosting the show Pseudo Intellectual on BlazeTV[15][16][17][18][19][20] and contributed to Turning Point USA,[8][21][22][23] an American conservative nonprofit organization. Her commentary typically focuses on topics like immigration, inflation, and other U.S. domestic issues.[24]
Tenet Media Chen co-founded Tenet Media with her husband, Liam Donovan.[25][26][27][28][29][30] A federal indictment unsealed in September 2024 accused Tenet Media of receiving funding and direction from a covert operation funded by Russia to disseminate pro-Russian propaganda within the United States.[31][32][33] The indictment, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleged that Russian state-controlled media company RT funneled nearly $10 million to Tenet Media to create and distribute content favorable to Russian interests, aimed at amplifying U.S. domestic divisions. The indictment specifically named Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, employees of RT, as the main operatives behind the funding.[34][35]
The Justice Department said that Tenet Media, referred to as "US Company 1" in the indictment, produced numerous videos that supported Russia's geopolitical aims and received significant views on platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. These activities were part of broader Russian efforts to influence U.S. public opinion ahead of the 2024 elections.[13] Although the indictment suggested that not all individuals affiliated with Tenet were aware of the source of funding, it highlighted that founders, including Chen, were cognizant of their financial backers and actively concealed this information.[35]
Response and public statements Following the indictment's public release, Tenet Media and the involved commentators, including Chen, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Other influencers associated with Tenet Media, such as Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and Dave Rubin, stated that they were unaware of the company's connections to Russian funding and declared themselves victims of the alleged scheme.[34][35][36] Chen has not posted on social media since the indictment.[37]
In response, BlazeTV officially fired her.[38][39] Her channels, as well as Tenet Media's, were taken down by YouTube.[40][41] Tenet Media has also been shuttered.[42]
Quellen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Chen
Tenet Media
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenet_Media
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tenet Media
Industry Media Founded January 2022 Founders Lauren Chen Liam Donovan Defunct September 5, 2024 Headquarters Nashville, Tennessee[1], U.S. Key people Liam Donovan (president) Tenet Media was an American right-wing media company founded by Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan in January 2022, accused of promoting Russian propaganda.[2] It featured six right-wing influencers: Matt Christiansen, Tayler Hansen, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern.[2][3][4] It described itself as a "network of heterodox commentators that focus on western political and cultural issues".[5][6]
According to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), many of Tenet's videos "contain commentary on events and issues in the U.S., such as immigration, inflation, and other topics related to domestic and foreign policy. While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, most are directed to the publicly stated goals of the Government of Russia and RT — to amplify domestic divisions in the United States."[7]
Tenet's podcasts featured prominent Republican figures, including Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, Project 2025 director Paul Dans, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kash Patel and Kari Lake.[8] Tenet's content included coverage of illegal immigration, supposed racism against white people, free speech and Elon Musk,[9] as well as climate change denial content.[10]
Indictment of Russian nationals See also: Russian interference in the 2024 United States elections Two Russian nationals were federally indicted by the DOJ on September 4, 2024 for their alleged activities relating to Tenet. The company was identified only as "Company-1" in the indictment but descriptive information allowed several media sources to identify it as Tenet. According to an unsealed indictment,[11] the two indicted Russians were employees of the Russian state-controlled media company RT who were charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, and allegedly funneling around $10 million into Tenet in order to "distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging".[6][12] Some of the influencers, including Pool, Rubin, and Johnson, have responded by claiming to be victims of the Russian disinformation campaign.[13] Attorney general Merrick Garland said Tenet "never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government."[14] Prosecutors also allege the $10 million was a Russian money laundering operation.[15]
Around February 2023, Tenet sought to hire two right-wing commentators with 2.4 million YouTube subscribers and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers to produce videos. The two eventually signed on, and "Commentator-1" and "Commentator-2" each received over $400,000 per month for producing political videos for Tenet.[2] According to the DOJ indictment, the two defendants requested that Tenet influencers produce content blaming the Crocus City Hall attack on Ukraine and the U.S.[16][17]
The indictment alleges the Tenet founders masked their Russian funding by creating a fictitious persona of a wealthy European sponsor, "Eduard Grigoriann."[18] The charged Russian nationals, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, were involved in day to day operations of Tenet by fall 2023, using false names to conceal they were Russian RT employees. The indictment alleges the founders acknowledged in private communications that their "investors" were actually the "Russians."[2][15]
Following the indictment, YouTube terminated Tenet Media and other channels run by Chen. Prior to its removal, Tenet had around 316,000 subscribers.[19] Tenet influencer Tayler Hansen announced on September 5 that the company had shut down.[20]
The Biden administration said the indictment was part of a wider effort to counter a major Russian government effort to influence the 2024 presidential election that included sanctions on ten individuals and entities, and the seizure of 32 internet domains.[6]
References
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