this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 163 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Duped? How? By getting paid?

[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Oopsie I was just so confused by this giant bag of cash!

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My job dupes me into coming in every night by uploading some wacky numbers to my bank account every two weeks. I fall for it every time.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

The whacky numbers in your bank account are quite convenient to have tbf

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The U.S. Justice Department doesn’t allege any wrongdoing by the influencers, some of whom it says were given false information about the source of the company’s funding. Instead, it accuses two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, of funneling nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based content creation company for Russia-friendly content.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

By getting paid

More like bribed out of their minds. They absolutely KNEW that what they were doing wasn't worth a fraction of the money was handed to them.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 month ago (2 children)

How does one dupe the willing?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Bags of money!

Apparently they were duped into thinking the money came from pro-Russian US conservatives or something like that instead of directly from the source.

I disagree that they were duped in any way since the pro Russian messaging was still pro Russian messaging and the source of the money is not important.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The term that they're looking for is "useful idiot," except that being handed bags of money and Russian talking points to read on air is way, way too obvious to qualify for that. "Traitorous sleazebag," maybe. "Willfully blind co-conspirator" if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (10 children)

It's weird how only the Republicans are duped.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Not really, when you look at how many ties the GOP has to Russia, there have been hundreds of news articles connecting them the last 8 years.

They even visited Russia on 4th July 2018 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/395719-gop-senators-visited-moscow-on-july-4/

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 month ago (15 children)

God i hate popular media - always trying to change the narrative with these misleading headlines.

Being a paid russian asset isn’t being duped. I hope those things rot in prison.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Duped. Yes, of course. That's it. 😏

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Duped! Completely fooled! Hoodwinked! Who could have seen that coming??

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago

thanks for the money...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Bamboozled! Foisted! Smeckledorfed!

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The coordinated messaging all emphasizing how this was accidental and these longtime trolls didn't know (or bother to ask) where the money coming from is... something.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Isn't that just trickling down from the DOJ though? The article says:

The U.S. Justice Department doesn’t allege any wrongdoing by the influencers, some of whom it says were given false information about the source of the company’s funding. Instead, it accuses two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, of funneling nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based content creation company for Russia-friendly content.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago (4 children)

True, but these people have been completely aligned with Kremlin talking points for years, and I wish the article and others would take the time to point that out. I'm sure it can be phrased in an ambiguous enough way that the reader can draw conclusions without it being libelous.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Okay, then the DOJ grasping at any flimsy excuse to avoid indicting the traitorous right-wing influencers themselves is... something.

That better?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Nazis are always treated with kid gloves by the US "justice" system. Same as it ever was.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago

Third straight election, you say? I wonder if there is any other factor shared by the last three elections? Like maybe one of the candidates has been the same person?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago

Being bought is different than being duped.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

“Duped” is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that Russia was funding me to spout these talking points!"

"Your gratuities, sir"

"Oh, thank you very much."

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't think most of them were duped. It's been exceptionally obvious for years. I mean I guess some of them are dumb enough not to realize, but most are just taking advantage of the money and power.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Yeah, that's like saying Old spice sponsors and influencer to sell Old spice then saying that they were duped to work for Proctor and Gamble.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago

Aw crap they tricked us with money again

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago

Duped? Complicit

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (14 children)

i'm always getting duped to say obvious pro russian talking points after taking a bunch of money and signing a contract to say obvious pro russian talking points. hate when it happens, honestly.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Pool, a journalist-turned-YouTuber who first gained public attention for livestreaming the Occupy Wall Street protests, hosted Trump on his podcast earlier this year.

Johnson is an outspoken Trump supporter and internet personality who was fired from BuzzFeed after the company found evidence he’d plagiarized other works.

So these two were formally "journalists", and should know at least something about confirming sources and information before publishing, or in this case I guess making a video/podcast, about the topic given them by this company that wanted to just give them hundreds of thousands of dollars. And maybe look into why a company would pay you that kind of money out of nowhere if they were supplying all the talking points, and they just want you to say them into a camera? Maybe?

I think anyone with any background in media should see right through something like this, and has no leg to stand on when crying "we had no idea!". They saw a check and all morals/questions went out the window.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So their excuse is: “we are too dumb to go to prison”

Guilty by reason of Gullible? I’m going to use this, should they ever find myself in court.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (5 children)

No, it's worse than that. That's the DOJ's excuse for refusing to indict the traitorous influencers themselves and only going after their Russian handlers.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

They weren't duped. They gleefully and knowingly pushed anti-American propaganda in support of the Project 2025 Handmaid's Tale christofascist theocratic dictatorship. They knew where the money was coming from but didn't care.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I think in the indictment Lauren Chen and her husband referred to the company/investors as "the Russians" so those two at least were 100% not duped, they are just traitors.

Lauren has been fired from a news org she write for.

Idk if those two and the other useful idiots broke any laws though, the indictment is just for foreign agent registration stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They never expressed any curiosity about where the money was coming from?

Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago
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