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Russia is backing a viral video company (Ruptly) aimed at American millennials
I was noticing a lot of videos of right wing protests being featured by a video channel named "Ruptly." For example, one video is entitled, "USA: Protesters rally for anti-mask protest, chant "We can"t breathe," which features an anti-mask protest headlined by Alex Jones of all people.
What is Ruptly? Well, Ruptly is a media outlet that is owned by Russia Today. Like Russia Today is pushes divisive content and features Russia friendly speakers on both the right and "left" such Glenn Greenwald who attacks the U.S. media ad shares tips for avoiding the NSA.
In short, Russia is back to its old tricks trying to undermine and spread division within the U.S.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/tech/russia-facebook-viral-videos/index.html
New York (CNN)Three online video channels designed to appeal to millennials have collected tens of millions of views on Facebook since September. But the pages pushing the videos do not disclose that they are backed by the Russian government.
The pages are run by Maffick Media, a company whose majority stakeholder is Ruptly, a subsidiary of RT, which is funded by the Russian government. Although Maffick Media has hired contractors and freelancers in Los Angeles in recent months, the company is not registered in the US, it is registered in Germany.
Facebook suspended the pages on Friday, saying it would reach out to the people running them to ask that they disclose where the pages are run from and their affiliation with their parent company in order to get back on the platform.
The move was an unusual one for Facebook. The company does not require users to provide information about parent companies, but it is rolling out ways to try to increase transparency about who runs popular Facebook pages, and it has been taking aggressive steps to tackle covert government-backed information operations on its service. In 2016, a Kremlin-linked troll group ran a network of pages designed to look like they were operated by real American activists.
The pages are run by Maffick Media, a company whose majority stakeholder is Ruptly, a subsidiary of RT, which is funded by the Russian government. Although Maffick Media has hired contractors and freelancers in Los Angeles in recent months, the company is not registered in the US, it is registered in Germany.
Facebook suspended the pages on Friday, saying it would reach out to the people running them to ask that they disclose where the pages are run from and their affiliation with their parent company in order to get back on the platform.
The move was an unusual one for Facebook. The company does not require users to provide information about parent companies, but it is rolling out ways to try to increase transparency about who runs popular Facebook pages, and it has been taking aggressive steps to tackle covert government-backed information operations on its service. In 2016, a Kremlin-linked troll group ran a network of pages designed to look like they were operated by real American activists.
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