The Chinese government has built up the world’s largest known online disinformation operation and is using it to harass US residents, politicians, and businesses—at times threatening its targets with violence, a CNN review of court documents and public disclosures by social media companies has found.
It's the easiest thing in the world to create a mass number of Patreon/Twitch/Youtube accounts and transfer money from those accounts to the people you want to platform through donations and subscriptions. You could easily transfer something like $50k, which is game-changing money for normal people while being rounding error for feds, to up-and-coming channels. This is just 400 accounts split over 3 different platforms subscribing to the $10 tier subscription for an entire year. There's literally no real way for your average person to convincingly establish the link. Once the ball gets rolling and the channel gains enough subscribers, the feds can just move on to the next up-and-coming channel or continue to fund them.
I suspect the feds are already doing this because it's such an obvious play.
It's the easiest thing in the world to create a mass number of Patreon/Twitch/Youtube accounts and transfer money from those accounts to the people you want to platform through donations and subscriptions. You could easily transfer something like $50k, which is game-changing money for normal people while being rounding error for feds, to up-and-coming channels. This is just 400 accounts split over 3 different platforms subscribing to the $10 tier subscription for an entire year. There's literally no real way for your average person to convincingly establish the link. Once the ball gets rolling and the channel gains enough subscribers, the feds can just move on to the next up-and-coming channel or continue to fund them.
I suspect the feds are already doing this because it's such an obvious play.