They did this, too:
The Epoch Times directed millions of dollars in advertising toward supporting President Donald Trump’s campaign and published dozens of articles parroting his lies about the election — resulting in huge growth to its audience and its coffers.
Not super surprising. I figured it was just the plaything of a couple rich Chinese expats. Never let a good slush fund go to waste, am I right?
actually it is vaguely surprising. They know how to launder money?
Not very well, it would appear.
Ancient Secret Formula. /s
Just in case you weren’t being sarcastic please see my town of Vancouver and how many Chinese nationals have parked money in the real estate market so they have a slush fund to escape CCP oversight.
It was more of at on the right wingers they cater to. My only knowledge is the billboard they pay for, and the pair of articles I had to debunk because my q-addled uncle used it as a source for vax conspiracies
I agree I am not sure how to do this with a business that isn’t cash based. Pretty sure I could pull it off with say a restaurant or a barbershop or something that people use paper money for.
Also not sure how true this is but I heard from an accountant that if you run a legit cash business you are more likely to be audited compared to a money laundering scheme. Since a fake business can make itself look 100% statistically aligned with the models the IRS uses while a real business is much more likely to be slightly off.
Chinese laundry businesses have been around as long as Chinese in the Americas.
I always knew January 1st 1970 was a fucking lie
Ahhh a fellow dude of culture
What the hell is it? There’s a giant billboard in town that just says something like #1 trusted source and has some guys picture I don’t recognize and… that’s it.
It’s part of the media wing of a cult. Shen Yun is another part of it that a lot of people are familiar with - they perform all over the place doing “ancient Chinese dance” (which was invented in the 1950s). Epoch Times is the “news” piece. It’s all propaganda.
Holy shit just looked this up. Unbelievable lol some scientology shit
Scientology with Chinese characteristics
Kind of like the moonies
Family went to Shen Yun once. First half was like, beautiful dancing. Then the second half, they basically locked the exit doors as some white guy got up on stage and started spouting the weirdest shit about a golden UFO and crazy political stuff. Shaved a few years off my family’s lives, wondering if they were gonna get out of the building or not, lol.
I did catch Shen Yun show once. I saw some dancing. What I have heard from everyone else is that my session was unusual and it’s usually loaded with politics.
Also I have a friend who holds dual citizenship and she told me the PRC takes pics of Chinese ethnic people who attend the shows and refuses to let them come back to the China, so she has never gone.
It’s such a weird situation.
It was about 60/40 when I went, maybe 70/30. Mostly dancing, but some politics sprinkled in there, too. Mostly anti-China stuff. I get that China has done some bad stuff so it was easy easy to applaud and all, but now I know it’s just because they’re a cult that got huge and some Chinese President didn’t like that.
Which isn’t great because freedom of speech should be a thing, but also, huge popular religions can cause great harm, so I’m not really on their side now that I’m seeing what Christian Nationalism can do and looking at what happened in South Korea. Making sure government isn’t hijacked by some crazy popular cult maybe isn’t a bad idea. Also, they’re ultra conservative, anti-medicine and evolution, anti-feminist, homophobic, and support Donald Trump and supported the lie that Biden stole the election, so ya, wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been hiding their politics more since I’ve seen them to stay generally popular and hope people don’t suspect they suck lol.
They’re very popular in right-wing circles. They also give away their paper for free in boxes on street corners, so people will just pick it up for something to read.
Every once in a while their lies will end up on my doorstep. Straight into the fucking trash.
Do you live in Denver or do they have those same billboards posted everywhere? I suppose it must work, if you’re an idiot. So it does work…
They’re in other states as well, if not all.
I have seen those posters in every remotely urban area I have ever been to in the US.
Anyone who didn’t know it was a Chinese owned propaganda factory was refusing to follow the money.
Its actually the opposite. Its a publication supporting the Falun Gong which the CCP vehemently hate.
I was too lazy to follow the money.
Do we have to follow it, like, all the way?
What exactly are you implying by Chinese owned? The epoch time has long been a tool of US foreign policy against China.
It’s a tool of Falun Gong. Falun Gong doesn’t like the Chinese government because of the crackdown on Falun Gong. That doesn’t make it a friend or tool of the United States.
Falun Gong believes a bunch of untrue things, but China also doesn’t allow free expression. They don’t just crack down on cults. They crack down on any dissent.
Yes, I’m well aware, but it seems like the person I replied to thinks they are a tool of the Chinese state instead of a useful stooge of the CIA.
It’s just hyperreal and misinformation all the way down.
I hope Speculator isn’t an idiot, and means it was Chinese owned (which it was) as opposed to owned by China (which it isn’t).
Not according to this: https://lemmy.world/comment/10430905
That was all to get the right to take it seriously. It worked.
Sight
No shit. It funnels money to a cult.
Now welcoming the feds to what everyone else has known for years now.
No shit, it’s run by the Falun Gong, not exactly the bastion of free and unbiased reporting, lmao. How does anyone think they make money off a free newspaper dumped all over rural areas? xD
I’ve got bad news about other Falun Gong ventures such as Shen Yun, too, hahah.
Careful. You’ll get labeled a Wumao for saying stuff like this too loudly.
Luckily, I dislike the CCP as much as I dislike the Falun Gong. Their invasion of privacy and treatment of Xinjiang and LGBTQ people is appalling. Not to mention the other regions they control, or the countries they try and coerce, like Taiwan or other nations in the South China Sea.
I’d love nothing more than to have Xi step down and get replaced by someone progressive and modern, in the western sense.
I’ve yet to see an American happy with the new foreign leader who replaces the old one.
Capitalists reviled Hu Jintao until he departed, and only afterwards fell in love with him.
I got ads for them before I used Ublock Pretty sure I reported it for propaganda not that it did anything.
Were those the ads where they pretended they had video from raids where people were burning down their warehouses because of all the truth they tell but the videos were just poorly scripted and acted?
I cant remember exactly what it was about but the ad didn’t have a video.
I wish I could just live in the real world. Still weirded out about that footage that came out of the Syrian civil war of people rehearsing running then falling to the ground dead.
Was it the “moderates” trying to get better coverage or was it Assad trying to convince us that the civilians dying weren’t? Or hell was it just some movie being made and someone selectively edited and relabeled it to make it support a narrative? It’s like inception layers of misinformation and I am revolted by it.
It was nearly 100% of my YouTube ads at one point then in one my many reports to YouTube I told them if I see another one I am going to Epoch Times physical address and will start screaming at them about the YouTube ads until I am dragged out of the building.
It stopped after that but I can’t prove that is what stopped it. Was going to do it as well.
