The social media accounts of two of Canada’s most vocal far-right pundits have gone unusually quiet after U.S. authorities accused them of participating in a covert Russian propaganda campaign.

On Wednesday, the US Department of Justice has published an indictment against two Russian citizens who are accused of having founded a conservative media company as a cover for pro-Kremlin propaganda.

The media company was not named. the indictmentbut from the details contained therein, it was clear that the charges referred to Tenet Media, founded in 2023 by Canadian influencer Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donavan.

Among the people she hired last year was Chen’s longtime friend and occasional collaborator Lauren Southern, another far-right influencer from Canada with a huge social media following.

In the few months of its existence, the medium produced a steady stream of positive content for Donald Trump, including an appearance by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump.

Since the indictment was published, several Tenet Media employees have come forward and stated that they had no idea how the company was financed.

“These allegations clearly demonstrate that I and other commenters were victims of this conspiracy,” wrote Dave Rubin, a right-wing commentator with 2.45 million YouTube subscribers, on X, formerly known as Twitter.

But Southern and Chen have not yet made any public statements. On Thursday, Chen told CBC News by phone: “We are not commenting at this time.” Southern did not respond to emails.

Neither of them has posted anything online since the charges were made public.

Neither Chen, Donavan nor Southern have been charged, and none of them are named in the indictment.

But the allegations have jeopardized her reputation in right-wing circles.

Chen has already been fired from another conservative website, Glenn Beck’s The Blaze. Her YouTube channel, which had more than 572,000 subscribers, was shut down on Thursday. And her bio page on the website of Turning Points USA, a pro-Trump activist group on campus, was deleted.

YouTube also removed Tenet Media’s channel on Thursday, saying it “violated our community guidelines.”

“Broader conservative apparatus”

Born in Quebec and raised in Hong Kong, Chen rose to fame as a YouTuber under the pseudonym Roaming Millennial.

She was an outspoken supporter of Trump in the 2016 election and an avid fighter in the early years of the culture wars.

“She’s part of this broader conservative apparatus that tries to convey social and cultural values ​​that align with certain interests around anti-immigrant sentiment, LGBTQ rights and feminism,” said Eviane Leidig, who studied both Chen and Southern for her book. Women of the extreme right, published last year.

As her subscriber base grew to hundreds of thousands, Chen began appearing on popular conservative media outlets such as Fox News and the Daily Wire.

In the indictment, Chen is apparently referred to as “Founder 1” and is said to have started working for the parent company of RT, the Russian state news channel, in spring 2021.

RT was forced to cease operations in both the United States and Canada in 2022 as a result of government sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But according to the timetable set by US authorities, Founder 1 began recruiting conservative personalities with lucrative offers for a new media company in 2023, paid by RT employees.

According to information contained in the indictment, Chen billed RT in part through Roaming Millennial Inc., a company based in the Montreal area where her mother lived.

Tenet Media was eventually registered in Tennessee as a subsidiary of Chen’s Canadian company.

When Tenet Media launched in November, RT employees are suspected of having given the two founders instructions on how to report on certain topics and what content to share on social media.

The indictment alleges, among other things, that the agents directed Chen to create content blaming the United States and Ukraine for the March 2024 terrorist attack in Moscow, which ISIS claimed responsibility for.

Southern contributed to the popularization of extremist theories

Since Tenet Media began publishing content, Southern has produced several videos for the medium focusing on Canadian issues.

Their titles range from “Canada is becoming a communist hellhole,” which compares Canada to the USSR, to “Mean Tweets = Life in Prison in Canada?!”, which criticizes the proposed Online Harms Act.

“If you naively believe that the Russians are not so concerned with influencing Canadian thinking and penetrating the Canadian government at all levels – then I can tell you that they are very concerned with influencing your thinking and your voting behavior and sowing chaos and discord,” said Richard Fadden, former director of CSIS.

Southern, who grew up in British Columbia, was one of the early stars of the alt-right movement and was known for her videos confronting progressive activists.

In addition, she traveled widely and made contacts with right-wing extremist movements in Europe, South Africa and Australia, thereby contributing to the wider spread of extremist ideas.

Southern was an early proponent of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which posits that the white majority population is being replaced by immigrants for racist reasons. Several far-right terrorists have invoked this theory.

The theory is “seen as very far-fetched, as something that would only be found in the dark corners of the Internet,” said Leidig.

“Today, however, it has become a fairly common and, to some extent, popular idea.”

Canadians also in the crosshairs

On Thursday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the government was working with the United States “on this serious matter.”

“Any Canadian who illegally supports Russia’s ongoing attempts to undermine our sovereignty and democratic processes through disinformation, criminal and covert activities, and corruption will face the full force of Canadian law,” he said in a statement.

Intelligence experts say the details of the indictment are another indication of the extent of Russia’s efforts to influence the American election.

“We have never before seen a hostile attempt to influence an American election on this scale,” said Frank Figliuzzi, a former deputy director of counterintelligence at the FBI.

Fadden warned that despite the focus on the impact of Russian propaganda on the U.S. election, Canadians are not immune to the influence of disinformation campaigns.

“The overarching goal of the Russians is to increase discontent in our institutions – and in the institutions of all Western countries,” he said. “I can’t think of any reasonable reason why Canada should be exempt from this.”