The video platform YouTube announced on Thursday that it would close the channel Tenet Media and four other channels owned by its owner Lauren Chen following an indictment by the US Department of Justice. The decision was made in light of investigations launched against employees of the Russian state media network RT.
On Wednesday, the US Department of Justice filed money laundering charges against two RT employees, accusing them of orchestrating a plot to influence the 2024 presidential election by hiring an American company to produce online content that would be used to escalate political tensions in the United States.
According to law enforcement officials, the accused employees used shell companies and false identities to pay $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee company to create videos designed to deepen political divisions in the U.S. Although the indictment does not name the company, the details in the court documents largely match Tenet Media, a Nashville-based company that uploaded nearly 2,000 videos to YouTube in less than a year.
Tenet Media did not respond to requests for comment regarding the channel shutdown.
