Gettr

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nsacpi

Expects Yuge Games
An exiled Chinese tycoon indicted in New York earlier this month in a billion-dollar fraud case controls the conservative social media platform Gettr and used it to promote cryptocurrencies and propaganda, former employees have told The Washington Post.

They said the arrested expatriate, Guo Wengui, and his longtime money manager, William Je, called the shots at the company while Donald Trump senior adviser Jason Miller was its chief executive and public face. Miller served in that capacity from before Gettr’s July 4, 2021, launch until this month, when he returned to work on his third Trump presidential campaign.

Gettr doled out tens of thousands of dollars to right-wing figures including Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, sent money to contractors affiliated with Guo, and altered information on Gettr users that law enforcement agencies had sought, according to the former employees and internal company documents obtained by The Post.

The revelations show that a man accused of massive fraud on two continents climbed high into Trump’s political sphere and dictated messaging at a social media site that reaches millions of Americans.

Guo was arrested March 15 at his Fifth Avenue penthouse in New York, where a fire broke out as agents hunted for documents. Je, who lives in London, remains at large.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged both men with 11 counts of securities and wire fraud, money laundering and related offenses and Je with an additional count of obstruction. The legal documents do not allege any wrongdoing at Gettr; prosecutors did not return a call seeking comment Friday.

Guo was known to have been a Gettr investor, but his dominant financing role and ability to influence hiring and content decisions at the platform have not previously been reported.

https://wapo.st/40iWPqc
 
Gettr played up its Americanness from the beginning, launching on Independence Day. The site declares that it “champions free speech, rejects cancel-culture, and provides a best-in-class technology platform for the marketplace of ideas.”

Internally, it prioritized U.S. politics, according to an undated internal spreadsheet that tracked how much it paid influencers to post on its network and attract new users.

Over varying periods ending as late as December 2022, Bannon’s War Room podcast received $50,000, according to a screenshot of the spreadsheet Badejo gave to The Post. It was the largest sum of 18 payment streams listed. Bannon did not respond to requests for comment.

Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk’s Resolute Media received $18,000, according to the document. About $15,000 each went to firms marked as connected to well-known conservative commentators Dinesh D’Souza and Jack Posobiec and to British rightist Tommy Robinson, the document said. Smaller amounts went to the podcasting duo of Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, known as Diamond and Silk, and to activist Andy Ngo. Kirk, D’Souza, Posobiec, Richardson and Ngo did not respond to requests for comment. Robinson could not be reached.
 
The former employees said they were unnerved that the money for Gettr came from a foreigner, especially because some exiles have accused Guo of being a double agent for the Chinese government working at co-opting opposition, noting that he was close to high officials before leaving.

“It’s really kind of scary how a Chinese billionaire can create this,” the second former staffer said. “It’s important that this is talked about as a potential national security issue.”

Also known as Miles Guo, Miles Kwok and Brother Seven, Guo made a fortune in mainland China real estate development before coming under government scrutiny there and fleeing to the United States ahead of fraud and bribery charges. Since then, he has positioned himself as a leading foe of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers on various platforms, including his own. Guo’s networks have also promoted Trump, QAnon conspiracy theories and false claims about coronavirus vaccines and treatments, The Post has reported.

“The network stands out for its cross-platform coordination, breadth of technological sophistication, ideological alignment, and sheer output of high-quality content,” said disinformation analyst Kyle Weiss of Graphika, which tracks propaganda networks for social media companies. He said Guo sets the messaging, which is amplified by affiliated media outlets such as GNews and GTV and then followers coordinating on Discord, GitHub and elsewhere using thousands of social media accounts.
 
In 2021, Graphika reported that Guo had pushed people to attend the Jan. 6 rally, using the #StoptheSteal hashtag. When the attack failed, Guo switched to amplifying claims that the violence that day had been the work of antifa infiltrators, Graphika said.
 
Guo formed a close alliance with former Trump adviser Bannon; Bannon was arrested on Guo’s family yacht in 2020 on fraud charges. He was pardoned by Trump.

At Gettr, Guo’s influence extended beyond financial matters to hiring, relationships with other businesses and content decisions, the former employees said. Badejo, who describes himself as a conservative, provided internal emails, instant messages and other documents to back up his claims.
 
To paraphrase Rupert Murdoch this is not a red versus blue issue. The relevant color is green.
 
Guo stepped more visibly into Gettr affairs this year, when he began pitching the availability of Gettr Coin, with which Gettr users are supposed to reward other users, the second former employee said. In videos posted to Twitter, Guo touted an early sale of the coins for 10 cents each and discussed them with Ken Huang, Gettr’s chief technology officer.

A disclaimer on Gettr’s site says they have no value and can’t be used outside of the platform.

Badejo said he left Gettr in September because of another issue: his belief that Gettr was not providing accurate information to law enforcement about its users.

Gettr sometimes received subpoenas for information about users, including the email addresses with which they had registered accounts and the IP addresses of the computers they had used. Those included a ransomware operator and a user who had posted that he would kill “Judas” former vice president Mike Pence if he got a chance, according to copies of subpoenas Gettr received and those users’ posts on Gettr.

Badejo’s job included responding to those legal demands, which required him to attest that they were truthful and complete under penalty of perjury.

But he said he discovered that the company had been answering such requests by providing altered IP addresses in which the final sequence of numbers had been replaced with the number zero.

Badejo told Miller and Huang that the practice was putting everyone involved in legal peril.
 
People are kidding themselves if they think this guy isnt an agent for China. Every hostile government that wants the US destabilized loves Trump.
 
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