Jane Lytvynenko Profile picture
Reporting for @WSJ in Ukraine. Also focused on osint, investigations. Formerly @BuzzFeedNews, @ShorensteinCtr

Sep 11, 2020, 6 tweets

Yesterday, we published a story about GOP Senate nominee Jason Lewis, who founded a members-only social media network called Galt.

Over the years it became host to conspiracy theories, racist rants, and a promo for a six-hour pro-Hitler documentary:
buzzfeednews.com/article/janely…

In 2014, Lewis promoted the network on Fox Business. It functioned a bit like Reddit, people would buy or earn “Galtcoins” and then buy into causes or missions, kind of like upvotes.

Lewis touted fantastical numbers. He said the site got 12.8 million pageviews. That number couldn’t be verified but the FB page for Galt has about 1,000 likes.

Lewis also said the social media network raised $590,000 but he defaulted on a $25,000 loan to the company.

Lewis departed the site in Sept. 2015 but it didn't shut down until the summer of 2020.

While there, he held a meetup and posted a “Save Our Streets” cause that questioned whether anti-depressant medication played a role in the Isla Vista massacre.

Other users posted… a lot of conspiracies. One post promoted a 6hr Holocaust denial doc.

During the mid-term elections, users wanted to intern migrants.

There was also a truly strange rant about Black Panther and a post about a member’s love of golf. buzzfeednews.com/article/janely…

Lewis’s campaign sent us a statement that said, in part, “Blaming Jason Lewis for comments made by others on a public website is akin to blaming Mark Zuckerberg for everything that’s said on Facebook.”

Folks, the story is a ride. Read on:
buzzfeednews.com/article/janely…

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