In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a clickbait, fake news show called Redacted (@TheRedactedInc) hosted by Natali (@natalimorris) and Clayton Morris (@ClaytonMorris). The Morris' are best-known for their pro-Kremlin conspiracy theories related to Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/24
Clayton started his journalism career as a co-host at the Daily Buzz and Good Day Philadelphia, and started co-hosting Fox & Friends Weekend on Fox News Channel in 2008, where he focused on consumer technology. In 2017 he announced his retirement from TV, saying that he...
2/24
...wanted to focus on real estate business. Natali also has background in tech journalism, and she's worked for outlets like CBS, CNET, Wired, Variety and TechCrunch.
Before departing from Fox, Clayton had already launched several websites to make a quick and easy buck.
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He hosted a podcast called Investing in Real Estate with Clayton Morris and YouTube channel called Morris Invest, and he'd also launched an online financial planning service called Financial Freedom Academy.
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In Mar 2019, investors filed over two dozen lawsuits, claiming that Morris' business was actually a Ponzi scheme. The company had sold properties that turned out to be trash - vacant lots, burned down buildings, and such.
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This scam was exposed in a 3-hour long documentary by YouTube channel called HoltonWiseTV, which Clayton sued for 7,2 million USD for using a copyrighted image of him. In 2020, Morris lost the case.
6/24
Soon after this Morris' left their 1,4 million USD home in NJ and moved to a coastal resort town in Portugal. It's evident that they moved there because of the lawsuits, and possibly due to the negative feedback they received from the grift.
7/24
Mrs. Morris cited the "collective soul challenge" in their business as the reason for leaving the US.
"Now what does all this have to do with Russia and Ukraine?", you may ask. Well, these days the Morris expert duo focuses on geopolitics and political commentary,...
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...drawing knowledge from their decade-long experience as both consumer tech journalists and as real estate investors.
Redacted News focuses on pretty much every pro-Kremlin narrative on the war in Ukraine. These are often advertised with clickbait-y titles like...
9/24
..."The OFFICIAL Bucha narrative continues to crumble!" The show features ridiculously bad takes from Douglas "Russia has been too gentle" Macgregor, Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, Scott Ritter, and Tara Reade, who recently defected to Russia.
10/24
The topics range from Bucha massacre denial and "secret US biolabs in Ukraine" to "Ukrainian Nazis" and the US blowing up the Nord Stream. Clayton has also advertised the infamous "antiwar" event Rage Against the War Machine, and shared various hot/shit takes from...
11/24
...fake news bloggers like @MaxBlumenthal and conspiracy theorists like RFK Jr.
In May 2023, Clayton interviewed Macgregor, who suggested that hypersonic Kinzhal missiles can't be shot down. According to Macgregor, the missiles hit key locations where Ukraine held their..
12/24
..most advanced weaponry like the Storm Shadows. Now, remember that this "military expert" predicted three days after the invasion begun that "If they don't surrender in the next 24 hours,I suspect Russia will ultimately annihilate them."
The Morris crew also invited Eva Bartlett to defame a NBC News article that exposed "independent journalists" as pro-Kremlin propagandists. Bartlett is of course part of this troupe, and has been actively spreading disinformation on both Syria and Ukraine.
14/24
The interview with Ritter is basically Scotty praising Russia for +20 minutes with Clayton nodding his head at all this. Now, I don't blame either one for hating their country as much as they do, but it's baffling how they just go & support a genocidal empire that is Russia.15/24
In addition to their hot takes on the war, Natali and Clayton talk about issues that garner most views on their multi-platform enterprise. Common topics include The Great Reset conspiracy theory, COVID-19 mandates and vaccinations, "deep state", and "woke mind virus".
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The basic premise in the Morris' fantasy world seems to be that the evil globalists, led by Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, are trying to take over the world, confiscate all of our belongings, force-vaccinate us and make us eat bugs.
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The good and virtuous Putin along with the rest of the "multipolar world" is then trying to stop all this by fighting the evil globalists by conducting a genocide in Ukraine. It's extremely cynical take, but apparently it brings in the $$$.
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The whole show focuses on using provocative titles & narratives to bring in the maximum audience, regardless of the factuality of their claims. It is safe to assume,that the Morris' will pivot to the next "current thing" as soon as the hype around the war in Ukraine fades.
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Redacted is not a small venue - they work across several platforms and their follower base is big. They have almost 2 million subscribers on YouTube, are in top 40 biggest accounts on Rumble, and also spread their BS also on IG, Telegram, TikTok, and various podcast sites.
20/24
Their most popular YouTube videos have millions of views, and for some reason their conspiratorial content hasn't been demonetized by the platform. In addition,they beg money on Locals and Patreon. It is safe to say that they're making good money from all this.
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To me,the Morris family are the worst kind of people - they try to profit tragedy. They have no interest in the truth or carry any responsibility over their statements, and tell outright lies as long as it brings them more engagement and money.
22/24
Incidentally, none of this conspiratorial BS is mentioned in the Morris' Wikipedia pages, and after doing a little digging I found out that they use their publicist to whitewash most of the controversial stuff from their Wikipedia pages.
23/24
Let's conclude the soup with a headline: Greedy Real Estate Grifter and His Wife EXPOSED To Be Frauds Monetizing on War Atrocities and Genocide!
And Clayton, if you wanna sue me too, you can contact @KimDotcom for further details.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about Finland and how pro-Kremlin propagandists have become more active in the Finnish political space since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For the first time since 2022, they’ve gained some political power in Finland.
1/16
Russia’s political strategy in countries with Russian-speaking minorities (such as Finland and the Baltics) is typically quite similar: it seeks to rally these minorities around issues like language and minority rights, and then frames the situation as oppression.
2/16
At the same time, Russian speakers are extremely wary and skeptical of local media, and instead tend to follow Russian domestic outlets like Russia-1 and NTV, thereby reinforcing an almost impenetrable information bubble.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Ukrainian SBU’s “Spiderweb” operation and the main disinformation narrative vatniks have been spreading during the afterfall. While domestic Russian media stays silent, the vatniks and Russian milbloggers have been extremely loud.
1/20
This operation was probably the most impactful strike since the drowning of the Moskva, massively reducing Russia’s capability to bomb Ukrainian cities (or anyone else’s). It involved smuggling 117 FPV drones hidden in trucks into Russia. Once near airbases,…
2/20
…the roofs opened remotely, launching drones in synchronized waves to strike targets up to 4,000 km away. The mission took 18 months to plan. The unsuspecting Russian truck drivers who transported them had no idea they were delivering weapons deep behind their own lines.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian movie director, propagandist, and former priest: Ivan Okhlobystin. He’s best known for his strong support for the war on Ukraine and for his radical views, which are often used as a testbed for the domestic Russian audience.
1/20
Ivan was born in 1966 from a short-lived marriage between a 62-year-old chief physician and a 19-year-old engineering student. She later remarried, and the family moved from Kaluga province to Moscow. Ivan kept the surname Okhlobystin from his biological father.
2/20
After moving to Moscow, Ivan began studying at VGIK film school. He soon became a playwright for theatre productions and also wrote for Stolitsa magazine, which he later left because, as he put it, “it had become a brothel.”
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian-born former State Duma deputy, Vladimir Medinsky. He is best known as one of the ideologues of the “Russkiy Mir”, for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, and for leading the “peace talks” in Turkey in 2022 and 2025.
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During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medinsky interned as a correspondent on the international desk of the TASS news agency, learning the ways of propaganda at an early age. Some time later, he earned two PhDs – one in political science and the other in history.
2/20
As is tradition in Russia, Medinsky’s academic work was largely pseudo-scientific and plagiarized. Dissernet found that 87 of 120 pages in his dissertation were copied from his supervisor’s thesis. His second dissertation was also heavily plagiarized.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.
1/23
Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”
2/23
After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.
1/20
Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.
2/20
Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.