Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Apr 22, 2024 21 tweets 13 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American propagandist and political commentator, Ben Swann (@BenSwann_). He's best-known for spreading conspiracy theories related to 9/11, vaccines & Pizzagate, and for running several Kremlin-funded disinformation channels.

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Homeschooled with nine brothers and sisters, Benny turned out to be a talented young man, earning his Master's degree in history at the age of 16.

He was also working as a youth pastor at his local Baptist church at the age of 15.

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Ben's family was heavily involved in TV, and he also started working for various channels, first as a cameraman and later as an investigative journalist. Eventually he launched his own news segment called Reality Check, in which he promoted libertarian views and Ron Paul.

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Swann produced some good investigative journalism, questioning Barack Obama about the so-called presidential drone "kill list", and breaking details about the IRS targeting controversy, but he slowly descended deeper into the world of conspiracy theories.

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In 2013, he left TV for a while, launching a Facebook page called "Full Disclosure" and social media channel "Truth in Media". Through these, Benny spread various conspiracy theories and echoed talking points from propaganda and fake news outlets such as RT and InfoWars.

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Between 2013 and 2015, Ben also appeared regularly on RT America. In 2014, he hosted the Ben Swann Radio Show on a far-right, antisemitic and conspiratorial network called the Republic Broadcasting Network.

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In 2015, he returned to TV, reviving his "investigative journalism" segment Reality Check With Ben Swann. The show lasted for under two years, as he was suspended in Jan 2017 for running a story on the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. This theory suggests that...

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...a pizza restaurant in DC was organizing a child sex trafficking ring in its (non-existent) basement. This narrative came from hacked DNC e-mails, was heavily promoted by pro-Kremlin networks and was fully debunked long before Swann "investigated" it.

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Benny was reinstated after he took down his conspiratorial Truth in Media site, but was finally fired after his employer found out he was trying to revive the website without the network's knowledge and permission.

It seems Ben was deep in that rabbit hole already!

9/20
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And oh boy, is that rabbit hole deep. Swann has spread conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (the one that cost Alex Jones dearly), 9/11, and alleged cover-up of connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.

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He's also spread straight up Kremlin propaganda, including denying chemical weapon attacks conducted by the al-Assad regime and Russians in Syria, and denying the strong evidence that MH17 was shot down with a Russian Buk system by the Russians and pro-Kremlin separatists.

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After being fired, Swann relaunched Truth in Media and started several other online projects, including a failed social media website called Isegoria and Sovren, a self-described "uncensored, blockchain-based, decentralized news and entertainment platform."

12/20

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Benny also filed for the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which showed that his company, Rebel Media Productions LLC, was paid 6,8 million USD by the Kremlin. His statement claimed he would "produce propaganda TV content" for the South American, Indian, and Chinese markets.
13/20
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Swann was to produce four shows for TV Novosti, a parent company of RT, that has been sanctioned by the UK and the EU, but not the US. Interestingly, Truth in Media is a different company and it is not known how this outlet is being funded.

14/20

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Ben's also funded by two other foreign entities, the Russian Kart LLC and an Armenian Stark Industries LLC (referencing Iron Man?). Themes promoted include the "US/NATO provoked wars", "economic warfare waged by the US", and "transgender issues in the US".

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Swann and Rebel Media are responsible for the production of four English-language shows: 360 View, Cost of Everything, The M.O. and The Whistleblowers. Ben's FARA document stated that the shows are not available in the US, which is a false statement, as they actually are.

16/20

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In 2024, Truth in Media started publishing an anti-Ukraine propaganda series "Zelenskyy Unmasked". The show combines various conspiracy theories ranging from the "deep state" to "global elites" and of course to BlackRock. We'll probably see some COVID-19 theories, too!

17/20


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Like most of Ben's projects, this "documentary" seems to offer little new information,and it's just parroting the Kremlin's propaganda classics. This defamation campaign is also being promoted on X & it seems that the ad is shown in relation to any Ukraine-related content.

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Olga Lautman (@OlgaNYC1211) has been doing fantastic investigation on Swann's project, including Truth in Media, and you can find her ongoing investigation here:



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To conclude, Ben Swann is an actual foreign agent and propagandist, who has received millions of dollars to produce pro-Kremlin propaganda while living comfortably in Atlanta.

It also seems that he's made some false statements in his FARA filings.

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jun 2
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,…

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…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.

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Read 21 tweets
May 28
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.

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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.

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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.”

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Read 21 tweets
May 22
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.

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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.

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Read 21 tweets
May 15
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.

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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.”

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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.

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Read 24 tweets
May 13
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.

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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.

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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.

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Read 22 tweets
May 9
In today’s May 9th Vatnik Soup, we discuss the ambiguous relationship of the Kremlin with Nazism and explain why so many vatniks can be outright Nazis, and promote or excuse them while at the same time being so hysterical about alleged “Nazis in Ukraine”.

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Of course, Kremlin propaganda employs the Firehose of Falsehood and often lacks any consistent ideology other than spreading chaos and seeking power, so such contradictions can be commonplace. However in this case there is a certain cynical consistency there.

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To understand modern Russia, we need to go back a hundred years to the beginnings of Soviet Russia/Soviet Union — a genocidal terror regime under dictators Lenin and Stalin, whose totalitarian and imperialist legacy Putin’s Russia fully embraces.

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Read 24 tweets

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