Thread by @MikeStuchbery_

So I was thinking about all these Alt-Right YouTubers and was trying to think of a historical precedent. Turns out, I found it in... East Germany?

See, during the division of Germany, broadcast towers in the West were powerful enough to reach way, way into the East.

Of course, the Powers-That-Be in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik couldn't have all that Western TV infecting good socialist minds...

However, the East Germans couldn't jam television signals effectively. There was no way to stop people from tuning in.

So, they came up with 'Der Schwarze Kanal' (The Black Channel).

Each week, usually on a Monday, East Germans would turn on the TV to watch a 20 minute program that presented the 'truth' of what was happening in the West.

What Deutsche Fernsehfunk did is take broadcast from ARD/Das Erste and selectively edit them or misrepresent the contents to present a party line.

This program ran for close to 30 years. It only stopped a few days before the Berlin Wall came down.

You don't need to speak German to see that 'Der Schwarze Kanal', well, could nicely slot in next to an InfoWars video today.