1. Right-wing operatives have deployed a MASSIVE network of fake local news sites to weaponize Critical Race Theory in political campaigns
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2. The Rosetta Stone of this effort is this tweet by , the president of , the main GOP online fundraising vehicle
Lansing credits an article in "West Nova News" as "starting it all" and helping deliver a win for Glenn Youngkin
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3. West Nova News is part of a massive network of 1300 "news" sites linked to conservative businessman Brian Timpone
Timpone has a long history of leveraging "low-cost automated story generation"
He's been accused of faking bylines & quotes & plagiarism
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4. The 1300 sites contain no advertising and don't charge subscription fees.
reported the network gets money from “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement" and "a Catholic political advocacy group" that ran millions of ads against Biden.
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5. A popular.info investigation found that, in 2021, this network published THOUSANDS of articles about CRT in Virginia and TENS OF THOUSANDS of articles about CRT across the country
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6. Many of these articles are automated.
Thousands of articles refer to a petition from the Zinn Education Project in which teachers allegedly pledge to teach CRT.
(The petition objects to state bills that ban a variety of topics in the classroom)
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7. But not all the articles are automated. Which brings us back to 's tweet.
Why is he crediting with the article in West Nova News?
Prior is not the author of the piece and is not quoted.
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8. Prior does, however, have a history with the Metric Media network.
An investigation in the NYT last year found that Metric Media sites operate on a "pay-to-play" system.
Among the people purchasing articles on behalf of clients? Ian Prior.
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9. Prior is now heads Fight for Schools, a PAC dedicated to recalling school board members it claims supports CRT
He's also a co-chair of the "American Schools Coalition" which operates CRT Central, which aggregates CRT articles from Metric Media network
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10. The top article on CRT Central right now is an article from Old Dominion News, another fake news site in the network, that basically reads as a press release for Prior and his org
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11. This story is just beginning
CRT is likely to play a central role in key races around the country in 2022
The Metric Media network will continue to be deployed to weaponize the issue
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