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What will become of the Epoch Times with its financial director accused of money laundering?
NEW YORK (AP) — The arrest of an Epoch Times executive in a money laundering scheme this week has drawn attention to a media outlet that has lived largely in the shadows since its founding in 2000 and a transformation during the Trump administration .
Federal prosecutors in New York loaded Weidong “Bill” Guan of Secaucus, NJ, chief financial officer of The Epoch Times, of directing at least $67 million in criminal proceeds, much of it from fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits, to the company, its affiliates and For yourself. Guan pleaded not guilty but was suspended by The Epoch Times, which agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
The case calls into question the future of a company that was a prominent online Trump supporter and spreader of conspiracy theories.
WHAT ARE THE SEASONAL TIMES?
Started as a newspaper, the company produces news and video websites and is now available in 23 languages. Its founder, John Tang, is a Chinese-American who practices Falun Gong, a form of meditation and exercise. The Chinese government has consistently denounced, banned, and, according to members, oppressed and mistreated Falun Gong followers.
Although the media outlet has sought to distance its operations from the Falun Gong movement itself, the company said it “views the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, and the remarkably heroic ways in which practitioners have responded to the persecution, as one of the stories most underreported in the last 20 years.”
It is by no means a single-issue news organization, and the main story on your website Wednesday was all about the US political primaries the night before. But the Epoch Times reports frequently and harshly on the Chinese government; stories on its website Wednesday included an op-ed on the origins of the COVID virus and a look back at the Tiananmen Square massacre on his 35th birthday. The site also prominently promotes a book by Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi.
The Epoch Times says that “our goal is not to force our perspective on you, but to provide the information you need to make your own decision.”
HOW HAVE TIMES CHANGED?
Epoch Times website currently has testimonials from Trump administration figures Peter Navarro and Sebastian Gorka, and U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona.
That’s a clue. The news organization transformed during the Trump years, becoming a site that supported the former president and his causes. It was opportunistic in two ways: Leaders saw in Trump a president they believed would fight the Chinese government, and they sensed an opportunity to get funding from others who believe in the cause, said AJ Bauer, a professor at the University of Alabama who studies conservative media. . .
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Within a few years, the news outlet became a partisan powerhouse and “also created a disinformation machine on a global scale that has repeatedly pushed fringe narratives into the mainstream,” The New York Times reported in 2020.
He hugged various conspiracy theories, many around COVID. The Epoch Times and affiliates broke the false story that the Obama administration spied on Trump’s 2016 campaign and spread theories promoted by the conspiracy website QAnon and claims about voter fraud.
The Epoch Times was particularly aggressive on Facebook through advertising and the creation of different pages that guided social media users to its content. After an investigation by NBC News, the social media giant banned it in 2019 pro-Trump ads produced by the vehicle for violating its advertising policies.
The indictment does not specifically say that these pro-Trump efforts were funded through the alleged criminal scheme. But that was when the money was coming in. The Epoch Times reported nearly $128 million in revenue for 2021, an impressive increase from $4 million in 2016, according to a federal financial disclosure. The turnaround caught the attention of banks, regulators and, eventually, federal prosecutors.
Much of the money came through the company’s “Make Money Online” team, run by Guan, according to the federal indictment. Guan claimed the windfall was due in part to an increase in subscriptions and donations, the indictment said.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF THE EPOCH TIMES?
Guan is the only one accused by prosecutors. But the indictment claims that “others known and unknown” were aware of what was happening, raising questions about whether anyone else at the company could be involved and what that could mean for the future of The Epoch Times. The company did not immediately respond to a question about the matter.
Given the measures taken against the company by Facebook in 2019, it is questionable whether the previously used playbook has relevance to the 2024 campaign. Some avenues for reaching people have undoubtedly been closed because the social media site has been belittling news and political contentBauer said.
Conservative figures have certainly taken note of the work done by The Epoch Times on behalf of their causes. Despite this, the outlet has had surprisingly little influence, said Howard Polskin, who monitors conservative media for the website The Righting.
“They don’t seem to be driving the news agenda in right-wing media outlets,” Polskin said. “I don’t think the right-wing media is paying much attention to what they’re doing.”
Bauer agreed. The Epoch Times’ influence appears largely confined to people for whom opposition to the Chinese government is the root cause, he said.
“They are having a hard time, just like everyone else in the media, finding an audience right now,” Bauer said. “I don’t think there are many people calling up the Epoch Times on their computers during breakfast to see what they have to say.”
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David Bauder writes about media for the Associated Press. Follow him on http://twitter.com/dbauder.