2019/11/03/Rabidly pro-Trump fake news site Epoch Times may be engaging in astroturfing

• when: 2019/11/03
• author: dailykos.com/user/Christian Dem in NC
• source: DailyKos
• topics: fake news Epoch Times astroturfing Kelly Kullberg Jim Garlow right-wing media machine The BL Protestant fundamentalism
• keywords
• link: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/3/1896996/-Rabidly-pro-Trump-fake-news-site-Epoch-Times-may-be-engaging-in-astroturfing
• title: Rabidly pro-Trump fake news site Epoch Times may be engaging in astroturfing
• summary: “on Thursday, religious right activist Jim Garlow took to Facebook to confirm what a lot of people suspected – the most rabid fundies believe rolling back abortion and marriage equality are so important that they must go all-in for Trump. [..] Garlow took part in a gathering of Trumpvangelicals at the White House on Tuesday, and included a link to coverage of that gathering from an outfit known as "The BL". [...] a search turned up a Snopes investigation from October that revealed some too-close-for-comfort ties between BL and Epoch Times.”

Now why does this matter? Well, Epoch Times was banned from advertising on Facebook earlier this year for repeatedly doing end runs around Facebook’s rules on political transparency. The BL has built up a pretty large social media presence. Between them, 22 BL-associated Facebook pages have some 28 million followers. One has to wonder, at the very least, if BL is an Epoch Times sockpuppet. Indeed, Snopes concluded that, at the very least, BL was being “less than forthright” about its links to Epoch Times.