Voters have been receiving unsolicited copies in the mail of The Epoch Times, a publication that traffics in conspiracy theories and other forms of disinformation. (Photo by Sue Sturgis.)
Voters in communities across the South have recently found in their mailboxes unsolicited print copies of The Epoch Times, a controversial pro-Trump, anti-Chinese government news outlet that traffics in conspiracy theories and other forms of disinformation.
This reporter received one at her home in Raleigh, North Carolina. Facing South has also been in contact with two people in small Western North Carolina towns who received them, as well as residents of Atlanta and Fairfax County, Virginia. All of the recipients are either registered Democrats or unaffiliated. An inquiry made to The Epoch Times for more details about the mailings and their targets went unanswered.
The U.S. edition this reporter received, dated Sept. 7-13, has in its 24 pages stories claiming inaccurately that climate change is "based on false narratives," that vaccines lead to more severe COVID-19 infections, that Arizona counted thousands of invalid ballots in the 2020 presidential election, and that the Inflation Reduction Act recently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden will triple the number of IRS audits targeting low-income Americans — a claim that's been debunked by professional fact checkers. It also offers an opinion piece by serial conspiracy theorist Dinesh D'Souza promoting his own repeatedly debunked "2000 Mules" documentary alleging that unnamed nonprofits paid Democratic Party associates to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes in swing states during the 2020 election.
"We mailed you this copy to break through suppression by Big Tech," says the promotional banner at the top of the paper.
In 2019, Facebook banned The Epoch Times from advertising after the outlet broke the platform's political transparency rules by publishing pro-Trump subscription ads through so-called "sock puppet" pages used to hide who controls them. A 2019 NBC News investigation found the outlet spent more than $1.5 million on some 11,000 pro-Trump Facebook ads over six months — more than any organization besides the Trump campaign. That same year, the fact-checking website Snopes.com reported close ties between The The Epoch Times and a network of Facebook pages and groups that shared pro-Trump views and conspiracy theories including QAnon, a far-right cult-like movement that promotes Trump as a political savior come to rescue the U.S. from a cabal of cannibalistic child sex traffickers.
In addition, The Epoch Times and its New Tang Dynasty Television affiliate used a network of associated YouTube channels to promote "Stop the Steal" events and election misinformation prior to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and they have since downplayed the riots, as Media Matters reported. The Epoch Times remains a presence on those social media platforms today, but it has shifted most of its advertising spending to YouTube, according to a Media Matters analysis reported by The Guardian.
The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 by John Tang, then a graduate student in theoretical physics at Georgia Tech, and other Chinese Americans affiliated with Falun Gong, a new religious movement that Li Hongzhi founded in China in the early 1990s. Combining elements of Buddhism and Taoism, Falun Gong mixes meditation and exercise with a moral philosophy that emphasizes cultivating "virtue." It has a socially conservative bent: Li has spoken against modern medical treatments, race mixing, and homosexuality.
An early employee of The Epoch Times told The New York Times for its 2021 investigation that the publication initially resembled "a cross between a scrappy media start-up and a zealous church bulletin, with a staff composed mostly of unpaid volunteers drawn from the local Falun Gong chapters." But as the London-based independent media platform openDemocracy has observed, The Epoch Times rose to prominence across the West through its enthusiastic backing of Trump and embrace of conspiracy theories, and now serves as a key source of vaccine and other disinformation.
But why would a news outlet whose motto is "Truth and Tradition" support Trump, whose many lies have been extensively documented? Former Epoch Times reporter Steve Klett, who wrote about the 2016 presidential campaign for the outlet, told The New York Times that the publication's leaders "seemed to have this almost messianic way of viewing Trump as the anti-Communist leader who would bring about the end of the Chinese Communist Party." And this is how Ben Hurley, a former Falun Gong follower who helped launched The Epoch Times' Australian edition, described the connection between the religion and the publication:
Falun Gong practitioners have launched a range of media companies as part of what they see as their spiritual mission, including New Tang Dynasty Television, Sound of Hope Radio, and the Vision China Times. Their purpose is purely evangelical, although perhaps not in the way evangelical Christians might understand. Converting people to Falun Gong is not a priority right now — that will happen in the future, according to Master Li's teachings — after an apocalyptic "weeding out" takes place where anyone who holds bad thoughts towards Falun Gong, or good thoughts towards the Chinese Communist Party, will come to a grisly end.
Source: https://www.facingsouth.org/2022/09/epoch-times-disinformation-mailed-to-voters
