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Maffick

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Maffick LLC
Industrydigital media
PredecessorMaffick Media GmbH
FoundedJuly, 2019 in Los Angeles, California
FounderAnissa Naouai
Headquarters2917 W Temple St. suite 102, Los Angeles, California
OwnerAnissa Naouai
Websitehttps://wearemaffick.com/#home

Maffick LLC is a social media digital content company based in Los Angeles, California incorporated in 2019. Its main channel is In the Now, launched in 2016. It has been labeled by Facebook as Russian state-controlled media due to its suspected connections to a similar German based company Maffick Media GmbH, which was under majority control by state-owned RT (Russia Today) subsidiary Ruptly.[1]

Brands

According to CNN, Maffick "videos are generally critical of U.S. foreign policy and the mainstream American media, while largely avoiding criticism of the Russian government."[2] Its content is targeted at American millennials.[3]

The company operates three major channels: In the Now (ITN), Wasted-ED, and Soapbox.[4] The German company Maffick Media GmbH operated three nearly identical channels to Maffick LLC, and they continue to use the same email addresses.[citation needed] By mid-2018, In The Now had three million likes on Facebook;[5] by mid-2020, it had five million followers.[6]

History and Controversy

In The Now

In The Now began as a programme on RT, fronted by Anissa Naouai, which became a stand-alone entity in June 2016. BuzzFeed News described it as "news served hot with a side of smile and a big dollop of propaganda".[2][7] In The Now changed its Twitter handle from @InTheNowRT to @InTheNow_Tweet, but used the same IP address as RT.[8]

NBC noted that its content, for instance on the Syrian civil war promoted pro-Russian geopolitical positions.[8] Early viral hits included one of Canadian blogger Eva Bartlett defending the legitimacy of the 2014 Syrian presidential election, attacked Syria's White Helmets civil defence volunteers, and one of Naouai describing messages from civilians in besieged Aleppo as "a coordinated PR campaign". Both videos were promoted by RT, Russian embassies, and then right-wing social media personalities, although RT stated that the platform was editorially independent from the main news channel.[7][9][10]

According to the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRL), RT's parent company, ANO TV-Novosti, had registered In The Now's website.[11] DFRL also reported that its audience was concentrated in the US among 18-24 year olds.[11] The DFRL described the content as mostly non-ideological, but that the 8% of ideological content had a strong pro-Russian slant; the report alleged various inaccuracies in this content, such as the statement that NATO was involved in the Bosnian conflict to “surround Russia” or that Google censored anti-Hillary Clinton websites. In particular, it noted a strong anti-Clinton bias in the 2016 United States presidential election, including running several stories previously debunked by fact-checking website Snopes.[11]

Maffick Media

Maffick Media GmbH was a Berlin-based subsidiary of Ruptly, which has been accused of being under editorial control by the Russian government.[12] Maffick Media was 51% owned by Ruptly and 49% by Anissa Naouai.[2] It shared an address in Berlin with Ruptly and with Redfish, another RT spin-off brand.[12][13] It was originally set up as a holding company for In The Now.[2] Maffick ran three other Facebook pages: Soapbox, focusing on current affairs, Waste-Ed, on environmental issues, and Backthen, a history channel. The three pages had over 30 million video views in the first months.[2] From September 2018, it hired several contractors in Los Angeles.[2]

In summer 2018, its video of Anna Dovgalyuk, a Russian social media star, campaigning against manspreading was watched by millions, but was accused by the European Union's EUvsDisinfo website of being staged and a Kremlin propoganda operation, and ws removed by YouTube.[5] EUvsDisinfo also alleged that the channel promoted disinformation about the Douma chemical attack, including screening an interview with a child in the custody of the Russian military.[14]

Maffick Media's Facebook accounts were suspended in 2019 after investigations by CNN and T-online revealed ties to RT and Ruptly. Maffick was defended by RT, which said no official requests to explain the websites were filed with Maffick, and blamed CNN for the controversy, as well as by RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.[3] The pages were restored later that month after disclosing their ownership. For example, Soapbox's "About" section now read: "'Soapbox' is a political opinion brand of Maffick, which is owned and operated by Anissa Naouai and Ruptly GmbH, a subsidiary of RT".[15]

Maffick LLC and RT

Maffick LLC was incorporated in Summer 2019 by former Maffick Media CEO and minority shareholder Anissa Naouai. Naouai founded Maffick LLC in 2019 after moving to Los Angeles and reincorporated its former channels in the new company.[16] She denies that the two legally distinct companies are related, and states that they merely share the same branding.[citation needed] The disclosure about Russian state ownership was removed from Maffick's accounts after the new incorporation.[16]

In a press release in November 2020, RT has referred to Maffick brand In the Now as an RT social media project.[17]

State media label and Facebook Lawsuit

In June 2020, Facebook labeled Maffick LLC's accounts "state-controlled" due to their connections to RT.[6] The company sued Facebook in the Northern District of California in July 2020 for defamation and monetary damages from lost internet traffic.[18][19][20] Maffick's case was dismissed after in was ruled that the company had not proven permanent damage and had largely not disputed Facebook's allegations.[21]

In July 2020, Twitter also started labelling Maffick content as “state-affiliated”. Naouai said she would contest this.[22]

Reception

NBC describes it as platforming

sophisticated English-language video and text content for years that experts say is edited and curated in a way designed to exacerbate American political tensions. A lot of it is aimed at younger viewers and the political left, designed to peel them off from the Democratic party, experts say. Some is tailored to gin up outrage on the right.[20]

Franklin Foer in The Atlantic says that In the Now "build[s] audiences with ephemera (“Man Licks Store Shelves in Online Post”), then hit[s] unsuspecting readers with arguments about Syria and the CIA."[23]

References

  1. ^ "Facebook Sued Over 'Russia State-Controlled Media' Label". www.mediapost.com. Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Griffin, Drew; Devine, Curt; Shubert, Atika (2019-02-16). "Russia is backing a viral video company aimed at American millennials". CNN. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  3. ^ a b Villasanta, Arthur (2020-11-15). "Russia's RT Slams Facebook For Suspending Anti-US, Pro-Kremlin Viral Video Channels". International Business Times. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  4. ^ "Welcome to wearemaffick.com". wearemaffick.com. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  5. ^ a b Binder, Matt (2020-07-30). "Facebook sued by news media outlet over 'Russia state-controlled' label". Mashable. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  6. ^ a b Daro, Ishmael N. (2016-12-16). "This Quirky New Viral Video Channel Is Funded By The Russian Government". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  7. ^ a b "How Russian propaganda evades YouTube's flagging system". NBC News. 2018-04-19. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  8. ^ Worrall, Patrick (2016-12-20). "FactCheck: Eva Bartlett's claims about Syrian children". Channel 4 News. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  9. ^ "5 Major Myths About Syria Debunked". HuffPost. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  10. ^ a b c @DFRLab (2018-01-30). "Russia's Bid for Millennials". Medium. Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  11. ^ a b Wiebe, Jan-Henrik (2018-10-18). "Wie russische Medien mitten in Berlin Meinung machen". www.t-online.de (in German). Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  12. ^ "Russia's Network of Millennial Media". Alliance For Securing Democracy. 2019-02-15. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  13. ^ "ICYMI and In The Now: The Support Vessels of the RT Flagship⁩". EU vs DISINFORMATION. 2018-05-07. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  14. ^ Birnbaum, Emily (2019-02-25). "Facebook restores previously suspended Russia-linked pages". TheHill. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  15. ^ a b "Facebook, FARA and Foreign Media". Lawfare. 2020-09-16. Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  16. ^ "RT WON MOST TOP PRIZES AT THE SHORTY SOCIAL GOOD AWARDS". RT International. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  17. ^ Courtlistener.com https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.363393/gov.uscourts.cand.363393.1.0.pdf. Retrieved 2020-11-02. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  18. ^ "Social Media Company Sues Facebook for 'Russia State-Controlled Media' Label - The Recorder". The Recorder. 2020-07-30. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  19. ^ a b "Russian-backed sites keep targeting U.S. voters after Facebook actions". NBC News. 2020-10-09. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  20. ^ https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.363393/gov.uscourts.cand.363393.29.0.pdf. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  21. ^ "Tech platforms struggle to label state-controlled media". Committee to Protect Journalists. 2020-08-12. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  22. ^ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/putin-american-democracy/610570/
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