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The UK government has been paying YouTubers to pose as independent voices while promoting official state narratives. A new investigation by Declassified UK reveals that the British Foreign Office secretly funded foreign influencers to push pro-government talking points—without ever disclosing the source of the funding.
The operation was run through a London-based PR firm, Valent Projects, which paid influencers to produce videos supporting UK positions on the war in Ukraine, COVID-19, and foreign policy in the Middle East. We don’t know which ones because they were not named in the report. We do know that some were foreign language channels delivered in Arabic, Russian in addition to English. The influencers presented themselves as organic, grassroots commentators—but behind the scenes, they were following a script.
The UK does have laws requiring influencers to disclose paid content but the government sidestepped them by outsourcing the propaganda through private contractors. These contractors then paid foreign influencers—many in countries with weaker transparency rules—and bound them with non-disclosure agreements. Viewers had no idea the UK government was behind the messaging.
While Western media continues to hyperventilate over Russian and Chinese disinformation, they stay remarkably quiet when it’s the UK laundering propaganda through a network of influencers. That silence isn’t accidental—it’s complicity.