Before alleging fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community, right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley built a following with anti-immigrant clips.
The day after Christmas, far-right YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video claiming to have exposed fraud at Somali-owned day care centers in Minnesota. Portions of the 42-minute video — mostly scenes where Shirley is turned away at the day cares — went viral in conservative circles, catching the attention of the Trump administration, which was already at work targeting Minnesota’s Somali community amid its broader war on immigrants.
The video, which has been viewed more than 2.2 million times on YouTube and millions more on other platforms, sparked a renewed crackdown in Minneapolis, with the Department of Homeland Security announcing on Monday it would visit 30 sites suspected of fraud across the city.
This isn’t the first time the conservative YouTuber has gotten the attention of the Trump administration. Shirley participated in Donald Trump’s “Roundtable on Antifa” in October after an altercation at an anti-ICE protest. At age 23, his videos aren’t merely influencing his audiences — they’re also influencing government action.
He also made videos in Kyiv insinuating that the war in Ukraine doesn’t exist and that US aid money is going to buy luxury cars for Ukrainians.
When pushed about this in a live video chat, he backpedals, claims he never meant to push that narrative, and conclusively identifies his “reporting” as unserious and satire.
Great video. And infuriating. Hard to watch.
These fuckers exist and “influence” people in such bad ways.
what video are you referring to? is there a video link behind that new sites email paywall?
I’m pretty sure he’s referring to the video linked in my comment.
You know, the one he’s replying to?
Right up there? ☝️
thanks, im new to lemmy and brand new to this particular UI. somehow missed that.
😂 it’s ok. This one https://youtu.be/VaZYMeYWMic Great channel and journalist.
thanks, i’ll have a look
I’d love to see a lot of these little fuckers arrested. Benny Johnson ranks very high on my list.
I had to laugh that some of these assholes were all a-quiver over getting “Kirked” in the aftermath of that…it’s almost like they KNOW they are pissing off a whole lot of people and suddenly thought - holy shit - you mean I might have to face any consequences at all for the shit I do?
Not that I’m condoning violence mind you, but it was wild to see it suddenly dawn on them that their actions have real consequences, and it might involve more than just getting them money, “owning the libs” and giving Donvict a reach-around. It might involve negative consequences.
Imagine if those negative consequences involve going to fucking prison for their fraudulent bullshit. James O’Queefe taught a generation of even younger dickheads just how to do it, and now they don’t even need a platform like Faux to help them…I’d like to see some real consequences for their lies and deception - long prison terms and HUGE, debilitating fines, as well as clawing back all the money they make doing their “influencing”.
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Trump literally stopped all childcare funds to all states over this bullshit.
One fucking racist YouTuber making shit up about Somalis, and now nobody gets any money for childcare.
Imagine if we could just shitpost some nonsense about an oil company CEO and have a Democratic president just nuke all their subsidies within a day or two
This unironically needs to happen next so that dumbass MAGAs can see why the presidents behavior is…problematic? No no… the phrase I’m looking for escapes me - let’s go with “batshit fucking insane” for now, and come together to put an end to executive overreach.
Which is not to say there can’t be a debate about ending oil subsidies, mind you. Just that the president shouldn’t be able to make such broad knee-jerk unilateral decisions in response to shitposts. Or even non-shitposts.
It wouldn’t work. They are incapable of that kind of self reflection
Yep. It’d be a real shame if this asshole “influencer” were thrown in prison.
There should be criminal charges for this kind of reckless behavior and outright falsehoods. But then who makes the rules right? 🙃
What he’s doing would be considered slander in a developed country.
In the US you almost need to be able to get a written confession from someone spreading slander for it to hold up on court, though.
I do agree that deliberately spreading misinformation that translates to real political or societal consequences should be illegal. Then again, that’d mean all Republicans and establishment Dems would be in jail for life, so such laws won’t happen here.
When I checked earlier, it looked to me like it would be libel because it is a more or less permanent, published piece of media.
I said what I said because our slander and libels laws are a joke now thanks to Trump.
Did he get any money from Russian sources, I wonder?
These assholes just cannot stop lying about literally everything, why do we tolerate this behavior.
yet another “women are to blame for me never getting a date” loser, punching down in order to feel like a big man
this little creep was groomed by his mom into this line of work. hes no idea what hes talking about at any point in any of his stupid and hateful videos. shame on his mother and shame on him.
It’s always the white guys that look like it would be. The “master” race y’all.
Always makes me think of this…
I’m thinking he’s a racist as well.
Water is wet.
Freedom of speech is a bitch.
Edit: I didn’t mean it like that, y’all. I meant it at face value. It sucks that this turd gets a free pass to spew crap.
This is an indictment of free speech at least the way the US handles it.
I suspect you come from the right wing perspective, so you’re satisfied with bad faith reporting that may be carelessly or even recklessly indifferent to truth or nuance - or even knowingly false - because it serves the purposes of the Republican Party and in particular MAGA/Trump (including distracting from his increasingly obvious pedophile past). However you will not be in support when the next one comes along and leverages the speed of virality against plodding legalistic and good-faith journalistic systems to work against your interests.
In short, you’re too shortsighted to see why supporting this is damaging to you as well.
No I edited my reply. I’m am absolutely not rightwing, just stupid in communicating my thoughts.
Yeah, fuck right off with that bullshit. You’re rights only extend far enough to not interfere with anybody else’s rights. This jackass absolutely deserves to face consequences.
