Tucker Carlson's pro-Russian hoaxes and the reason for their zero cost among his followers

American journalist Tucker Carlson is making it clear how unethical his profession can be.

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A machine gun of hoaxes whose obvious purpose is to discredit Ukraine

Two years ago, I wrote here about his departure from FoxNews after making false statements that cost the network an astronomical $787.5 million. I also talked then about his openly pro-Russian positions and the lies he had been spreading against Ukraine, lies that have continued in increasing numbers and reaching grotesque extremes.

On January 31, Carlson made a show of how much he does not care about spreading lies, accepting any lie he finds to discredit Ukraine and favor Russia in this war started by the Putin regime. In an interview with Piers Morgan, which now has 1.4 million views on YouTube and 3.4 million views on Twitter, Carlson acted like a machine gunner of hoaxes, making 74 claims false, many of them aimed at discrediting the president of Ukraine and justifying the Russian invasion ordered by Putin. Basically what Carlson has been doing for a few years, but now without any shame.

The origin of the hoax about the resale of weapons from Ukraine to Mexican cartels

In that interview, one of the lies Carlson spreads is that Ukraine resells its weapons — specifically "half the missiles they get from the United States, the Mexican drug cartels, and Iran, and everyone else in the black market." As with all his other lies, Carlson provides not a shred of evidence to support his claims. He doesn't care. He knows that any lie he tells against Ukraine will be uncritically repeated by his followers, because they only believe what they want to believe.

The reality is that military aid sent to Ukraine is being strictly monitored by allied countries. Any resale of such military equipment would be easily detectable, but so far there has not been a single news story indicating that such a thing has happened. And by "news" I mean serious news. Carlson’s hoax about alleged resale of weapons to Mexican cartels was first spread in 2023. Milenio, a Mexican television network, claimed that a cartel member had been filmed using a Javelin missile. The news anchor stated that this type of missile was being used in Ukraine. From then on, based on a poor translation from Spanish to English, pro-Russian propagandists began to spread the lie that this missile came from Ukraine, something that the Mexican media outlet had not said.

A strategy of intoxication by saturation

This has been the norm for pro-Russian propagandists since Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014. They spread false claims without any evidence to back them up. These are often lies that are easy to debunk and also easy to track. Russian propagandists are not shy about spreading such hoaxes: when one is debunked, they are already on to the next, and so on. The obvious goal of this strategy is to flood social media with false information to benefit Russia, knowing that many people will spread it without bothering to verify it.

It must be said that Ukraine is not the only victim of these hoaxes. Many of them are directed against other allied countries. A month ago I already pointed out here that Poland has already tracked more than 1,400 Russian hoaxes against the Poles, in a massive disinformation campaign that goes beyond the purposes of mere political propaganda.

The role of GRU Unit 54777 in that campaign

As I noted here in November, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU) has a group specifically dedicated to spreading disinformation, Unit 54777, which is the GRU's main psychological operations division. The group has an extensive network of organizations and websites that spread disinformation from a single headquarters in Moscow at 13 Krzhizhanovskogo Street, Building 2, Russian opposition media outlet Meduza reported in an extensive, detailed account of the intelligence unit’s activities. Many of the hoaxes shared by pro-Russian propagandists like Carlon originate with Unit 54777, making the disinformation campaign one of the largest intelligence operations in recent times.

The reason why these hoaxes cost Carlson nothing among his followers

Of course, for Carlson to spread these lies has no cost to his audience, because the vast majority of his followers are predisposed to swallow any nonsense that coincides with their opinions on this war. It must also be said that the growing discredit of traditional journalism makes the task of Carlson's types easier.

The militant attitude and poor professional ethics of many media outlets on political issues, demonizing conservatives and displaying an increasingly blatant bias against any opinion that does not coincide with progressive theses, have pushed many into the arms of Carlson and people like him, who have as few scruples as many journalists from the ideologically opposed side to them, but at the same time present themselves as the salvation of many conservatives against hegemonic progressive journalism.

Obviously, the alternative to the lack of ethics of progressive media cannot be a lack of ethics among conservative media. The discredit of traditional journalism should not serve as a pretext for unscrupulous people to take advantage of it. It is useless for a media outlet to opt for a conservative perspective, in the exercise of its right to opt for a certain editorial line (just as left-wing media do), if this is done from an absolute lack of rigor and professional ethics. Tucker Carlson is a clear example.