Now, Democrats hope that the secretive Chorus Creator Incubator Program, funded by a powerful liberal dark money group called The Sixteen Thirty Fund, might tip the scales. The program kicked off last month, and creators involved were told by Chorus that over 90 influencers were set to take part. Creators told WIRED that the contract stipulated they’d be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program. Some creators also raised concerns about a slew of restrictive clauses in the contract.

Democrats: dark money is bad, we need to repeal Citizens United, and require disclosure of campaign spending

also Democrats: what if we had a dark money group and used it to pay influencers, with the condition that they couldn't disclose we were paying them

According to copies of the contract viewed by WIRED, creators in the program must funnel all bookings with lawmakers and political leaders through Chorus. Creators also have to loop Chorus in on any independently organized engagements with government officials or political leaders.

“If I want to work with another politician, I have to fully collaborate with them,” said one creator who was offered the contract but ultimately declined to take it and asked not to be named. “If I get Zohran and he wants to [do an] interview with me, I don’t want to give that to them.”

Creators in the program are not allowed to use any funds or resources that they receive as part of the program to make content that supports or opposes any political candidate or campaign without express authorization from Chorus in advance and in writing, per the contract.

absolute boomer-brained shit. people thrive on platforms like TikTok because of their authenticity. this group wanted to completely co-opt the content creators, remove all their independence and authenticity, and hope the audience didn't notice.

Progressive YouTuber and former Media Matters staffer Kat Abughazaleh, who’s running for Congress in Illinois, was pictured on Chorus’ website and included in fundraising decks without her consent. She asked that her image and name be removed and no longer used for fundraising purposes.

absolutely infuriating. fuck these people.

--

edit - this breaks down how fucking stupid Chorus is in even more detail: Why Dems Keep Screwing Up Media Efforts

each of these bullet points is expanded on in more detail, but if you had a really good tattoo artist, I think you could tattoo just the bullet points onto the foreheads of the people involved in setting up this Chorus bullshit.

1. Most political consultants are not media experts, and overwhelmingly, they do not understand how to build trust with audiences.

2. Because these things are run by political people and not, say people with newsroom experience, they wildly underestimate the importance of transparency in building trust, and wildly overestimate the downside of disclosure.

3. As a function of this, they think media and advertising are the same thing, and that traffic and audience are the same thing.

4. The content is all too often bad commodity content.

5. Along those lines, Dems need to stop being condescending to influencers and other media people they work with. As a corollary: Dems need to stop being control freaks.

6. We need to try things knowing that most of them will fail, and be much more risk tolerant with content. This is how we innovate.