A mysterious far-right publishing company from Wyoming has quietly set up at least two channels on Roku, chock full of on-demand conspiracy theory films and political propaganda.
The channels seem to be in direct violation of Roku's distribution agreement for its channel operators, which states that they can't publish content that contains "false, irrelevant or misleading information.”
Roku press reps had no comment for Next TV Friday when we reached out to them at CES 2023 in Las Vegas.
Rightway LLC was registered in Sheridan, Wyoming in January 2021. On Sept. 1, it launched Conspyre TV on Roku, a channel full of amateurish shows focused on widely debunked QAnon-inspired conspiracy theories including "PizzaGate" and vaccine misinformation.
These shows, which list names like "Mr. Truth Bomb" as producers, are preceded by short far right propaganda interstitials and ads, such as one that cuts sound bites from President Joe Biden, making him appear doddering and lecherous.
"Conspyre is our answer to the failing legacy media, bringing you a growing collection of truth tellers who dig into every rabbit hole," Rightway says in its logline for the channel. "Independent citizen journalists use broad global networks powered by social media to collaboratively filter the internet for news and information, and you can find their voices here."
On Dec. 5, Rightway also published another very similar channel, Burrow, featuring much of -- if not all -- the same content found on Conspyre TV.
First reported on by Media Matters earlier this week, Burrow is, like Conspyre TV, located among Roku's educational channels, and is logo'd by a rabbit jumping into a hole.
In keeping with The Matrix-inspired marketing themes of creatively challenged far right conspiracists everywhere, Rightway bills Burrow as the "red pill network," urging users to "follow the white rabbit."
In December, the company appears to have published a number of YouTube videos, meant to appear as though they were from casual YouTube creators newly discovering Burrow, promoting the new channel and showing users how to find it and download it.
Media Matters also uncovered a very amateurish audio segment, a come-on for user funding published on Telegram by what seems to be one of the Rightway founders. The narrator states that Burrow is costing its operators $4,500 a month and that his partner "can't afford that."
If they can't come up with some advertising revenue, pronto, the narrator said that Burrow "will shut down."
He calls out for any "patriot businesses out there" to buy 30-second ads that run before Burrow conspiracy videos. "Let us know if you know anyone [who would advertise,] or if there's anything you're seeing on podcasts, any Alex Jones stuff ... any patriot advertising, like food storage rations..."
Published on Dec. 25, the segment said that the Burrow Roku channel is "blowing up" and had been downloaded 200,000 times in its first three weeks on Roku.
"There's TikToks and pictures all over the internet," the narrator adds.
Under the terms of Roku's video advertising agreement, publishers like Rightway must set up their own server and deliver 30% of their advertising inventory to Roku, for which the platform retains 100% ownership of sale proceeds.
Roku reps did, however, tell Next TV that the platform isn't currently receiving ad revenue from Rightway channels, perhaps because there's no inventory to recoup yet.
