PAY DIRT
Epoch Times Advertiser Deletes Facebook Page After Hacking Inquiries
It’s not clear how the page ended up in the possession of The Epoch Times, an increasingly popular conservative news source in the U.S.
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/Getty
Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
A North Carolina real-estate agent who says his Facebook account was hacked years ago was surprised to learn this week that a page he previously used to market local listings was now being administered by a popular conservative media company with ties to Chinese dissident groups.
The Facebook page, titled The News Express and boasting nearly a million subscribers, housed dozens of advertisements encouraging users to subscribe to The Epoch Times. It was one of a handful of vaguely branded Facebook pages used in recent months to market the newspaper, generally with appeals to supporters of President Donald Trump.