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20. NBA’s China comeback: After a six-year timeout, the league looks to rebound
21. Have we passed peak social media?
22. The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America
23. Ancient Wisdom: A Middle Digit to the Digital Age
20. NBA’s China comeback: After a six-year timeout, the league looks to rebound
NBA’s China comeback: After a six-year timeout, the league looks to rebound
After a six-year hiatus following the 2019 backlash, the NBA returns to China. Industry observers say the league and its partners are recalibrating their approach to rebuild trust and navigate political sensitivities.
Bong Xin Ying
12 Oct 2025 06:15PM
(Updated: 12 Oct 2025 06:40PM)
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/nba-return-china-macau-games-2025-5396846
channelnewsasia.com
SHANGHAI: For Chinese basketball fans, the long wait is finally over.
The NBA returns to China after a six-year hiatus - staging two pre-season matches in Macau between the Brooklyn Nets, which is also owned by Alibaba chairman Joseph Tsai, and the Phoenix Suns.
The Venetian arena in Macau was packed to capacity on Friday night (Oct 10), with fans clamouring for live action.
Allen Xie, 29, Adidas Basketball’s global brand marketing manager, was among those in the crowd.
It was an “amazing fan atmosphere”, he told CNA, adding that there was a lot of brand presence and activities - “giving fans a great experience of basketball and the surrounding cultures”.
For fans, this is a return long overdue.
For industry watchers, it signals a cautious dribble back into one of the league’s most important overseas markets - following years of careful planning and recalibration.
Allen Xie previously with NBA superstar James Harden in Los Angeles in 2024. (Photo: Allen Xie)
“The China fans are some of our biggest supporters,” American basketball star Michael Porter Jr of the Brooklyn Nets told reporters on the sidelines at the arena.
“There are so many fans out here so I think coming out here and being able to play in front of them is definitely a blessing for us and for them.”
Phoenix Suns’ star player Devin Booker shared his excitement and hailed the importance of the NBA’s return to China.
“The game of basketball touches everywhere in the world, but especially in China,” the 28-year-old said.
“It’s super important (as) we have a big fan base out here in China, and we have Chinese players in the NBA.”
“Just seeing the reaction of the fans, their faces lit up just upon our arrival. So it’s important for us and for the league to be here in person and doing this.”
“They weren’t going to stay out forever. It was really a question of just how long and here we are,” Mark Dreyer, a Beijing-based media and sports analyst, told CNA.
Their return had been a year in the making, Dreyer said.
“They wanted to let the temperature come down,” Dreyer said, referring to the political fallout after a team official tweeted his support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
“That was 2019.”
Then the pandemic hit. “That was basically (another) three years,” he said, noting that it takes time to sort out scheduling and post-pandemic logistics.
The choice of Macau - a special administrative region - as the staging ground for its return was also a savvy, strategic decision, he added.
“It’s China, but it’s not,” Dreyer said. “If there's anyone who still harbours any ill feelings towards the NBA in China, they are not flying to Macau to protest.”
“The only people going (to the matches) are die-hard fans who have missed seeing their heroes in the flesh.”
A giant inflatable basketball stands outside The Londoner Macao, promoting the China Games 2025 pre-season matches between the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns at the Venetian arena, in Macau, China, October 10, 2025. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone… Siu)
2019 FLASHPOINT
One of the most successful cultural exports from the US, the NBA transformed basketball into a worldwide phenomenon and is hugely popular in China.
But a crisis arose in 2019 over a tweet. That October, then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters.
Although it was quickly deleted, Morey’s tweet triggered a wave of condemnation in China. Beijing’s reaction was swift and severe - suspending broadcasts of NBA matches and prompting Chinese sponsors to cut ties, costing the league hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Public opinion turned and the NBA soon found itself caught up in geopolitical fault lines.
Ardent basketball fan Jimmy Zhang from Shanghai has followed the league for more than 20 years, admiring NBA stars like Yao Ming and Jimmy Butler while rooting for teams like the Golden State Warriors.
Zhang, who once served in the Chinese military, found Morey’s actions deeply offensive.
“Those comments felt completely disrespectful,” Zhang told CNA.
“I made my stance clear,” Zhang said. “I stopped reading or watching anything (to do with Morey). I refused to give him attention.”
He added: “I’m 36, and many people my age, guys I used to play basketball with, barely follow basketball anymore. For fans in their 30s and 40s, family and work have taken priority, so some (lost interest) especially after the NBA disappeared from Chinese TV for a while.”
Before the controversy, the NBA was hailed as a model of success in China. Experts said it enjoyed two decades of regular preseason games, a growing Chinese fan base, and one of the largest overseas commercial ecosystems of any global sports league.
“They were the textbook case of success in China,” Dreyer said. “Up until 2019, the NBA was absolutely the gold standard, at least in the sports world, on how to do well in China.”
Considerable damage was done in 2019, Dreyer said, adding that the league’s own communication strategy over the incident had worsened the crisis.
In the days after the offending tweet, the NBA issued an English statement expressing “great respect for the history and culture of China”, while the league’s Chinese-language statement included the phrase “hurt the feelings of Chinese fans” - drawing bipartisan criticism in Washington, where both Democrats and Republicans accused the NBA of prioritising its commercial interests over free expression and human rights.
On the other hand, Chinese officials denounced it for falling short of a full apology.
“American fans thought the NBA was being far too submissive towards the Chinese government. The Chinese government clearly didn’t think they were being nearly apologetic enough. So effectively, they (angered) both sides.”
Rockets executive Daryl Morey became an unlikely flashpoint in US–China relations after his 2019 tweet on Hong Kong protests. (Photo: AP/Matt Slocum)
But all was not lost for the NBA in China, Dreyer said. Its presence never disappeared entirely, even after the backlash. “They didn’t lose everything. They didn’t go back to zero,” Dreyer said.
After matches were blacklisted on Chinese state broadcasters and major TV channels, fans turned to digital platforms like Tencent Sports to stream NBA content.
The league maintained a subdued commercial presence behind the scenes. Merchandising did not collapse and many deals were still active.
Dreyer also credits Joe Tsai, Alibaba chairman and Nets owner, as “playing a central role again in bridging both sides”.
The league recently announced a multi-year partnership with Alibaba, tapping the company’s AI and cloud capabilities to enhance digital fan experiences.
China remains the NBA’s most significant overseas market.
Before the 2019 controversy, Tencent estimated that nearly 500 million viewers - one-third of China’s population - regularly watched NBA content across its platforms.
ESPN reported that the NBA’s China operations had expanded into a US$5 billion business, recording double-digit annual growth since 2008 before the fallout.
Chen Bowen, a 28-year-old IT worker in Beijing, has followed the NBA since childhood and said it remains “very much part of pop culture here”.
“It really shaped how I viewed the US and its culture,” said Chen, who has studied in the US. He looks up to players like LeBron James.
LeBron James has long been the face of the NBA’s global brand - and a cornerstone of its enduring popularity in China. (Photo: AP/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
“He was a role model for me, motivating me through my studies and now in my career,” he added.
For diehard fans like him, the league never “truly left” China.
“True fans never felt distant from it,” Chen said. “We’ve always had ways to watch matches. Tencent Sports, for example, has been streaming NBA games for years,” he added.
But watching online didn’t bring the same satisfaction, Chen said. “It wasn’t the same - poor signals, lagging streams. Seeing games again on a big TV screen makes the action much more vivid - watching on a phone just can’t compare. So I was really happy (when it returned to China).”
Former basketball players Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming are seen before the Brooklyn Nets v Phoenix Suns match at the Venetian Arena, Macau, China on October 10, 2025. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
REBUILDING TRUST AND COURTING CHINA AGAIN
Wang Yuantao, a project manager at a Beijing-based sports marketing firm, believes the NBA’s real comeback in China began not with games, but with visits and appearances by star players.
“You could say that 2023 was the starting point for the surge of NBA players visiting China, right after COVID controls ended,” Wang told CNA.
That year, players like Gordon Hayward and Spencer Dinwiddie returned to promote new deals with Chinese sportswear brands such as Anta and 361 Degrees, Wang said, and since then, the momentum has only grown - with stars like LeBron James, Paul George and Draymond Green visiting not just for meet-and-greets, but as stars of wider brand campaigns tied to local tourism and culture.
“Many of these visits are now co-organised with local governments and other partners,” Wang said.
“They want to promote tourism and international sporting culture by funding events and incorporating NBA players into broader campaigns.”
For industry professionals like Xie, the return of live games marks a bigger moment for the sport’s growth in China.
It’s amazing that the “NBA is back”, he said. “China has a huge basketball audience and fan base. The NBA is better with games in China.”
Cities like Quzhou and Chongqing have hosted fan festivals and basketball clinics featuring NBA players, Wang noted. “Municipal governments strongly support these visits,” he added. “In many cases, government funding effectively sets the appearance floor fee.”
Jack Ma, actor Jackie Chan, former footballer, Inter Miami CF co-owner and Salford City co-owner David Beckham look on during the match. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
Observers have described NBA's saga with China as a lesson for foreign companies in striking a balance between business and free expression, and how sports and politics are intertwined, and why understanding the local context is crucial.
In the years since 2019, both the league and its partners have carefully adjusted their approach. While political sensitivities remain, public-facing efforts now emphasise cultural exchange, local engagement and goodwill.
“We avoid political sensitivities - not out of fear, but from a brand perspective,” Wang explained.
“We stay away from sensitive dates and phrasing. When we pitch, we use the visiting player as an anchor to convey that ‘Chinese strength’ can be expressed both inward and outward.”
He added that the focus has shifted from promotion to connection. “When players come to China now, they spend more time experiencing the country - showing that they’re not just here to cash in.”
Tours and appearances by NBA stars have underscored that approach, he added.
American basketball player for Denver Nuggets, Aaron Gordon, paid a visit to Bruce Lee’s ancestral home in Guangzhou back in 2023.
This year Serbian basketball player Nikola Jokić of the Denver Nuggets rode the high-speed rail while visiting Shijiazhuang, Hebei’s capital in July, while Draymond Green, a four time NBA champion for the Golden State Warriors, visited a war memorial in Quzhou in September.
“Player tours don’t just bring Chinese fans closer to their idols,” Wang said. “They also let global audiences see China through the eyes of the players they admire.”
Longtime fan Zhang sees the change as part of a broader evolution. “In the ’90s and 2000s, the NBA’s (image) was tattoos, trash talk and that street-gang vibe,” he said.
“It felt ‘tough’, but also a bit problematic for China. Now players like Stephen Curry, Luka Dončić and Jaylen Brown aim to project a more positive image as better role models - that aligns better with Chinese values.”
Dreyer said the NBA has been treading carefully but effectively in its efforts to win back China.
“You’re caught between two very different systems, East and West (so) some rules can be directly contradictory,” he said. “It’s very challenging.”
Still, he believes the league is better prepared now than it was back in 2019.
“They’re trying to build on a long history of success.”
Fu Zhenghao, a Beijing-based basketball commentator, told the Global Times on Thursday that the NBA needs to learn its lesson and make greater contributions to cultural exchanges between China and the US.
He said that at a time when bilateral relations are at a critical juncture, the NBA's engagement with China remains one of the most high-profile cultural exchange channels.
Fu was quoted as saying that “both sides should make full use of basketball's role as a means of communication to promote stronger exchanges between two countries”.
Others believe that the next step could be long-term investment on the ground.
“The NBA should invest in Chinese youth programmes,” Zhang said.
“Expose (Chinese youth) to NBA-style basketball and culture early and bring that into schools and training programmes - that’s how basketball here can really grow.”
Xie echoed that sentiment, saying the NBA’s presence in China still inspires.
“I don’t take it for granted that I get to work in the sport I loved since I was a kid,” he said.
“I’m always a fan of the game.”
channelnewsasia.com
21. Have we passed peak social media?
Excerpts:
It would be a hugely welcome development to discover that we have not merely reached social media saturation point, but that the experience has been degraded to such an extent that it has shocked people out of their stupor and is causing them to pivot to healthier uses of their time.
But that brings me to the catch. There is one notable exception to this promising international trend: North America, where consumption of social media’s diet of extreme rhetoric, engagement bait and slop continues to climb. By 2024 it had reached levels 15 per cent higher than Europe.
The evidence that social media causes harm is highly contested, but these debates often fail to account for how the platforms have fundamentally changed from places of connection to isolation and distraction. One of the strongest cases for harm is that time on these platforms is time away from nourishing interactions with other people. If that trend is reversing, it would surely be no bad thing. If it eventually spreads to America, even better.
Have we passed peak social media?
As platforms degrade into outrage and slop, users are turning away
John Burn-MurdochAdd to myFT
https://www.ft.com/content/a0724dd9-0346-4df3-80f5-d6572c93a863?accessToken=zwAGQDxeHbqwkdOgck3ZA0ZN89OA9dZXLJOoYw.MEUCIFB94eWZlPXXXrzOZ3FqOhpNFjiHsAUQQFBWZz8k2swSAiEA6S-s74WQw5qCX6-09maqCSs9li_YXaWaAKVFiUyZrVk&sharetype=gift&token=b6debbbe-a301-49df-b774-4b4adf29af26
Financial Times · John Burn-Murdoch
In years to come, we may well look back on September 2025 as the point at which social media jumped the shark and began rapidly accelerating its transition from the place to be seen (through a flattering Instagram filter), to a gaudy backwater of the internet inhabited by those with nothing better to do.
Both Meta and OpenAI have recently announced new social platforms that will be filled with AI-generated short-form videos. This assumes a reservoir of untapped demand for the ability to create and binge-watch yet more content, with a promotional video from OpenAI featuring absurd fantastical animations and deepfakes, hinting at some of what may be to come.
To use a nutritional analogy, this is ultra-processed content. Dopamine-dense, with at best negligible informational value, at worst corrosively negative.
There is sadly considerable appetite for this “slop”. It feeds people’s primal instincts, as evidenced by the multibillion-dollar industry of selling ads against videos of bizarrely soothing sights and sounds, people doing outrageous things, “food porn” and, well, porn.
But the gradual merger of the weird guilty pleasure corner of the internet with the major social media platforms — part of a years-long degradation — appears to be turning people away.
It has gone largely unnoticed that time spent on social media peaked in 2022 and has since gone into steady decline, according to an analysis of the online habits of 250,000 adults in more than 50 countries carried out for the FT by the digital audience insights company GWI. And this is not just the unwinding of a bump in screen time during pandemic lockdowns — usage has traced a smooth curve up and down over the past decade-plus.
Across the developed world, adults aged 16 and older spent an average of two hours and 20 minutes per day on social platforms at the end of 2024, down by almost 10 per cent since 2022. Notably, the decline is most pronounced among the erstwhile heaviest users — teens and 20-somethings.
In many ways, Meta and OpenAI’s new platforms (AI-generated content is already rife on TikTok and YouTube) are a fitting endpoint for social media’s warped evolution from a place where people swapped updates with friends and family, to one with less and less human-to-human interaction. We have now witnessed the transformation of social media into anti-social media with the progressive disappearance of most people from active participation on the platforms and the steady displacement of real-world interactions by scrolling.
Additional data from GWI trace the shift. The shares of people who report using social platforms to stay in touch with their friends, express themselves or meet new people have fallen by more than a quarter since 2014. Meanwhile, reflexively opening the apps to fill up spare time has risen, reflecting a broader pernicious shift from mindful to mindless browsing.
In the parlance of technology writer Cory Doctorow, late-stage social media is a particularly egregious case of the “enshittification” of digital platforms as they resort to ever more desperate methods to capture eyeballs. Many of these apps are no longer really social apps in any meaningful sense of the word; they’re screen time maximising apps, using whatever means necessary to eke out extra seconds and minutes.
It would be a hugely welcome development to discover that we have not merely reached social media saturation point, but that the experience has been degraded to such an extent that it has shocked people out of their stupor and is causing them to pivot to healthier uses of their time.
But that brings me to the catch. There is one notable exception to this promising international trend: North America, where consumption of social media’s diet of extreme rhetoric, engagement bait and slop continues to climb. By 2024 it had reached levels 15 per cent higher than Europe.
The evidence that social media causes harm is highly contested, but these debates often fail to account for how the platforms have fundamentally changed from places of connection to isolation and distraction. One of the strongest cases for harm is that time on these platforms is time away from nourishing interactions with other people. If that trend is reversing, it would surely be no bad thing. If it eventually spreads to America, even better.
Data sources and methodology
Every quarter since 2013 GWI has surveyed nationally representative samples of adults in dozens of countries around the world, asking a battery of questions including detailed breakdowns of how much time people spend on different digital platforms. GWI performed additional analysis for the FT, breaking down time usage data by age and region.
Financial Times · John Burn-Murdoch
22. The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America
Excerpts:
Naumovski has enjoyed connections with other Republican activists, such as Roger Stone, who endorsed him in 2023 on X: “I highly recommend that you follow @RumenNaumovski, the founder of Resist the Mainstream on Twitter. He’s a great guy! He was born outside the US but he loves America and he’s working hard to bring trusted news to everyday people.”
Before this year’s revelations, Naumovski himself repeated a similarly vague biography: “I was born overseas but have devoted my life to spreading the virtues of American freedom,” he wrote on X.
The issue of foreign interests influencing American politics through anonymous X influencer accounts is an ongoing one. Last year, federal prosecutors alleged that the conservative media company Tenet, which pays a network of major right-wing influencers like Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, was secretly being paid by Russian state operatives to disseminate propaganda to a large American audience. Johnson, Pool, and other Tenet content creators maintain they were unaware of the alleged Russian influence campaign and were victims of deceptions.
Interfering in American elections financially, however, is still one of the campaign finance violations that’s taken seriously and prosecuted, Ghosh says. “This is one of our bedrock campaign finance laws, to keep American elections working toward the goals of American public welfare, and not the opposite.”
The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America
The right loves the accounts, which often rail against supposed voter fraud. They’re run by a Macedonian who illegally donated to a U.S. House candidate
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/viral-maga-social-media-accounts-rumen-naumovski-1235441739/
By Jacqueline Sweet
Rolling Stone · Jacqueline Sweet
The right-wing information sphere on social media is shaped by large, often anonymous influencer accounts that are then amplified to even wider audiences by prominent conservatives. Two such accounts are Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream, both offering takes on American politics, often alleging corruption and election fraud by Democrats, to a combined over 2 million followers. Republican lawmakers like Mike Lee, Nancy Mace, Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, and Dan Crenshaw, along with major political figures like Elon Musk, share the accounts’ posts on X, some claiming that “illegals” or undocumented immigrants are fraudulently voting in American elections.
The owner and operator of both accounts, however, is not only a man who has by his own admission never stepped foot in the United States but has donated over $3,000 in an American election. Donating to American political campaigns as a foreign national is a federal crime, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Rumen Naumovski donated to Ron Watkins’ congressional campaign in Arizona in 2022 while living in Macedonia as a Macedonian national, according to FEC documents listing his name and a Florida media company that he owns, along with a review of his own statements detailing his attempts to immigrate to America. He runs Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream via that same Florida company, according to court documents and his statements, and someone with knowledge of his company.
Watkins later returned the donations, and Naumovski has said he was unaware he was prohibited from donating.
Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream are two major players in the right-wing influencer space on X and cover American politics almost exclusively. Defiant L’s in particular enjoys a major reach on the platform thanks to elected officials and Musk, who called Defiant L’s “one of the best accounts on X” last year.
South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace has shared multiple posts from the account, and even replied to Defiant L’s last month, on a post about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar that asked, “What’s the first thought that comes to mind when you see Ilhan Omar?” “Censure,” Mace replied. Utah Sen. Mike Lee often shares Defiant L’s posts, and in March tagged FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino in one reshare. Lee also interacts with Resist the Mainstream, at least five times this year based on a review by Rolling Stone.
Naumovski has been managing Defiant L’s via a Florida company since 2023, according to a source with knowledge of the account. Naumovski wrote this year that “Defiant L’s” is “one of our accounts” in an opinion piece for The Daily Wire. He uses that same Florida company to run Resist the Mainstream’s website and accounts, according to court documents. The two accounts are listed as “affiliates” of each other on X, a paid feature that allows a business to link more than one account with verified affiliate badges.
A year before obtaining Defiant L’s, Naumovski donated $3,127 in two donations to so-called “QAnon candidate” Ron Watkins’ congressional primary race in Arizona. Naumovski was reported at the time as being Watkins’ largest single donor that quarter — but that was years before it became known that Naumovski wasn’t just of Macedonian origin, but has never had residential status in the U.S., or even been to the U.S., according to his Daily Wire op-ed.
“I run a growing media company with 11 American employees. I’ve invested over $145,000 in the U.S. economy. I pay American corporate taxes. Yet I’ve never set foot in the United States — and government bureaucrats seem determined to keep it that way,” Naumovski wrote in February.
He explained that he attempted to get a tourist visa in 2018 but was rejected, and then his reapplication was approved in 2021. But Naumovski said he refused to show proof of Covid vaccination as required in 2021: “As a healthy young person, I hesitated. Friends here offered an easy solution — fake vaccination cards cost less than $50 in Macedonia. But I refused to begin my American journey with a lie. How long could waiting honestly really take?” He then tried for an E-2 business visa, but was rejected after repeated interviews by embassy staff, he claims in the piece, and to this day has never even been to the U.S.
In a podcast interview in October 2022, a few months after he donated to Watkins, he explained he was currently running his media company that he started in his bedroom in his parents’ home from “my own apartment in Macedonia.”
“Foreign nationals are categorically barred from spending money in our elections, whether it’s directly, via PACs or even SuperPACs,” Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center and former counsel at the FEC, tells Rolling Stone. Ghosh says that foreign donation schemes often happen via straw donors, or fake names, which are also prohibited, and that a foreign national donating under their own name is rare.
Filings from a 2024 copyright lawsuit brought by a photojournalist who alleged Resist the Mainstream repeatedly stole his work show that Naumovski claims 100 percent ownership of the Florida company that operates the two X accounts, Raww Digital LLC. The two Watkins donations both list the St. Petersburg, Florida, registered agent’s office where Raww Digital Inc. is located and Raww Digital LLC as Naumovski’s employer. The company was first registered in 2021, with Naumovski as sole owner with an address in Veles, North Macedonia. A month later, an amendment with a new principal address was filed, at the registered agent’s office in St. Petersburg.
Watkins is often speculated to be a source for the writings of “Q” — the mysterious figure fueling QAnon conspiracies for years. Watkins has long denied being “Q.” Watkins lost the Arizona Republican primary to Eli Crane, who has himself since amplified Naumovski’s content at least seven times. After Naumovski donated to Watkins, Watkins boosted Resist the Mainstream’s Telegram channel a week later, according to a screenshot obtained by Media Matters.
There is no indication of wrongdoing by Watkins or that he was aware of Naumovski’s location at the time. Watkins refunded Naumovski’s two donations in April 2022, as campaign finance law requires if a candidate unknowingly receives a donation from a foreign national. The FEC sent Watkins a letter in March 2022, a month after Naumovski’s donations, asking for more information about donors, after the campaign submitted a report with incomplete donor information.
Naumovski told Rolling Stone he was unaware that it was illegal to donate to an American campaign without a green card. He posted a statement in April 2022 on his Telegram channel about the incident: “Yesterday I learned I made a mistake. I gave an online contribution to a U.S. political campaign, not realizing that was forbidden to me as someone who had a U.S. visa, but not a green card. Within minutes of learning that I contacted the campaign, which is immediately refunding my payment. I love America and would never intentionally violate any measure. Live and learn!”
Watkins told Rolling Stone in an email that he does not recall Naumovski’s donations. “My 2022 Arizona campaign was very busy and ended more than three years ago. According to the FEC guidelines, federal campaign records have a three year retention period. It has been more than three years since the campaign ended, the three year retention period for campaign records has passed, and I do not personally remember details about specific donations. As far as I know there was no FEC investigation into this specific issue that you are alleging.”
The Media Matters 2023 review found that Watkins was only one of several QAnon-linked influencers to share Resist the Mainstream’s content, and the content appeared nearly identical. Some X users have alleged that they were approached by Naumovski to post his content for payment.
Naumovski did not respond to follow-up questions from Rolling Stone about whether he offered Watkins or other influencers payments to promote his company’s content, nor did he respond to questions about how he learned his donations were illegal.
A major booster of Naumovski’s career is former Fox News executive Ken LaCorte. LaCorte admitted to The New York Times in 2019 that he hired Macedonian teenagers from Veles, Naumovski’s Macedonian hometown, to write for several conservative content sites he ran beginning in 2017. Veles is known as the “home to a collection of writers who churned out disinformation during the 2016 presidential election in the United States,” the Times reported.
LaCorte has also written about Naumovski’s struggles to emigrate. ”I met Rumen when I was running a startup, and I needed help with social media. When we first spoke on Zoom, I was surprised to learn he was still a teenager, living in Macedonia, a country I couldn’t find without a good map, working out of a bedroom covered in L.A. Lakers posters. Since then, I’ve been both a friend and an adviser, helping him build his business and encouraging him through the U.S. immigration system,” he wrote on his Substack in February, a few days after Naumovski himself admitted he’s never been to the U.S.
“If he had simply walked across the border illegally, he would have received a work permit within months. He could have easily gamed the system — faked paperwork, overstayed a tourist visa, or ‘lost’ his passport. But because he played by the rules, he’s been stuck in limbo for years,” LaCorte wrote.
Naumovski has enjoyed connections with other Republican activists, such as Roger Stone, who endorsed him in 2023 on X: “I highly recommend that you follow @RumenNaumovski, the founder of Resist the Mainstream on Twitter. He’s a great guy! He was born outside the US but he loves America and he’s working hard to bring trusted news to everyday people.”
Before this year’s revelations, Naumovski himself repeated a similarly vague biography: “I was born overseas but have devoted my life to spreading the virtues of American freedom,” he wrote on X.
The issue of foreign interests influencing American politics through anonymous X influencer accounts is an ongoing one. Last year, federal prosecutors alleged that the conservative media company Tenet, which pays a network of major right-wing influencers like Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, was secretly being paid by Russian state operatives to disseminate propaganda to a large American audience. Johnson, Pool, and other Tenet content creators maintain they were unaware of the alleged Russian influence campaign and were victims of deceptions.
Interfering in American elections financially, however, is still one of the campaign finance violations that’s taken seriously and prosecuted, Ghosh says. “This is one of our bedrock campaign finance laws, to keep American elections working toward the goals of American public welfare, and not the opposite.”
Rolling Stone · Jacqueline Sweet
23. Ancient Wisdom: A Middle Digit to the Digital Age
Excerpts:
One of the temptations of old age is to view one’s earlier years as better. I’m not sure they were. But they were surely simpler. In Somewhere Towards the End, her excellent memoir on aging, Diana Athill writes: “We tend to become convinced that everything is getting worse simply because within our own boundaries things are doing so. We are becoming less able to do things we would like to do, can hear less, see less, eat less, hurt more, our friends die, we know that we ourselves will soon be dead . . . It’s not surprising, perhaps, that we easily slide into a general pessimism about life, but it is very boring and it makes dreary last years even drearier.” Ms. Athill invokes us to “not waste our time grizzling.”
Along with my wariness of the new technology brought in with the digital age, there is a certain nagging element of resentment.
A new word to me, “grizzling,” meaning “expressing tiresome dissatisfaction or resentment.” In lodging my complaints about the complications brought into life by the digital age, I hope I am not myself merely grizzling. I realize that I have much to be grateful for, not least, to begin with, for attaining old age. That I have been able to do so in decent health and able to continue to labor at the work I love can only be viewed as a double bonus. Every night I go to sleep, as the song instructs, counting my blessings, and awake with thanks for the gift of another day.
Still, yet, but, however, and nevertheless, I continue to find irksome the barriers put in the way of this alte kocker by digital culture in its various forms. “Time,” as Theophrastus says, “is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” The older one grows, especially, say, after reaching the age of 70, the more precious time seems. Not that I, for one, do not waste entire days watching sports and news and dopey old movies on television, and reading in a desultory way, but at least I waste it my way.
Plus ça change, like the man said, plus ça change, and the more things do change, the less this grizzling old dude likes it. Status quo ante is his ideal, his utopia—an ideal, a utopia, he realizes, he shall never attain in this lifetime.
Ancient Wisdom: A Middle Digit to the Digital Age
Why do I have to put up with all these computer shortcuts, which usually turn out to be longcuts? Now in my late 80s, time is running out, and I have no wish to spend it trying to connect with iCloud.
By Joseph Epstein
10.12.25 —
The Weekend Press
https://www.thefp.com/p/ancient-wisdom-a-middle-digit-to-digital-age-tech-culture?utm
thefp.com · Joseph Epstein
Welcome back to Ancient Wisdom, our Sunday series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. Last week, Maureen Ebel, 77, described losing her life savings in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme—and how she learned to “play the hand you’re dealt.” This week, the great essayist Joseph Epstein, 88, kvetches about dealing with technology in his 80s.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: The more things change, the more they stay the same. The author of this maxim is a justly forgotten Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. I write “justly,” for no words I know contain less truth than these. Plus ça change, plus ça change—the more things change, the more things change—is more like it. And no greater change has come about than the change toward the close of my lifetime—I’m 88, if you must know—brought about by the advent of personal computers, or what is known, collectively, as the digital age.
A few contemporaries of my acquaintance took a pass on computers, but I, a writer, a scribbling man, was in no position to do so. For so much in the realm of writing today relies on computers, not least the sending back and forth of manuscripts. To be sure, the computer has brought me many benefits. As a writer, I find revising compositions on my computer beats all previous modes of revision. Scores—make that hundreds—of times, Google has proved a splendid aide-mémoire. I’ve never looked to the computer for my main source of news, but I have found, and continue to find, many interesting items on The Washington Free Beacon, Substack, and elsewhere.
Yet the negative aspects of so-called digital culture are quite as great. Every time I turn on my computer I am directed to connect to iCloud. I have tried to connect to iCloud perhaps 30 times, but always without success. No more success than I have had in bringing Backblaze, the storage platform, up to date on my computer. Just yesterday I attempted to scan a document, and was informed that my scanner is not connected to my computer. Last week it was connected. Who in the hell, I wonder, disconnected it? When I am asked if I wish to update my computer, I invariably take a pass. Backdating it sounds much more attractive to me.
I listen to no podcasts, check only one blog, and steer well clear of any social media on my computer. I was for a time on LinkedIn, but find I am no longer able to connect with the occasional person who wants to link-in with me. Instead I am asked to check my user name and reset my password, which, when I attempt to do so, doesn’t seem to work. When asked for my username, it is now all I can do not to insert Enough Already, adding an email address that reads: screw.it@fmail.keepcom.
How much of all this—computer troubles, car and television worries, shopping difficulties—is owing to my being an older player? A lot, I suspect.
My wife, who is my contemporary, has given up on computers. I have inherited her Apple laptop, but she has forgotten the password allowing me to get on it. I keep a small red leather folder, given to me by the Mark Cross leather-goods company, with my all too various passwords in it—passwords that number no fewer than 32—but this one isn’t in it. I called AppleCare, and spent roughly an hour on the phone with a woman who, in the end, wasn’t able to help. I shall have to bring the laptop to an Apple store, in the hope that it can supply me with a new password. Ah, me, I worry about the day, perhaps not far off, when we shall all require passwords to use the toilets in our own apartments.
It’s not only in dealing with my computer that I frequently find myself stymied. I used to trade in my car every three years, but today I am driving an 18-year-old car, a black Jaguar S-Type. True, my Jaguar has only 57,873 miles on it, and its design is, I believe, more elegant than more recent models. But the real reason I have kept this car, and expect it, as the English say, to see me out, is that the technology of more recent cars, engineered more and more around computers, is more than I require or expect to be able to deal with. I prefer to put a key in my ignition to start my car, I’d rather not consult a computer to change gears, and I don’t require a voice to tell me to turn left at the stoplight. In short, I am wary—make that fearful—of the new computer-driven automobile technology, and will continue where possible to avoid it.
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My 11-year-old Sony television set not long ago went out. I bought a new Samsung set, and was immediately hit with new ways of saving programs; of using my DVD player; and of connecting to Netflix, Prime, and Apple TV+ shows that I had earlier mastered tuning into on my dear old Sony set. So complex have things become that an amiable gent from Geek Squad had to come out to install this new television set, at the charge of $100. Everything may be up to date in Kansas City, as the old song has it, but it sure isn’t with Joseph Epstein.
I do not often order things online, which, I note from the packages that arrive in the lobby of our building, my younger neighbors do much more frequently than do my older neighbors. I do order occasionally from Amazon and perhaps a bit more from AbeBooks, the used-book dispenser. But apart from these two companies, I have not had much success ordering online. Two weeks ago I attempted to order two shirts from Jos. A. Bank, the men’s clothing store. After roughly 40 minutes on my computer, which sent me back innumerable times to my iPhone to reset my password, username, and everything but my hairstyle, I gave up and called customer service to place my order. A customer service agent took 20 or so minutes to respond to my call, leaving me listening to jumpy music and a robot voice coming on every 40 seconds or so imploring me to stay on the line and reminding me how important my call was to them.
How much of all this—computer troubles, car and television worries, shopping difficulties—is owing to my being an older player? A lot, I suspect. For along with my wariness of the new technology brought in with the digital age, there is a certain nagging element of resentment. Why do I have to put up with all these computer shortcuts, which in my case usually turn out to be longcuts? Now in my late 80s, I feel, correctly, that time is running out for me, and I have no wish to spend any of it trying to connect with iCloud or waiting for an agent from customer service to pick up the phone and answer my call.
One of the temptations of old age is to view one’s earlier years as better. I’m not sure they were. But they were surely simpler. In Somewhere Towards the End, her excellent memoir on aging, Diana Athill writes: “We tend to become convinced that everything is getting worse simply because within our own boundaries things are doing so. We are becoming less able to do things we would like to do, can hear less, see less, eat less, hurt more, our friends die, we know that we ourselves will soon be dead . . . It’s not surprising, perhaps, that we easily slide into a general pessimism about life, but it is very boring and it makes dreary last years even drearier.” Ms. Athill invokes us to “not waste our time grizzling.”
Along with my wariness of the new technology brought in with the digital age, there is a certain nagging element of resentment.
A new word to me, “grizzling,” meaning “expressing tiresome dissatisfaction or resentment.” In lodging my complaints about the complications brought into life by the digital age, I hope I am not myself merely grizzling. I realize that I have much to be grateful for, not least, to begin with, for attaining old age. That I have been able to do so in decent health and able to continue to labor at the work I love can only be viewed as a double bonus. Every night I go to sleep, as the song instructs, counting my blessings, and awake with thanks for the gift of another day.
Still, yet, but, however, and nevertheless, I continue to find irksome the barriers put in the way of this alte kocker by digital culture in its various forms. “Time,” as Theophrastus says, “is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” The older one grows, especially, say, after reaching the age of 70, the more precious time seems. Not that I, for one, do not waste entire days watching sports and news and dopey old movies on television, and reading in a desultory way, but at least I waste it my way.
Plus ça change, like the man said, plus ça change, and the more things do change, the less this grizzling old dude likes it. Status quo ante is his ideal, his utopia—an ideal, a utopia, he realizes, he shall never attain in this lifetime.
Joseph Epstein is the author of, most recently, Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life and Familiarity Breeds Content: New and Selected Essays.
The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.
thefp.com · Joseph Epstein
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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