The Labor Party are using YouTuber Friendlyjordies, with 1.35 million followers on YouTube which averages about 250,000 views per video, to push Labor’s propaganda.
That’s fine if Friendlyjordies, real name Jordan Shanks, wants to do that but when he starts attacking independent media who expose Labor Party corruption then a light needs to be shone on what Friendlyjordies and his team are really doing and how they are doing it.
Friendlyjordies published a video about a month ago titled “Whinge Merchants” and he spends 52-minutes having a crack at about “3 dozen” YouTubers who have the audacity to shine a light on Labor Party lies and corruption.
What “Whinge Merchant Jordan” doesn’t say in his 52-minute rant is that he has made $millions from Labor Party supporters over the last few years since the start of his battle with former NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro.
Friendlyjordies Patreon supporters grew rapidly from approximately 1500 to around 5000 supporters during his battle with John Barilaro and then there is also over $1 million Jordan raised for “legal fees” for his defamation defence against John Barilaro, and I wonder were that ended up.
I came across the Friendlyjordies video after I had a look at the Punter’s Politics channel and watched his video “My Response to Friendly Jordies”. Punter’s Politics believes he was one of Friendlyjordies targets and responded. (Click here to watch the video)
I don’t know if I was meant to be one of the “3 dozen” targets but I write a lot about the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and Friendlyjordies tried to defend it and he attacked it’s critics and I am one of its biggest critics.
In the Friendlyjordies video he also accuses the “Whingers” of making things up and using “dishonest attack points”. So, I thought I should respond.
Friendlyjordies have done some good work which I have written about numerous times, but now they are blatantly pushing Labor Party propaganda and lies for a few dollars, trying to silence people, and they have overstepped the mark and need to be exposed.
Friendlyjordies’ “Whinge Merchants”
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp also reports “news”. But they also slip in plenty of propaganda as “news” when it suits Rupert Murdoch’s agenda of making money and having power.
Given the below video, Friendlyjordies has clearly decided to use Rupert Murdoch’s business model.
Jordan spends the first 50-minutes of the video telling lies and deceiving viewers and then spends the last 2 minutes telling viewers what a hero he is and that they should donate more money because he is a hero.
The below video was published just before the Queensland state election which was on the 26th of October 2024.
The irony is that Friendlyjordies doesn’t stop whinging about the Greens in the video and the obvious reason for that is it was published just before the Queensland election and Labor were worried about losing seats to the Greens.
By taking on anyone who is critical of Labor, Friendlyjordies will quickly become known as a Labor Party troll or Labor Party propagandist or Labor’s own version of Sky News.
Labor is happy to use misinformation which they wanted to legislate to stop voters from doing.
Some video analysis
Friendlyjordies starts off saying the video is “Bad tasting medicine that no one is really going to like. But its only aimed at about 3 dozen people.”
I would argue that the video is aimed at more than 5 million people and is an attempt to silence people from utilising their right to political communication.
Friendlyjordies talks about the “3 dozen” YouTubers feeding their audience what they want and that is exactly what Friendlyjordies is doing in the video with his lies and propaganda for the Labor Party.
If the Labor Party had such a great record Jordies wouldn’t have needed to spend half the video attacking the Greens.
Friendlyjordies attacks the “3 dozen” for saying “Both major parties are corrupt” and he uses a picture of Kathy Jackson later in the video, as per below, showing how Labor put a corrupt union into administration in 2012.
But that would have to be the own goal of the century and shows how dishonest and dodgy Jordan Shanks and his Friendlyjordies crew are.
Bill Shorten’s crime gang have been hit with civil charges by the Fair Work Commission for stealing from the HWU (HSU) in August this year and will also likely face criminal charges over a $2.7m ghost printing scheme.
Money that was stolen from a branch of the same union, HSU, that Bill Shorten put into administration in 2012 and I have reported on the fraud and theft since 2016. (Click here to read more) But Friendlyjordies makes no mention of the recent charges in his video.
Friendlyjordies uses former Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen to prove coalition corruption. Why? He hasn’t been Premier since 1987.
Friendlyjordies then rants about how Labor saved the day in Queensland and how great former Premier Wayne Goss was. Why doesn’t Jordies use a current Labor Premier as an example of how great Labor are or at least one who was Premier this century?
Friendlyjordies would not have a clue about Queensland politics in the 1980’s and 1990’s and half the video would have been scripted by Jordies’ mate Kevin Rudd who was Wayne Goss’s chief of staff.
In the video Jordies even says “He has spoken to people off the record who knew about Qld corruption under Joh” and later says Kevin Rudd “remembers the dark days of QLD well”.
Friendlyjordies has done numerous interviews with former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd including one 4 years ago as per the below screenshot. Every time Kevin Rudd does a video for Friendlyjordies I would suspect his donations would go up from hardcore Labor supporters.
How does Jordy know Kevin Rudd “remembers the dark days of QLD well”? Because Kevin Rudd helped script the video of course.
Friendlyjordies has to look back 40 years in Queensland for his examples. Why? Because NSW Labor are rotten to the core and have been for a long time. Jordy tries to skim over NSW Labor in the video with lies.
Federal Senator David Pocock is one of the best anti-corruption politicians in Canberra and in the video Friendlyjordies has a swipe at him not for anything he has said but because he is a former Rugby Union player. It is a pathetic attack and achieves nothing but undermines Friendlyjordies’ credibility.
Defending the NACC
Friendlyjordies defends Labor because they set up the NACC. But Jordies uses quotes from barrister Geoffrey Watson taken out of context to support the NACC and Jordy barely mentions the Robodebt scandal.
Friendlyjordies video was published before NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton was found to have engaged “in officer misconduct” and 90% of Australia would say Brereton has to go. I wonder what spin Jordies would put on it now.
Jordies defends the NACC’s secret hearings but not even his hero barrister Geoffrey Watson supports the secret hearings.
In fact, Jordies is about the only journalist / commentator that supports the secret hearings yet he is happy to use the evidence from the public corruption hearing by the NSW ICAC into former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian in his video.
Other claims by Jordies in the video are:
1. He claims Labor is doing well. (I assume at the federal level)
2. Jordies puts the Liberals above the Greens. Why? The Greens have never had power federally or in any state government.
3. Jordies says “We have a zero tolerance policy to corruption in the Labor Movement”. So, he admits he’s part of the Labor Party?
4. Jordies claims Labor is not corrupt but apparently everyone else is.
The bottom line is YouTuber Friendlyjordies has attacked other YouTube journalists and commentators for having the hide to hold the federal Labor government to account which Friendlyjordies only pays lip service to.
The Labor Party brought in the kids social media ban, tried to pass misinformation laws to silence the public and now have Friendlyjordies telling people not to whinge about Labor.
Why are the Labor Party so scared of social media and new online media?
A lot of people watch Friendlyjordies videos for entertainment not because they care about the reliability and/or bias of the content, so he won’t lose many of those viewers. But plenty of viewers would also believe the content is factual and many of those viewers will start to ask questions if they haven’t been already.
Friendlyjordies has a number of staff, but Jordan Shanks is the face of the business and has to take the heat for the good and bad.
I’ll record and publish a video on the above either Sunday afternoon or Monday on the KCA YouTube channel here.
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Categories: Kevin Rudd
FJ has become a whiny little ego driven wart on social media, but because he played the game and seems to have been a victim at one time, he is able to monetise that.
He reminds me of ALP student politics on campus where the President has his little clique of fanboys and keeps getting re-elected – until he has to actually leave the safety of University and go out in the real world, but he then conveniently falls into a staffer role because of his efforts on campus… FJ is playing the game for FJ’s benefit…
None of this surprises me and I haven’t subscribed to his videos for about 2 years. As a Greens voter, I’m sensitive to the ridiculous, undeserved sledging of the Greens, who I believe are the best of a bad bunch and perhaps the only party that actually works for the people, and Shanks has been doing Labor’s work of sledging the Greens for ages. Spreading Labor’s lies… He’s just another propagandist.
Thank you, KCA. I used to watch Friendly Jordies when they criticised the then LNP regime, but gave up on them once Labor gained power, and could do no wrong.
IMHO it is the job of journalists to hold to account whoever is in power.
I used to like FJ, and they’ve done some great work in the past, but I find the apparently close friendship with Isaac Butterfield disturbing. I was also really disgusted during an interview with Rudd, they had some kind of gun toting doll that Rudd giggled about & shot in the direction of Gillard and Swan. The pettiness of the man just makes me roll my eyes out of my head.
I have been a patreon for a long time now, and follower of both you and Jordies. I think there’s some fair criticism of Jordies and I think there’s some fair criticism of the likes of Punters politics too. I don’t see how the headline is warranted given it sounds like Labor is actually paying him, literally. Like he gets patreons based off his anti liberal party videos- does it really mean he’s getting paid by the liberal party? A little disapointed if I’m honest Shane.
A lot of Friendlyjordies supporters come from the Labor Party since his battle with John Barilaro started as I point out in the article.
Friendlyjordies also raised over $1million for his defamation battle with Barilaro but only paid Barilaro $100,000. Where did the rest go and a lot of that would have come from Labor supporters.
As I also point out in the article having the likes of Rudd in Jordies YouTube videos helps raise money from Labor supporters.
You should be disappointed with Friendlyjordies for attacking others like he has.
Fair enough. I just think it’s a bit disengenious to write a headline saying “Labor pays” clearly implying Labor party is paying Jordans directly and now you’re saying that’s just youtube/patreon money from potentional labor supporters. It read to me like you are alleging something direct and have evidence for it.
The question about the legal defense fund is a valid one, did you reach out to him for comment on this? I do remember Jordan mentioning it a few times too.
I think there’s plenty of things to criticise him on and some of them you’ve brought up here, but the headline/article is clickbaity/misleading in my opinion.
I’m not upset at what you call an attack (what I would call criticism, like your article!), just disappointed in the misleading headline.
Regardless, what’s one more misleading headline on the internet these days huh?
Keep it up and take care.
I don’t think the headline is misleading because at the very last Friendlyjordies video is targeted at Labor supporters because he wants their money.
And hos much of the $1 million came for the Labor Party or via affiliated Unions? Did they get the money back given Jordies only spent a small amount?
Yep left his site once he started attacking the Greens for their housing policy vision. He calls himself Friendly, Yep he is not a friend of independent journalism, ethics or having independent thought, it seems he has become brainwashed and that is what the major parties do to you when you are a member.
Agreed. Once a Snake always a Snake.
Friendly Jordies was good for a laugh, which i did when I first started watching him for his Forever Indoctrinated and Aunty Educated, School Boy Ego Trips or Word Salads Telepromter Scripts. Keven writes for him. but then you realise the enuendo and cheap shots are aimed at the viewer for having your own opinion and standards when unsubscribing. Unsubscribers are the target imho.
Time to get back to emphasis on local communities and local Government and STOP being copy cat Yank behaviours.
This is NOT the Australia that so many gave their lives for, and worked without the thought of $$ recompense in their communities, but to see their communities grow and Oz be strong and individual.
KCA, you are sincerely appreciated!!!!!. The dam is starting to crack.
Is this ignoramus not aware that Brian Burke the Labor Premier of Western Australia was jailed for corrupt behaviour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Burke_Australian_politician)
Or Tripodi, Obeid, MacDonald and many others? Death to the two party system.
FJ has become a labor shill, he has always been on labor side, but not to call out the absolute BS that labor have done in the last term shows he has lost he independent credibility.
Punter’s Politics is even more annoying than FriendlyJordies.
I always took him with a grain of salt, especially with his anti-Green vendetta. Commentators like him are only good if they are holding their ‘opposition’ to account. No good with Labor governments.
Unbelievable!!! Well not really that seems to be best way of becoming rich these days. Even complete morons are making money with their social media videos because we watch them because we hate them!???
As soon as the word $1,000,000 was in any of the articles/comments about FJ it was obvious he’s joined the “Minions making millions” from us tax payers, he’ll probably be offered a job and instant promotion and be in a political position soon.