The Rise of Bigot America Thread

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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 20, 2019 12:38 pm

A Maryland man arrested on federal interstate threats charges after saying he wanted to exterminate Hispanics wrote: "I thank God everyday President Donald John Trump is President and that he will launch a Racial War and Crusade" against people who aren't white.

The FBI arrested an open neo-Nazi Trump fan for allegedly threatening to "exterminate" every Hispanic person in Miami and trying to wire someone $25,000 to kidnap a Miami woman and stuff her in a Rubbermaid plastic tub.

Feds Arrest Neo-Nazi Trump Fan for Threatening to "Exterminate" Miami Hispanics
Jerry Iannelli
August 20, 2019
The 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Washington resident Eric Lin was not shy about his love for Adolf Hitler. According to a criminal complaint filed Friday, Lin sure loved referencing the Third Reich in writing — since he apparently sent a litany of Hitler-referencing death threats to a victim in Miami and got himself arrested last week after he threatened to wire a man $10,000 to beat up a Hispanic woman in Miami, hatched a plot to kidnap her and stuff her in a plastic bin, and repeatedly threatened to kill every single Hispanic person in Miami.

"The time will come when Miami will burn to the ground — and every Latin Man will be lined up against a Wall and Shot and every Latin Woman Raped or Cut to Pieces," Lin allegedly wrote on August 8.

Lin, age 35, is originally from Clarksburg, Maryland but was arrested Friday in Seattle and charged with making threatening communications online. Lin appeared in Seattle federal court for this first time this morning. He has not yet entered a plea.

According to an affidavit from a Miami FBI agent filed in federal court, Lin was not shy about putting his violent threats in writing. Between May and August of this year, Lin allegedly fired off a litany of hateful, pro-Trump, pro-Hitler, and demonstrably violent Facebook messages directed toward Hispanics living in Miami — messages that wound up in the hands of the FBI.

Per the FBI agent's affidavit, an alleged victim — an immigrant from Spain identified only as "C.I." — contacted the Miami Police Department to alert law enforcement that Lin had been sending her threatening messages from two different Facebook accounts since May 30. On July 24, Miami PD alerted the FBI. The feds then interviewed C.I., who provided 150 printed pages of the utterly insane litany of racist, violent messages Lin had allegedly sent. The informant said Lin had at one point frequented the Miami restaurant where C.I. worked.

Among many terrifying messages, C.I. said that on May 30, Lin sent a photo of himself with an image of Hitler superimposed over his own face.

"Composite of my face with the Führer and Reichskanzler Deutschland," he allegedly wrote. The informant, C.I., also told the FBI that Lin had whipped out the same photo in the restaurant where C.I. worked, too.

From there, the messages got far more hateful and violent. Lin repeatedly said he wanted to "kill" and "exterminate" Hispanics, who he referred to repeatedly as "Spics." In one case he called Hispanic people "rabid dogs." In another, he said he would let C.I. "live so you can slowly watch me destroy your entire race."

"In 3 short years your entire Race your entire culture will Perish only then after I kill your Spic family I will permit you to die by hanging on Metal Wire," [sic] Lin allegedly wrote on June 7. The next day, he told C.I. he planned to "enslave, rape, and use you like a baby-making machine. Once I'm finished with you I might just get rid of you like a piece of trash." The same day, he allegedly also said he'd kill C.I. with a rifle while carrying a neo-Nazi dagger used by the SS.

The messages only continued. He allegedly said he wanted to "exterminate" the "worthless Latin race." On July 9, he sent more Nazi-referencing threats: "By the authority of ADOLF HITLER AND GOD I HEREBY DECLARE SPANISH AND ALL SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE ILLEGAL," Lin allegedly wrote. He then followed that up by stating, "that's ALL I NEED AUTHORITY FROM ADOLF HITLER TO ACT. I FOLLOW ONLY ADOLF HITLER AND THEN GOD. THEY ARE ONE AND THE SAME." He again threatened to kill every Hispanic person in Miami and at one point told C.I. he wanted to "drink your blood until you die."

The messages then got into pro-Trump territory: On July 19, Lin allegedly wrote:

I thank god every day Donald John Trump is President and that he will launch a Racial War and Crusade to keep the Niggers, Spics, and Muslims and any dangerous non-White or Ethnically or Culturally foreign group "In Line." By "in Line" it is meant that they will either be sent to "Concentration Camps" or dealt with Ruthlessly and Vigorously by the United States Military.

The FBI then obtained a search warrant to hunt through Lin's private accounts. The feds found even more terrifying details — Lin had apparently been hatching plans to pay someone to hurt or kidnap C.I. while he'd also been DMing her.

"Hey Chris, I was wondering if you could do me a favor?" Lin allegedly wrote on July 10. "I was wondering if you can go to Miami and beat up this Spic who insulted me. I can pay you $10,000."

"Sure, pay me first Paypal or Zelle," the alleged accomplice responded.

Days later, Lin seemingly changed his tune — instead of simply beating up C.I., he instead wanted "Chris" to kidnap her, stuff her in a Rubbermaid plastic bin, and transport her against her will all the way to Seattle. Lin wrote:

The Plan is you and Mara convince her that you are Rich White Americans people she looks up to. And then get her into a rented house or mansion and chain her up and put her in a Rubber maid Plastic Bin. Then you got to drive her to Seattle, Washington, upon which I will pay you $25,000 cash. You don't need to kill her her [sic] hurt her at most you will be charged with Kidnapping. Nothing will happen to you if you get the Right lawyers She's a Spic who Hates White Americans... I doubt the FBI would care much about her.

The same day, he added: "I don't care if I have to Pay you a Million Dollars or More I want this Done!"

Thankfully, Lin never got the chance.


https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/neo- ... s-11247579
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Aug 20, 2019 3:35 pm

Grizzly » Mon Aug 19, 2019 9:49 pm wrote:
The whole goal of the elites, Democrats, Republicans, the Senate, the House, people of considerable power and influence, the CIA, 3 letter agencies is to Divide us on every arbitrary issue that doesn’t matter to keep us from noticing the one that does: Wealth


True dat. But with an addendum - anyone who would purport that bigotry is an "arbitrary issue that doesn’t matter" does so out of one of the most sickening side effects of Wealth: White Motherfucking Privilege.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby Iamwhomiam » Tue Aug 20, 2019 5:08 pm

Grizzly wrote:
The whole goal of the elites, Democrats, Republicans, the Senate, the House, people of considerable power and influence, the CIA, 3 letter agencies is to Divide us on every arbitrary issue that doesn’t matter to keep us from noticing the one that does: Wealth


They're sure as hell getting great mileage out of White Supremacy, that's for sure. What's the body count so far?

Revoke White Motherfucking Privilege

Makes a great sign for the times.

Some people are slow in coming to understand the American dream is one big nightmare sprinkled here and there with a few moments of tranquility.
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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby Grizzly » Thu Aug 22, 2019 1:19 am

Side note reminder: that even if you got an absolutely insane job that paid your $3600 an hour, you would have to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, for over 30 years to become a billionaire. put that in your pipe/vape and think on it..
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby 8bitagent » Thu Aug 22, 2019 5:33 am

I don't get why so many of these White Nationalist/nazi would be terrorists idolize Trump. Just today Trump called himself the King of the Jews. If there is one group the alt right/nazis/WN hate, it's anyone remotely seen as "Jewish".
Trump will do anything for Saudi Arabia and Israel, loves Kanye West and ASAP Rocky(two black hip hop artists), and is the only Western leader who idolizes and props up the communist Asian regime of North Korea. So why do "White Nationalists/Nazis" love Trump? Trump has more than qualified as a virulent 1969 George Wallace figure, but it's a weird dichotomy. Trump at once wants to appeal to his racist base, yet also wants to be seen as "a true friend to non whites". It's so schizophrenic

It's funny, if there is a unifying "doctrine" to modern hate groups and extremists online, it's the 1999 movie "The Matrix". Particularly the "red pill" moment.
In the wake of Warner Bros announcing The Matrix 4 happening soon, I'm reminded that "The Matrix" the racist far right and neo Nazis idolize so much...it's a film produced and financed by a Jew(Joel Silver), written and directed by two transgender women, and starring a part Asian actor and Black actor. The "red pill" thing is literally from a black actor.
These nazis are clowns, if the consequences weren't so deadly.
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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Aug 22, 2019 5:20 pm


emptywheel

Bill Barr is rushing to come up with an explanation for how Epstein was allowed to kill himself [that doesn't involve taking responsibility for not acting on the understaffing after he admitted knowing about it in April].

So Nadler will have an opportunity soon to ask abt VDARE.
https://twitter.com/emptywheel


The Justice Department Sent Immigration Judges A White Nationalist Blog Post With Anti-Semitic Attacks
“The post features links and content that directly attacks sitting immigration judges with racial and ethnically tinged slurs,” a union chief said in a letter.

Hamed Aleaziz

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images
Attorney General William Barr
“The post features links and content that directly attacks sitting immigration judges with racial and ethnically tinged slurs,” a union chief said in a letter.

An email sent from the Justice Department to all immigration court employees this week included a link to an article posted on a white nationalist website that “directly attacks sitting immigration judges with racial and ethnically tinged slurs,” according to a letter sent by an immigration judges union and obtained by BuzzFeed News.

According to the National Association of Immigration Judges, the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) sent court employees a link to a blog post from VDare, a white nationalist website, in its morning news briefing earlier this week that included anti-Semitic attacks on judges.

The briefings are sent to court employees every weekday and include links to various immigration news items. BuzzFeed News confirmed the link to a blog post was sent to immigration court employees Monday. The post detailed a recent move by the Justice Department to decertify the immigration judges union.

A letter Thursday from union chief Ashley Tabaddor to James McHenry, the director of the Justice Department’s EOIR, said the link to the VDare post angered many judges.

“The post features links and content that directly attacks sitting immigration judges with racial and ethnically tinged slurs and the label ‘Kritarch.’ The reference to Kritarch in a negative tone is deeply offensive and Anti-Semitic,” wrote Tabaddor. The VDare post includes pictures of judges with the term “kritarch” preceding their names.

Tabaddor said the term kritarchy is a reference to ancient Israel during a time of rule by a system of judges.

“VDare’s use of the term in a pejorative manner casts Jewish history in a negative light as an Anti-Semitic trope of Jews seeking power and control,” she wrote.

Tabaddor called on McHenry to take immediate action over the distribution of white nationalist content.

“Publication and dissemination of a white supremacist, anti-semitic website throughout the EOIR is antithetical to the goals and ideals of the Department of Justice,” she wrote. The court, Tabaddor wrote, should immediately withdraw the email and issue an apology to all immigration judges, including those mentioned in the post.

“Separately, EOIR should take all appropriate safety and security measures for all judges given the tone and tenor of this posting,” she wrote.

After publication of this article, a DOJ spokesperson told BuzzFeed News the email briefing was compiled by a contractor and should not have included a link to the VDare post.

“The daily EOIR morning news briefings are compiled by a contractor and the blog post should not have been included," the spokesperson said.

A former senior DOJ official said that the email in question was "generated by a third-party vendor that utilizes keyword searches to produce news clippings for staff. It is not reviewed or approved by staff before it is transmitted."
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ha ... ationalist
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby Grizzly » Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:06 pm

lost me at... emptywheel
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:08 pm

your loss

and I put Marci there just for you
The Justice Department Sent Immigration Judges A White Nationalist Blog Post With Anti-Semitic Attacks

State Department confirms alleged leader of white-nationalist group is an employee, won't say if he'll be fired
https://www.businessinsider.com/state-d ... yee-2019-8
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby Iamwhomiam » Fri Aug 23, 2019 3:21 pm

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/23/alt-right-book-trump-1472413

The alt-right manifesto that has Trumpworld talking

An anonymous book author has lit the online right on fire — including some in the president’s orbit.

By BEN SCHRECKINGER

08/23/2019 05:03 AM EDT

(Note: Audio broadcast of this article at link ~ Iam)

The most important political book of the past year just might be a grammatically challenged manifesto in favor of nude sunbathing written under the pen name Bronze Age Pervert.

Where Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” inspired generations of libertarians to enter politics, and Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” did the same for idealistic liberals, a cohort of young, right-wing men are today gravitating toward “Bronze Age Mindset.” The self-published book urges them to join the armed forces in preparation for the onset of military rule.

Since its publication in June 2018, the book has gained a following online, and its author, known to his fans as BAP for short, has come to the attention of notable figures on the Trumpist right. Earlier this month, the book was the subject of a 5,000-word review by Michael Anton, a conservative intellectual who served as a spokesman for Donald Trump’s National Security Council. Anton concludes by warning, “In the spiritual war for the hearts and minds of the disaffected youth on the right, conservatism is losing. BAP-ism is winning.”

Anton is just one of the Trump world figures who has taken notice. "It’s still a cult book,” said another former Trump White House official. “If you’re a young person, intelligent, adjacent in some way to the right, it’s very likely you would have heard of it.”

Right-wing agitator Mike Cernovich said he knows of young staffers in the White House who are fans of Bronze Age Pervert’s Twitter account — where the author posts photos of buff, shirtless men and promotes far-right positions on the culture war — though he does not know if they have read the book.

The 200-page book mixes Nietzschean philosophy with critiques of contemporary Western society, denigrating homosexuality, Judiasm, Islam, feminism and much else along the way. “Inside every noble Greek was an unquenchable lust for power,” is one fairly typical statement. “Modern world not bad just because modern,” is another, displaying the author’s habit of lapsing into broken English by dropping articles. The book claims that the leaders of the European Union have “tiny moleman eyes.” Many of its passages are profane and unprintable.

The book’s ascendance in online, far-right circles is indicative of the latest phase of the culture war that has fueled Trump’s presidency.

Most of the well-known figures associated with the alt-right or “alt-lite” — Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Richard Spencer — have been successfully demoralized, deplatformed or otherwise banished from the public square. But this has not eliminated the underlying source of their relevance: disaffected young men, mostly white, with internet access.

In large part, what’s left in the online spaces they inhabit are pseudonymous figures like Bronze Age Pervert, whose output tends to be more intellectualized, even esoteric.

While the loose alt-right network that became infamous in 2016 was filled with attention-seeking provocateurs who cheered on Trump’s rise, the new voices in this space are alienated and ambivalent about Trump. And far from being inspired by his signature call to “Make America Great Again,” their view of contemporary American society is decidedly dystopian.

Bronze Age Pervert is active on Twitter in a network of similar, pseudonymous accounts with names like Just Loki and 17thCenturyShytePost that revel in mythic, aristocratic pasts while trafficking in racism and anti-Semitism.

The memes — catchy ideas and images that are widely shared online — produced in such far-right internet circles, such as Pepe the Frog, regularly intrude on mainstream political discourse, sometimes even getting adopted by Trump himself. And the current fixations of these figures offer a glimpse of the concepts gaining traction there.

Figures in this space frequently refer to their belief that elite media is preparing Americans for a future in which their quality of life is greatly diminished and they are reduced to eating insects for protein.

“What is up with all these ‘we need to learn to eat cockroaches and maybe each other haha’ articles,” tweeted Just Loki on Wednesday, linking to a Newsweek article referencing cannibalism. “Perfect beer food—wash down your meal worms with a nice IPA!” tweeted 17thCenturyShytePost sarcastically in response to another article about eating insects earlier this month.

And because this corner of the internet fixates on population genetics and has a high affinity for Slavic and northern European cultures, there is a fascination with the Udmurt people, a small ethnic group that lives mostly in Russia, and the fact that a high proportion of its members have red hair.

The accounts also oppose mass migration, echoing the themes of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory invoked by the gunman who perpetrated the Christchurch, New Zealand, massacre, and apparently again by the El Paso shooter. The idea, articulated in a 2011 book by the French writer Renaud Camus, claims that European elites are secretly conspiring to replace their countries’ white majorities with immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

In his book, Bronze Age Pervert describes Western societies as ruled by “bug men” and “lords of lies,” urging readers to pursue a life of “sun and steel” — that is, tanning and weightlifting.

Across 77 chapters of cryptic musing, the book describes social justice as “disgusting parasitism,” opines that women who succeed in traditionally male domains are “spiritual lesbians,” and complains that the U.S. intelligence services employ too many Mormons.

Anton, in his review, earnestly reckons with the book’s critique of Charles Darwin and notes that at one point it cracked the top 150 bestsellers on Amazon. Anton writes that the book was given to him by Curtis Yarvin, an internet philosopher who writes under the name Mencius Moldbug, favors a return to monarchy and reportedly communicated with Steve Bannon through an intermediary while Bannon was in the White House.

After encountering the book’s intentional spelling and grammar mistakes, Anton gave up on it until former White House speechwriter Darren Beattie urged him to read it in its entirety. Beattie was fired from Trump’s White House last year after it was revealed he spoke at a 2016 conference attended by Peter Brimelow, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a white nationalist. Beattie, who denounced the firing as guilt-by-association, now works as a speechwriter for Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a close ally of Trump’s in the House.

Much like the Trump phenomenon itself, it can be difficult to tell where to place “Bronze Age Mindset” along the spectrum between elaborate joke and deadly serious. Reached via direct message on Twitter, Bronze Age Pervert, declined to discuss his real-world identity. In a rambling note, he said he was influenced by a book about homosexuality in the Nazi army and claimed, “I’m largely responsible for the Trump administration's push for universal worldwide sodomy promotion,” an apparent reference to the administration’s campaign to abolish laws that criminalize homosexuality. (This appears to be a joke. A source close to the White House who is familiar with the initiative scoffed at the claim.)

Satirical nonsense aside, events such as recent mass shootings inspired by far right ideas, as well as acts of violence by believers in the fantastical QAnon conspiracy theory, underscore the gravity of this corner of internet culture.

“There’s a whole generation of younger guys who are reading this and buying into this, but there aren’t a lot of paths to channel that constructively,” said one organizer on the Trumpist right, who declined to be named in an article that contained the term “alt-right.”

“Insofar as people are worried about radicalization on the right towards violence, one of the things I worry about is this generation of younger guys are going to conclude there’s no space for them or their voice in the political process, and the only way they can express themselves is in these ugly, corrosive ways,” the organizer said. “In my opinion, the way to help these people is not to turn them 180 degrees, but to turn them 15 degrees.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/23/alt-right-book-trump-1472413
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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby Grizzly » Fri Aug 23, 2019 4:44 pm

BAP:

Description:
The Atlantic named this author as possibly Steve Bannon's contact in the White House (Rosie Gray, The Atlantic Feb 10 2017: " 'Think you should speak directly to my WH cutout / cell leader,' Yarvin said in an email. 'I've never met him and don't know his identity, we just DM on Twitter. He's said to be ‘very close’ to Bannon...Goal is to intimidate Congress with pure masculine show of youth, energy. Trump is said to know, will coordinate with powerful EOs…"); and a recent Vox article (Tara Isabella Burton, Vox June 1 2018) claimed that he is the "text" to Jordan Peterson's "subtext," and a "distilled" form of Peterson. Distilled means purer: yes, so why not read and understand the purer version? T. I. Burton also adds in this article that this author BAP is a kind of priest-king to thousands on Twitter and outside and is possibly leading a spiritual reawakening. Some say that this book, found in a safebox in the port area of Kowloon, was dictated, because Bronze Age Pervert refuses to learn what he calls "the low and plebeian art of writing." It isn't known how this book was transcribed. The contents are pure dynamite. He explains that you live in ant farm. That you are observed by the lords of lies, ritually probed. Ancient man had something you have lost: confidence in his instincts and strength, knowledge in his blood. BAP shows how the Bronze Age mindset can set you free from this Iron Prison and help you embark on the path of power. He talks about life, biology, hormones. He gives many examples from history, both ancient and modern. He shows the secrets of the detrimental robots, how they hide and fabricate. He helps you escape gynocracy and ascend to fresh mountain air. The pricing, he insisted on against all advice. It refers to the lucky 969 Movement of Burma, led by the noble monk Wirathu. Praise be to the Pervert. Praise be to his teaching of peace. Be careful.


I don't know about a "Spiritual War", but I assure you there's a psychological one going...
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

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Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:15 pm

ᴸᵁᴸᵁ ᴸᴱ ᴹᴱᵂꜝ


This is a short clip from a talk @cpicciolini gave at
Google in May of 2017.

I urge everyone to take an hour to watch or listen to the entire video (link in thread) but parents, please watch this 2min clip & hold onto your hats https://twitter.com/LuluLemew/status/11 ... 0073931777
10:23 AM - 4 Sep 2019


“The risk of radicalization may be higher for children, who do not have the tools to distinguish between accurate or misleading information.” …
Show this thread


Sep 4

2015: According to @cpicciolini, Neo-Nazis are using "nefarious tactics," like visiting depression and mental health forums and playing multiplayer games to recruit vulnerable young people.…
Show this thread

Back then it was one recruit at a time.

“It took me standing in an alley, but the internet has changed that,” @cpicciolini told The Independent.


Show this thread

Full video
https://youtu.be/ri1ySULEI64

Look for the helpers...
Please support the efforts of @cpicciolini and @FreeRadicalsOrg to extract people from violent extremist groups.

(Sharing is caring)

You can learn more about The Free Radicals Project at http://HateIsNotAHoax.com #HateIsNotAHoax

The Trump admin eliminated funding for #DE_radicalization programs like @FreeRadicalsOrg, despite the well-documented rise of #domesticterrorism & warnings from experts—even from those in his own admin.

Personal Msg from @cpicciolini
http://HateIsNotAHoax.com | #HateIsNotAHoax


How #altRight memes are indoctrinating Gen Z (opinion)
https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/vb5b ... ram-tiktok
Show this thread

With white supremacists emboldened by Trump's rhetoric and a lack of a serious federal law enforcement mandate, Author, advocate, and former white supremacist @cpicciolini explains…

Full video


https://twitter.com/LuluLemew/status/11 ... 1235513349


how alt right memes are indoctrinating gen z
Neo-fascists are using social media platforms to spread racism, homophobia, transphobia and sexism.


Instagram meme accounts are a balm. In today’s political climate, where every news story feels apocalyptic, logging in to the ‘gram to get your daily dose of lolz feels more essential each day. But nestled in among those innocuous pictures of dogs, celebrities and other wholesome content, something darker lurks.

“Some of the memes I see on Instagram are just shocking,” says Camille White, a 16-year-old from London. She says that while scrolling through her feed, she often encounters more sinister memes, specifically racist, homophobic, transphobic and sexist jokes. “They make bigoted behaviour seem okay,” she adds, “when in reality it’s not.”

Camille isn’t alone with these experiences on Instagram. For years, toxic and offensive memes have proliferated on social media. During the 2016 presidential election, it was Pepe the Frog who populated online. Pepe’s journey from harmless illustration to the favoured amphibian of the alt-right is well documented, but as researchers at Cornell University discovered last year, the spread of edgy, conservative memes extended beyond platforms like Reddit and 4Chan and on to more mainstream sites like Twitter and Instagram. “Fringe web communities have the power to twist the meaning of specific memes,” wrote co-author Emiliano De Cristofaro, a professor at UCL, “change their target context, and make them go viral on mainstream communities.”

According to De Cristofaro, these memes have been used as a “tool of political and ideological propaganda''. Worryingly, Camille feels that this has had a profound effect on her peers. “Alt-right content has desensitised a lot of my generation,” she says. “It’s definitely politicised people I know and others to develop quite right-wing views.”

While certain research suggests that Gen Z are set to be as liberally minded as millennials, this isn’t a given. A recent survey conducted by Business Outsider found that many weren’t sided as either liberal or conservative. They also discovered that social media, specifically Instagram, was how many young people consume their political commentary and news. This in itself isn’t concerning, but when you see how easy it is for alt-right content to propagate you have to worry about the influence these platforms have over our political beliefs.

Toxic and inflammatory memes seem designed to sow disillusion. But more specifically, they’re utilised to indoctrinate people. Josh Citarella, an artist from New York whose work has focused on the politicisation of memes, explains that there’s a cycle that this follows. Teens, he says, start off by posting a “Pepe-style meme in the style of [right wing commentator Ben Shapiro] that is inflammatory,” before going on to post memes, often (unbeknownst to them) aimed at to spread or ferment right wing and even fascist opinion.

This isn’t helped when YouTubers like Jacksepticeye and PewDiePie – who recently became the first solo YouTube creator to hit 100 million subscribers – seemingly endorse and even utilise, politically incorrect and even racist rhetoric.

When teens are called out for sharing these memes by their peers or even authority figures, there’s a sense of shame or embarrassment. This shame soon turns into bitterness against the system dictating what’s right and what’s wrong. This is compounded by the fact that Gen Z have more complex opinions when it comes to political correctness, with the Pew research centre suggesting that many feel that people are too “easily offended these days over the language that others use”. Nevertheless, as one 18-year-old told Business Insider, “A big part of this Instagram culture is just being, like, edgy and anti-PC, just for the sake of it."

For Citarella, any backlash against sharing these sorts of memes can lead people who are my age, and who might be apolitical, to “question the mainstream narrative – leaving them susceptible to new alt-right narratives”. This isn’t helped when YouTubers like Jacksepticeye and PewDiePie – who recently became the first solo YouTube creator to hit 100 million subscribers – seemingly endorse and even utilise, politically incorrect and even racist rhetoric. Theirs is the sort of worrying use of far right language and humour that, when presented to their millions of fans, can easily normalise it.

What’s worrying is that resistance and rejection of right wing content being shared can lead to a slippery slope. When people’s comments are labelled too extreme for Instagram and even Reddit, they head to more disturbing platforms such as 4chan and 8chan. And as we’ve seen over the past year, that can lead to tragic and horrific consequences.

While not every case is that extreme, examples of young people’s radicalisation are everywhere online. A 2019 piece in New Statesman profiled one 14-year-old female YouTuber, Lieutenant Corbis, who has 600,000 subscribers and whose “satirical” content, which is often racist and misogynistic, mirrors the humour used by those on the alt-right. “Gen Z have a very refreshing and interesting set of ideas,” she told Eleanor Peake, the New Statesman’s social media editor.

A search online brings up numerous horror stories of people in my generation becoming indoctrinated by the alt-right through memes and online content. This story in the Washingtonian details one mother’s story of her 13-year-old son’s descent into far-right political beliefs. Another mother of three, Los Angeles-based writer, media critic Joanna Schroeder, wrote a viral Twitter thread following the shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, about the radicalisation of young white boys through social media and memes, and what parents can do to intervene. “Propaganda makes extreme points of view seem normal by small amounts of exposure over time,” she wrote, “all for the purpose of converting people to more extremist points of view.”

Of course, it’s unfair to paint all teens with the same brush. 16-year-old Diana Khodurskaya agrees that there’s a toxic meme culture, but that there are limits. “People my age are mature enough to know it’s just a joke,” she says, “and we are less influenced by the slur-filled content than people younger than us are exposed to.”

With memes becoming alt-right propaganda, our digital spaces mutating into breeding grounds for hate speech, extremist content and harmful material. But it’s not too late to stop it.

Lizzie Riazanski, another Gen Z teen, agrees. “I’m old enough to distinguish between what’s offensive and what’s not, and what’s appropriate to say in public, and what’s not,” she argues. “I feel my generation is mature enough nowadays to see something offensive online and not take it seriously.”

Nevertheless, as is evident by reports and the experiences of people like Camille, these memes do have an impact on people of my generation. And for Camille, it’s the social media platforms themselves that have a duty to do something about it. “They need to take some form of action to stop more alt-right content on being spread,” she says. “They really aren’t doing enough.” Citarella believes that deplatforming is the answer, too. “Temporary bans depoliticise people,” he explains. “They won’t post this stuff if they lose contact with their friends [and followers].”

Indeed, as we’ve seen with the fall of popular alt-right figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos and and the banning of Alex Jones’ InfoWars channel from YouTube and Facebook, deplatforming works. As Vice reported last year, studies have shown that banning toxic content online from sites like Reddit means that there’s less hate speech elsewhere on the platform. Likewise, as The Verge reported, when neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer was dropped by the webhosting site Go Daddy, its influence dipped, too.

Citarella also suggests that more left-wing counter messaging can be used to combat the deluge of far right content. People like YouTuber like ContraPoints, a left-wing transgender content maker, present left-wing talking points in a fun, informative and entirely engaging way, using sketches and philosophical thinking. She uses fake debates with herself, presenting the right-wing talking point and combating it with impactful liberal talking points. Not only is her content funny, but it is genuinely educational. The progressive movement needs to utilise this to its advantage and use it to combat Gen Z indoctrination.

Equally, it’s important that young people’s voices and perspectives are being heard on how they’re complicit in sharing right-wing content, or how they’re helping combat it. As a 16-year-old myself, I feel the internet should be a safe haven for my generation to speak with our peers. Instead, the opposite is occurring. With memes becoming alt-right propaganda, our digital spaces mutating into breeding grounds for hate speech, extremist content and harmful material. Clearly, it’s not too late to stop it. The power is in our hands and it’s our responsibility to act now.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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