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It's responsible research intended to give police, politicians, and citizens a clue about the new communication techniques of the hard-right. > Thinking of f

It's responsible research intended to give police, politicians, and citizens a clue about the new communication techniques of the hard-right. > Thinking of far-right extremism, we might associate this with backward-looking, stiff and formal zealots who act on the fringes of the political spectrum. Yet, the skinhead image has long been overcome and, in fact, also more recent phenomena like the Identitarians have lost traction throughout Europe. As farright extremists strategically merge with online cultures, their approach changes drastically. In fact, they have learned the lesson that if — in our digitalised societies — a movement wants to be successful, it needs to be entertaining and participatory. In fact, a shared sense of humour has become an effective tool in terms of immersing individuals into extremist ideologies and, as a consequence, contributed to some of the worst acts of violence in the 21st century. Having people become aware of these emerging memes BEFORE a flash mob of pepe-basement-dwellers shows up in their city is a good idea.

icare_1er 5y ago
Talking about which, did those "conspiracy theories" (the alt-right killing a cop using fire-extinguisher in the capitol, or Trump being a KGB agent), falls in the category of "misinformation", or is the left somehow excluded from that list ?
- nbcfhnb 5y ago
  Why is this downvoted? Both of the theories this post references were taken up by mainstream sources and both were totally fabrications. The claim about Brian Sicknick was vcompletely fabricated. If you downvoters are unaware, the story about someone dying on Jan 6th via fire extinguisher was a complete lie; the guy actually died of a stroke at home the next day for completely unrelated reasons and was unharmed at the riot. And people like Maddow claimed for months if not years that Trump was a Russian agent, and we now know for a fact that this was never the case and the rumors were started by the FBI under direction of Obama (this was at the same time the Obama administration declined to charge Clinton, mind you) based on intel they knew was false, and because of the investigation launched based on justification from the same known-false evidence God I'm so tired of explaining this, but seriously, the biggest conspiracy theories of the last decade were promulgated on the pages of "trustworthy" traditional media, and all you have to do is look into the news stories after they leave the headlines to find out how things turned out when time passed and reality finally came to light
  - crispyambulance 5y ago
    It's downvoted because the issue at hand here is NOT "parity" between left and right conspiracy theories. The issue at hand is that there's a problem with resurgent "alt-right" (or whatever you want to call them) extremist groups that have demonstrated a potential for violence as well as infiltration into trusted organizations like the police. They have taken up new aesthetics, symbologies and memes. It's important for people to recognize these new appearances and what they actually signify.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      Violence has been coming from both alt-right and alt-left groups. There is a valid case for countering violent extremism in general, but focusing solely on one side of it is quite unproductive.
      - abricot 5y ago
        Nope. Dont Even try.
  - codyswann 5y ago
    >> we now know for a fact that this was never the case and the rumors were started by the FBI under direction of Obama Source?
LocalChapter 5y ago
The "hard-right" is normally bored teenage boys that are trolling for laughs and don't actually believe any of this stuff. There is a meme online currently that says "My political opinions are based on who I am trolling". As for Pepe being a far-right meme. It never has been one. That was misinformation to stir up a moral panic and push for censorship. The Pepe has also been used by Hong Kong protesters, (IIRC) the yellow vest protesters in france and loads of other pro-democracy freedom groups outside of the west. e.g. https://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer5/2019/10/03/9521875/952184701000100980653no.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer5/2019/10/03/9521875/95218...
- sofixa 5y ago
  > The "hard-right" is normally bored teenage boys that are trolling for laughs and don't actually believe any of this stuff. You should tell the actual hard right parties like RN, AfD, UKIP and co. that
  - LocalChapter 5y ago
    I was specifically talking about the memers that are talked about in this document. I've spoken to a lot of the guys that post the memes in this article. They just do it to troll people. I don't know about the other parties. But UKIP until recently wasn't associated with the far-right at all. I have family members that are were part of UKIP. So I've met a lot of members over the years and most are disillusioned Conservatives. I have no idea what the party is currently doing though. The reason such parties are growing and gaining interest is because other more mainstream parties will constantly shy away from discussing thorny political issues.
- thefz 5y ago
  > As for Pepe being a far-right meme. It never has been one. Feels Good Man is exactly about this. ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394182/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394182/ )
  - LocalChapter 5y ago

icare_1er 5y ago

Talking about which, did those "conspiracy theories" (the alt-right killing a cop using fire-extinguisher in the capitol, or Trump being a KGB agent), falls in the category of "misinformation", or is the left somehow excluded from that list ?

nbcfhnb 5y ago
Why is this downvoted? Both of the theories this post references were taken up by mainstream sources and both were totally fabrications. The claim about Brian Sicknick was vcompletely fabricated. If you downvoters are unaware, the story about someone dying on Jan 6th via fire extinguisher was a complete lie; the guy actually died of a stroke at home the next day for completely unrelated reasons and was unharmed at the riot. And people like Maddow claimed for months if not years that Trump was a Russian agent, and we now know for a fact that this was never the case and the rumors were started by the FBI under direction of Obama (this was at the same time the Obama administration declined to charge Clinton, mind you) based on intel they knew was false, and because of the investigation launched based on justification from the same known-false evidence God I'm so tired of explaining this, but seriously, the biggest conspiracy theories of the last decade were promulgated on the pages of "trustworthy" traditional media, and all you have to do is look into the news stories after they leave the headlines to find out how things turned out when time passed and reality finally came to light
- crispyambulance 5y ago
  It's downvoted because the issue at hand here is NOT "parity" between left and right conspiracy theories. The issue at hand is that there's a problem with resurgent "alt-right" (or whatever you want to call them) extremist groups that have demonstrated a potential for violence as well as infiltration into trusted organizations like the police. They have taken up new aesthetics, symbologies and memes. It's important for people to recognize these new appearances and what they actually signify.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Violence has been coming from both alt-right and alt-left groups. There is a valid case for countering violent extremism in general, but focusing solely on one side of it is quite unproductive.
    - abricot 5y ago
      Nope. Dont Even try.
- codyswann 5y ago
  >> we now know for a fact that this was never the case and the rumors were started by the FBI under direction of Obama Source?

LocalChapter 5y ago

The "hard-right" is normally bored teenage boys that are trolling for laughs and don't actually believe any of this stuff. There is a meme online currently that says "My political opinions are based on who I am trolling". As for Pepe being a far-right meme. It never has been one. That was misinformation to stir up a moral panic and push for censorship. The Pepe has also been used by Hong Kong protesters, (IIRC) the yellow vest protesters in france and loads of other pro-democracy freedom groups outside of the west. e.g. https://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer5/2019/10/03/9521875/952184701000100980653no.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer5/2019/10/03/9521875/95218...

sofixa 5y ago
> The "hard-right" is normally bored teenage boys that are trolling for laughs and don't actually believe any of this stuff. You should tell the actual hard right parties like RN, AfD, UKIP and co. that
- LocalChapter 5y ago
  I was specifically talking about the memers that are talked about in this document. I've spoken to a lot of the guys that post the memes in this article. They just do it to troll people. I don't know about the other parties. But UKIP until recently wasn't associated with the far-right at all. I have family members that are were part of UKIP. So I've met a lot of members over the years and most are disillusioned Conservatives. I have no idea what the party is currently doing though. The reason such parties are growing and gaining interest is because other more mainstream parties will constantly shy away from discussing thorny political issues.
thefz 5y ago
> As for Pepe being a far-right meme. It never has been one. Feels Good Man is exactly about this. ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394182/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394182/ )
- LocalChapter 5y ago