Memes remain an important potential influence on far-right online radicalisation and cannot be overlooked as an aspect of internet culture. The far right has always thrived in the online space, however scholars Lisa Bogerts and Maik Fielitz suggest that the advent of Web 2.0 catalysed “a process of (post-) modernisation” within the movement, thus creating… Continue reading “The Influence of Memes on Far-Right Radicalisation”
A number of far-right extremists have recently taken to social media platforms to spread conspiratorial content about COVID-19. Such conspiracy theories range from the virus being a biological weapon created by the Chinese government, to the predictable anti-Semitic tropes of ‘globalism’ claiming it was developed by the tech philanthropist Bill Gates in collaboration with the Jewish investor George… Continue reading ““#CoronaJihad”: How the Far-Right in India is Responding to the Pandemic”
The far-right has always created “alt-histories” and used historical revisionism to protect their power. President Trump is no different. In 2017, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to US President Donald Trump, coined the phrase ‘alternative facts’ to describe why the Trump administration had differing figures about the size of the audience at the newly elected president’s inauguration… Continue reading “Amid COVID-19, Trump Attempts To Rewrite History”
Well-organized far-right movements aren’t just lending a hand during the current COVID-19 crisis, but taking advantage of the occasion as a branding and public relations opportunity. In photo after photo on their website, they show their volunteers doing everything from delivering food and supplies to people on low incomes to driving health-care professionals to work… Continue reading “For the Far Right, the COVID-19 Crisis Is a PR Opportunity”
For the modern far right in America, higher education is a major battleground. Whether as targets for hate or as potential recruiting grounds, college campuses have consistently been on the front lines of the far-right culture war that has been raging over the last four years. Organizations like Turning Point USA, the Patriot Front and… Continue reading “Zoom-Bombing and the Far-Right’s Latest Assault on College Communities”
In Epistemic Injustice: The Power and Ethics of Knowing, Miranda Fricker introduces the theory of epistemic injustice, an injustice that someone encounters when their status as a knower, thus a human being, is degraded. Fricker distinguishes between two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I will focus on the latter; hermeneutical injustice is… Continue reading “Is the English far-right hermeneutically marginalised?”
Using covert speech to avoid detection and migrating to more extremist platforms underlines that censoring far-right actors from social media is not always an easy or desirable practice. Since 2016, censorship of far-right groups and individuals on social media platforms has been the subject of much public discussion. With the implementation of laws to counter… Continue reading “The effects of censoring the far-right online”
The annual report of “Reporters Without Borders” shows that global press freedom is in decline, even though less journalists were killed in 2019. While Mexico and Syria remain the most deadly countries for journalists (ten murdered journalists in each country) in 2019, China, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the countries with the highest number of… Continue reading “Personal Public (Death) Threat I: How the German Far Right tries to intimidate and silence journalists”
The far right wants metapolitics to simply go back to the past, restoring a thinly disguised form of fascism in the hijacked domain of contemporary conservative politics. Humans have always tried to understand and live their finite lives in relation to infinite possibilities — what could happen, what if, perhaps. Infinite possibilities are unknown unless brought to… Continue reading “The Metapolitics of the Far Right”
Within the radical right, men have always out-numbered women; I was one of those women for five years of my life. In 2012 I began disengaging from the extremist underground and I would love to be able to say that I made a clean break over night, however I would be lying through my teeth.… Continue reading “Personal reflections from a woman in the extremist underground”