Greenhalgh (2023)

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<h1 style="color:white; text-align:center">Navigating Boundaries in Mormon Spaces on Far-Right Social Media</h1>
<h3 style="color:white">Spencer P. Greenhalgh, PhD<br>     School of Information Science, University of Kentucky
<br>     
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<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work">spencergreenhalgh.com/work</a>
<br>     
<svg width = 25 style="fill: rgb(249, 38, 114)"  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M48 64C21.5 64 0 85.5 0 112c0 15.1 7.1 29.3 19.2 38.4L236.8 313.6c11.4 8.5 27 8.5 38.4 0L492.8 150.4c12.1-9.1 19.2-23.3 19.2-38.4c0-26.5-21.5-48-48-48H48zM0 176V384c0 35.3 28.7 64 64 64H448c35.3 0 64-28.7 64-64V176L294.4 339.2c-22.8 17.1-54 17.1-76.8 0L0 176z"/></svg> 
<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="mailto:spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu">spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu</a>
<br>     
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<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://sciences.social/@spgreenhalgh">@spgreenhalgh@sciences.social</a></h3>

<p style="color:white"> slides: <a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work/_mssa_2023_lds_gab.html">https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work/_mssa_2023_lds_gab.html</a></p>

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# background

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# emergence of "alt-tech" in late 2010s and 2020s

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# "Gab, one of the well-known fringe platforms that has survived several rounds of deplatformization since its inception in 2017"

van Dijck, J., de Winkel, T., & Schäfer, M. T. (2021). Deplatformization and the governance of the platform ecosystem. *New Media & Society*. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211045662

???

Gab is perhaps the most persistent and most controversial of these platforms, which hasn't gone unnoticed; after it was discovered that the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooter had posted a manifesto to Gab, a number of major companies stopped providing web hosting, banking, and other services for Gab

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# Facebook-like, with elements of YouTube, TikTok, and even Venmo

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# "We also measure the prevalence of hate speech on the platform, finding it to be much higher than Twitter, but lower than 4chan’s Politically Incorrect board."

Zannettou, S., Bradlyn, B., De Cristofaro, E., Kwak, H., Sirivianos, M., Stringini, G., &
Blackburn, J. (2018). What is Gab: A bastion of free speech or an alt-right echo chamber. In *WWW ’18: Companion proceedings of the The Web Conference 2018* (pp. 1007–1014). https://doi.org/10.1145/3184558.3191531

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# methods and study context

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# 250 posts

# 5 Mormon groups

???

intentionally using the word "Mormon" here so as not to suggest that this is any way official or mainstream thinking

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# data collected in March 2021

# broader uptick of Gab activity after 2020 U.S. presidential election

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# open qualitative coding

# emergent themes coalesced around "boundaries"

???

looked for recurring patterns in the data, assigned them to codes, and then used the codes to assemble some of the themes that I'll talk about in my...

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# findings

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<h2 style="color:white; text-align:center">Navigating Boundaries Between Social Media and Mormonism</h2>

???

social media, including Gab

first notable thing is the banality of Mormon activity on Gab; there are some posts that are clearly out there, but there are so many more that just treat this platform as a perfectly normal place for Mormons to hang out

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# "Hi Sisters and Brothers, So glad I found this group! [...] Please check out my profile and send me a note!"

LDS Patriots, post 026

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???

We've got low image quality memes of Latter-day Saint leaders and inspirational quotes, and

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# "#giveThanks 'If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me' -Jeremiah 29:13"

LDS Patriots, post 019

???

there's even a woman participating in official Latter-day Saint social media campaigns on Gab, which strikes me as particularly odd

I coded many of these posts as "mainstream Mormonism" in that these are indistinguishable from what I would expect Mormon activity to be on a less controversial platform, like Facebook

there are also occasional posts that are indistinguishable from Christianity more broadly, including this meme, which I

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???

which I have to admit I find genuinely funny.

In short, I titled this section "boundaries between social media and Mormonism," but my main finding here is that Mormons on Gab don't see any boundaries between this clearly far right platform and everyday expressions of Mormonism, which is fascinating and a bit worrying

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# "Welcome everyone! Glad you found the Gab chapter of the beloved Latter-day Saint Conservative Women - Political Discussion group that was started on Facebook"

Latter-day Saint Conservative Women - Political Discussion Group, post 005

???

in contrast, there are some hints that participants do set boundaries between their Mormonism and other social media platforms; this example isn't entirely clear, but there's some hints that at least one person has tried to migrate a community from Facebook, now perceived as censoring conservatives, to Gab

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# "Do you still follow the Apostles on Twitter? I miss their quotes since closing my account."

DezNat-The Deseret Nation, post 019

???

This example is a bit more clear—I miss the apostles, but I couldn't stay on Twitter anymore

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<h2 style="color:white; text-align:center">Navigating Boundaries Within Mormonism</h2>

???

If participants did not perceive any boundaries between their Gab use and their Mormonism, they did suggest that there were boundaries between their correct Mormonism and others' incorrect Mormonism

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# "She strikes me as a Social Justice Warrior using the Maxwell Institute as a platform to spread Her socialist propaganda"

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, post 071

???

one Latter-day Saint author published through BYU's Maxwell Institute was criticized as a social justice warrior

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# "Support the Family Proclamation at BYU-I Take back church schools from Perversion activists!"

DezNat-The Deseret Nation, post 005

???

and there was concern that Latter-day Saint schools had somehow been taken over by LGBTQ activists

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# "Who else is disappointed to see Romney not only betray his party, but also the people (and I would argue the Gospel, since we believe in truth) by voting to impeach Trump? Prog-mos…"

LDS Patriots, post 028

???

After Mitt Romney's vote to remove Donald Trump from office, he was described as a progmo, or progressive Mormon.

This post acutally indicates the nature of one such intra-Mormon boundary—the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

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# "It is our right and duty as Latter-day Saints to stand up and protest that which is evil. Just don't do it with acts of violence."

Latter-day Saint Gems, post 064

???

and the same Gab user as before says "yes, the Church is right about being non-violent, but we should still protest that which is evil," which again is presumably meant to refer to election fraud

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# "And for goodness sakes TAKE OFF YOUR MASKS! (except at church because our prophet has counseled us to wear them there)"

LDS Patriots, post 025

# "I certainly don't feel that not wearing a mask is showing a lack of love for others as Renlund and Nelson have mentioned."

LDS Patriots, post 023

???

unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic is another intra-Mormon boundary that Gab users played with; we see one user here advocating against mask wearing except where the prophet has said to wear masks, but we also see another saying "hmm, I think the prophet has crossed a line here"

this is particularly interesting, because we start to get a sense that even Latter-day Saint leaders can be on the wrong side of Mormonism

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# "I wish the leaders of our church would speak this plainly today when we need it most."

## "In these days of confusion, when the Constitution of our country is assailed, by those who have no understanding of the purpose of God regarding this great country..."

LDS Patriots, post 018

???

so here, a Gab user quotes an October 1924 General Conference address by George Albert Smith and says "I wish today's leaders would talk like this"

past leaders are a rich source of boundary maintenance, including most especially

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Latter-Day Saint Gems, post 071

???

Ezra Taft Benson; we see here a sort of anti-government Benson quote from a 1976 speech, but the most interesting thing to me is that it is paired with his 1985 portrait after becoming president of the church, which sort of collapses boundaries between Benson the renegade apostle and Benson the prophet, seer, and revelator

portrait comes from 1985, after becomes president of the church

speech comes from 1976 speech

Matthew Harris describes 1980 as the moment when Benson is finally reigned in

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# "This can't absolutely represent the views of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Church officially remains neutral in partisan politics. We're going to have to accept that it can only link the patriotism of the Latter-day Saints with our faith"

LDS Patriots, post 042

???

and acknowledging that the church is officially non-partisan, so there is at least some vague boundary between politics and religion

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<h2 style="color:white; text-align:center">Navigating Boundaries Between Mormonism and Christianity</h2>

???

the final kind of boundary I want to talk about is between Mormonism and Christianity

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# "It's really important for Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians to unite against the rise of communism in the West."

Latter-day Saint Gems, post 054

???

including the CEO of Gab, who is an ardent advocate for Christian nationalism

This is Torba being quote posted.

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# "He's on the right track. Just remember that Christians are not selfish."

## "Christians need to start acting like a collective and unified tribe. 'Muh individualism' is really just the sin of selfishness and a trap laid by the enemy to divide us and make us weak. Tribalism is human nature and as Christians we are God's Chosen People."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, post 046

???

However, even that CEO did get checked by Latter-day Saints who had small disagreements with his take on Christianity

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# "I spooked the Bible study group with Bible verses"

## "Posting of new-fangled weird doctrines is not allowed... such as those promulgated by: Charles Finney, Alexander Campbell, Joseph Smith..."

DezNat-The Deseret Nation, post 013

???

and other Gab users ran into the issue of their Mormonism not being accepted by other Christian groups on Gab

one of the most interesting boundary dynamics that I saw, though, was with other Christian actors inserting themselves into explicitly Mormon groups

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# "You keep posting stuff from the Second 8th Week Church without much context back to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, post 043

???

in one case, a Mormon Gab user called out another Christian user, noting "hey, you're posting a lot of stuff that looks irrelevant"

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# "I don't see why you shouldn't, except your last two posts looked like they had something to do with the LDS Church, when actually they don't."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, post 043

???

and they note something in particular, that there's something Mormonesque about their content but not actually Mormon

let me show you one of these

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# "We attended #Online World Wide #Apostolic# Assembly #today [28 January 2021, Thursday] with #Teacher Colleen Bucknell, #Apostle David vonAnderseck and #Prophet Jonathan exhorting and #teaching the #saints in righteousness. ... #S8W Why WE Prophesy Christ #ApostlesToday ##ApostlesRestored"

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, post 045

???

in particular, take a look at the two hashtags at the end of this post, #ApostlesToday ##ApostlesRestored, which sound like pretty Mormon language! what we have here is an aggressively-proselyting Restorationist group inserting themselves into a Mormons group and putting the Mormons on the defensive to establish boundaries now that they're faced with a group that has a few things in common with them

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# conclusion

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These findings came as a bit of a surprise! I expected to see more explicit far-right content, and was not expecting to see so much that reminded me of what I imagine Mormons are posting on Facebook. Yet, I think this raises some important questions, including questions that I've explored in previous work:

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# "In this way, DezNat raises important questions about the boundaries of identity and practice in the contemporary—and future—Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Greenhalgh, S. P., & Chapman, A. L. (2023). "Come for the memes, stay for defending the faith": Far-right and anti-feminist red pill influences in the #DezNat Twitter hashtag. *Journal of the Mormon Social Science Association*, *2*(1), 1-34. https://doi.org/10.54587/JMSSA.0201

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# what are the appropriate boundaries of Mormonism as they relate to far-right political views?

???

This isn't just a question for Gab users, it's actually also a question for

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# Tim Ballard vs. Katalin Novák

???

Ballard was explicitly condemned, but only in a statement to reporters, not through a press release

Novák (who is an ally of Hungary's Viktor Orbán) is implicitly praised

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<h1 style="color:white">Thank you! Looking forward to questions.</h1>
<h3 style="color:white">Spencer P. Greenhalgh, PhD<br>     School of Information Science, University of Kentucky
<br>     
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<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work">spencergreenhalgh.com/work</a>
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<svg width = 25 style="fill: rgb(249, 38, 114)"  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M48 64C21.5 64 0 85.5 0 112c0 15.1 7.1 29.3 19.2 38.4L236.8 313.6c11.4 8.5 27 8.5 38.4 0L492.8 150.4c12.1-9.1 19.2-23.3 19.2-38.4c0-26.5-21.5-48-48-48H48zM0 176V384c0 35.3 28.7 64 64 64H448c35.3 0 64-28.7 64-64V176L294.4 339.2c-22.8 17.1-54 17.1-76.8 0L0 176z"/></svg> 
<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="mailto:spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu">spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu</a>
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<a style="color: rgb(249, 38, 114)" href="https://sciences.social/@spgreenhalgh">@spgreenhalgh@sciences.social</a></h3>