Below are posts associated with the “far right” tag.
🔗 linkblog: They look like Nazi salutes. Here's why some people think they're a joke'
Acknowledging the ambiguity in Musk’s salute is important: not to let him off the hook, but to recognize how much more dangerous things are when they’re ambiguous than when they’re straightforward.
🔗 linkblog: The Far Right Has a New Hero: Elon Musk'
Bookmarking for… sigh… teaching purposes.
🔗 linkblog: Haitian immigrants helped revive a struggling Ohio town. Then neo-Nazis turned up'
Taking cues from neo-Nazis is a great look for the GOP ticket.
follow up on research ethics implications of Twitter's 'general amnesty'
This is just a few words to say that this post that I wrote back in December 2022 has suddenly become relevant.
In short, some of my recent work has been on an online Mormon community that has some overlaps with the far-right. In between my collection of the data and eventual publication of our various articles, my co-author and I have noted some prominent accounts’ being suspended from Twitter. Because we work hard to not use identifiable quotes in our writing, and because of Elon Musk’s decision to unsuspend nearly all suspended accounts after taking the platform over, I’ve been checking accounts I knew to previously be suspended as we work on a new manuscript.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Kicked off the family holiday gathering by watching this with my dad last night. This was a good Indiana Jones movie, I (mostly) had fun watching it, and I’m probably being a little harsh in my rating of it.
However, for all we live in an era where punching Nazis is shorthand for some very necessary resistance to some very dangerous far-right action, I’ve been reading about non-violence lately, and that makes it hard to enjoy media like this.
Novák, Orbán, and Ballard: the far right and Mormon boundary maintenance
Next month, I’m flying to Salt Lake City to attend the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion to present some of my work about social media, religion, and the far right. I’ll be presenting on three different projects at SSSR—this was biting off more than I could chew, but since two of them connect with Mormonism, Salt Lake suggested the possibility of a larger-than-usual audience for that work, so there you go.
🔗 linkblog: Inside a US Neo-Nazi Homeschool Network With Thousands of Members'
Well, this is horrifying. Another example of a news article I wish weren’t relevant to my research.
🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk Is Taking Aim at Journalists. I’m One of Them.'
Free speech is genuinely important, but it’s hard to take the ideal seriously when its advocates twist it to mean something specific and self-serving.
unexpected research ethics implications of Twitter's 'general amnesty' for suspended accounts
For over three years now, I’ve been getting increasingly involved with research projects that involve the online far right in one way or another. One of the most interesting ways that I’ve developed as a researcher during this time is having to think through in greater detail my commitments to research ethics. Because my research typically focuses on public social media data, I am rarely required to obtain informed consent from those whom I study.
🔗 linkblog: Twitter Removes Florida Political Candidate Advocating Shooting Federal Agents; If DeSantis Won His Lawsuit, Twitter Would Need To Leave It Up | Techdirt'
I appreciate the way that Masnick uses examples from the news to call out how dumb some of these laws are.
🔗 linkblog: Gab Users Somehow Astounded To Discover Gab Will Comply With FBI Requests For User Information | Techdirt'
I read Torba’s blog post last week but hadn’t been aware of the context. Interesting read.
🔗 linkblog: No cap, Sen. Mike Lee’s personal Twitter account is called ‘BasedMikeLee’ - The Verge'
Lots of directions to go with this one, but “based” is the red pill red flag for me. Lee is (unsurprisingly) borrowing the language of the far right.
🔗 linkblog: Trump Supporters Are Calling for Civil War After FBI Search of Mar-a-Lago'
McCarthy isn’t saying the same thing as these Telegram channels, but he’s making it easier for them to say what they’re saying.
🔗 linkblog: Gun-makers made millions marketing AR-15-style guns as a sign of manhood : NPR'
So much of modern right-wing politics boils down to concerns about masculinity.
some thoughts on Gab pushback against research on Gab
I’m not going to link to it, but I am fascinated by a recent post on the Gab blog where Andrew Torba announced some new features to help Gab users push back against research on the platform. Not only do I have two or three ongoing projects using Gab data (one is in the very, very early stages and—ironically—uses Gab blog posts), but some of what Torba wrote also aligned with some of the (fortunately mild) trolling my co-author, Amy Chapman, and I have experienced because of my work on the far-right-influenced DezNat hashtag in Mormon Twitter.
🔗 linkblog: Texas GOP's new platform says Biden didn't really win the 2020 election : NPR'
I get that some of this is bluster and posturing, but that doesn’t make it any less worrying. This is the same state GOP that leaned into Gab a year or two ago.
🔗 linkblog: A far-right plan to riot near an Idaho LGBTQ event heightens safety concerns at Pride : NPR'
Given the aggressively queerphobic language I’ve read on Gab, events like this are worrying but not surprising. More worrying is the way that this queerphobic language is increasingly used in the mainstream GOP. How do Republican politicians and voters feel about these events?
🔗 linkblog: Two-Thirds of Republicans Believe Great Replacement Theory, New Poll Shows'
GOP has some reckoning to do.
interview with WEKU on Buffalo shooting and social media content moderation
Last week, I was interviewed by a reporter at WEKU about social media and content moderation in the context of the horrific recent shooting in Buffalo, and I was pleased to see the interview appear on the WEKU website this morning.
I wish that the headline didn’t frame this as a question of “free speech”—and that I’d perhaps been more forceful in emphasizing that these really aren’t questions of free speech so much as content moderation.
📚 bookblog: La présidente, Tome 3 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Like its predecessors, this volume was interesting, and I appreciated what it had to say, but there was just too much that was weird about it for me to really love it. I don’t regret reading it, but I have no plans to buy the physical versions like I thought I might in the past.
The story seemed to get more and more speculative over time, and while I appreciated the intent, it just felt like more and more of a stretch, which felt like it weakened the goals of the author.
📚 bookblog: La présidente, Tome 2 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I read this volume of the series much faster than the last one—perhaps because it was new to me and perhaps because the second round of the election motivated me to finish it—though I clearly won’t finish the series before today’s results were announced.
Thematically, I thought the book was stranger. It put more emphasis on how laws and politics established under mainstream parties could become terrifying in the hands of far right extremists.
🔗 linkblog: The Far-Right Is Doxxing School Officials They Think Are “Groomers”'
This matches rhetoric I’m reading while doing research on Gab. We need respectable conservative movements in the U.S., but our contemporary mainstream right is flirting with these ideas instead of denouncing them. It’s troubling
🔗 linkblog: Présidentielle 2022 : le ralliement d'Eric Zemmour gêne la stratégie de camouflage de Marine Le Pen'
Faut pas oublier ces liens quand-même.
🔗 linkblog: Extremist Republicans like Ammon Bundy face opposition from moderates : NPR'
Keeping an eye on France’s elections in April and then Idaho’s in May, I guess.
🔗 linkblog: LGBTQ advocates raise alarm against trans attacks in Ky. legislature – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville'
I have spent a few hours this week reading violently anti-trans posts as part of a research project. My patience for queerphobic dog whistles disguised as feigned concerns about girls’ sports is at zero. So disappointed in the Kentucky legislature.
🔗 linkblog: QAnon Isn’t Dead, It’s Growing'
Worrying stuff here. Right-wing media consumption appears to be the big predictor for QAnon beliefs.
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Sedition Prosecution Of Oath Keepers Members Shows The FBI Can Still Work Around Encryption | Techdirt'
We can prosecute criminals without weakening encryption.
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Banned from Facebook and Twitter, far right groups are still a presence online. : NPR'
Interesting read on a subject I expect to be following for a while.
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Trump's 'Big Lie' endures and poses a threat to U.S. democracy : NPR'
Unhappy reading for the holidays.
🔗 linkblog: just finished '‘Q’ Has Been Quiet, but QAnon Lives On - The New York Times'
Looks like QAnon is going to be around for a while. Worrying stuff.
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Proud Boys Regroup Locally to Add to Ranks Before 2022 Midterms - The New York Times'
Very worrying. Underlines the importance of local politics.