CARD: From Banners To Bullets

NEW REPORT: The International Identitarian Movement From Banners to Bullets

HOPE not hate has just released an incredible new report on the international identitarian movement authored by Simon Murdoch and Joe Mulhall. It’s a comprehensive look at everything you need to know about this growing international far-right movement which has influenced the Christchurch, Poway and El Paso attacks, including its European origins and influence, international reach, and growth in the US. With American identitarian groups trying to infiltrate the Republican Party, this is essential reading to understand the far right across the globe.

Key Findings:

• This report shows how identitarian groups are active in at least 23 countries around the world, making this one of the most dangerous far-right networks currently active.
  
  
• The report also includes an exclusive infiltration of an identitarian group in the UK, which saw HOPE not hate acquire thousands of internal messages and campaign and planning documents. The infiltrator tells his story and reveals extensive extremist links, and even exposes activists who are in the British Navy.
  
  
• In Europe, the identitarian network is especially broad. The report maps the activist groups, think-tanks, websites, newspapers, bars, boxing clubs, clothing labels, publishers, ideologues and much else that are supporting identitarianism’s spread.

Read the Observer’s exclusive piece on the report and infiltration.

Explore the Full Report at HOPE not hate’s Online Hub.

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Disinfo Dumpster Fire

By Melissa Ryan

Disinformation is a concept that on the surface seems simple, but once you dive in quickly becomes complicated, the kind of complicated that can break your brain. In my work I find that there are three main hurdles people come up against when trying to understand it:

• Disinformation is one tactic used in a broader information warfare AKA strategic information operations. In my trainings, I use First Draft’s terminology: misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation to breakdown tactics and how most hostile actors will use more than one in a campaign. But those categories are broad and I struggle with the correct terminology for the 102 version of my training.

• The goal of disinformation isn’t literal. Hostile actors are often looking to create confusion and ambiguity. What you believe is true matters a whole lot less than your ability to discern truth from fiction. This is why fact checks and media literacy alone won’t solve our disinformation problem. No one understands this better than President Trump who often starts sentences when he’s spreading disinformation with “people are saying” or some variation.

• Bots and trolls alone aren’t enough to make an information operation successful. They need willing participants to give their work oxygen. Yes, bots can do a lot of damage spreading disinformation but they need dupes for a successful campaign. This includes media outlets, influencers, and Internet users who consume and share content. 

Kate Starbird, whose research I often cite in the newsletter, has published a new paper: Disinformation as Collaborative Work: Surfacing the Participatory Nature of Strategic Information Operations, where she and her colleagues attempt to address some similar concepts. The audience for the paper is academics but I found it especially helpful in thinking about how to talk to progressive groups and activists. Starbird also has a Twitter thread if you’d like the Cliffs Note version. 

The news cycle these past few weeks has me thinking about disinformation a lot. Starting with the latest Proud Boys event in Portland, the latest of several events they’ve held there. I’ve always seen these rallies as the Proud Boys looking for a fight, but I’ve come to realize that part of Proud Boys’ strategy for these events is an information operation to spread disinformation. For starters, they billed their event as a rally to “End Domestic Terrorism,” claiming that their villain du jour, Antifa, were domestic terrorists. Leading up to the event they went into overdrive with their messaging about Antifa as domestic terrorism. That effort worked like a charm and President Trump tweeted calling Antifa an “organization of terror” in all caps a few hours before the event. Someone even made a fake Antifa Twitter account that was amplified heavily on right-wing media and social before Twitter removed it for violating the site’s TOS.

After the event, Andy Ngo, who didn’t actually attend, attempted to spread disinformation about supposed Antifa violence. Huffington Post Reporter Christopher Mathias, in a lengthy Twitter thread debunking Ngo’s claims, outlines the strategy Ngo has used multiple times. Mathais later pointed out that this strategy also true for President Trump:

“I’m sure people have identified other distortions he’s made, but at any rate, Andy Ngo has found a lucrative far-right grift amplifying anti-antifa propaganda.

It’s a project with a few goals: 

1) it wants government repression of leftist movements 

2) it wants to portray leftist movements as somehow just as violent as far-right ones, which is a blatant lie. 

3) it seeks to both obscure & distract from deadly white nationalist violence”

Even if you don’t identify as right wing this information operation might have worked on you. Ask yourself what your associations with Antifa (short for anti-fascism) are. Consider how many left of center folks in your life have denounced Antifa and expressed concerns to you about Antifa’s tactics without knowing what Antifa actually is. For some counter-programming, I’d encourage you to watch this video explainer from Vox’s Carlos Maza. Will Bunch’s column in the Philadelphia Inquirer this week is also excellent. 

It’s insane that as America is in the middle of a mass shooting/domestic terrorism crisis, concern about so-called Antifa groups is getting so much oxygen in the media. But that’s how optimized information operations are. The right keeps doing them because it keeps working.

This week Facebook and Twitter also announced that they’d both removed accounts run by the Chinese government that were spreading disinformation and propaganda about the protesters in Hong Kong. Twitter also removed at least one account that appeared to be linked to China was geared towards Americans and even promoted the #QAnon conspiracy theory. (Two extremism researchers I talked to were skeptical of this claim but I’m inclined to take Twitter’s word here.) 

NBC News’s Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins also had a big story about the Epoch Times, a media outlet run by Falun Gong, a cult that originated in China and opposes the Chinese government, which has spent “more than $1.5 million on about 11,000 pro-Trump advertisements in the last six months”. YouTube channels run by Epoch Times employees frequently promote conspiracy theories including #QAnon. 

Yes, in a span of less than 24 hours, both the Chinese Government and an organization opposing the Chinese government made news for boosting #QAnon as part of their broader disinformation strategy. And yes, I’m already working on how to incorporate this as a case study for my next training.

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ICYMI

• What the Reactionary Politics of 2019 Owe to the Politics of Slavery (NY Times)
• From Trump to Fox News to 8chan: the Web of White Supremacist Rhetoric is Wide (The Guardian)
• Racism is an Existential Threat (Protego Press)
• Audit Reveals No Evidence of Anti-conservative Bias at Facebook (Huffington Post)
• Donald Trump’s New Red Scare (Daily Kos)
• At Least 28 People Have Been Arrested Over Threats to Commit Mass Attacks Since the El Paso and Dayton Shootings (CNN)
• White Nationalist Propaganda Cropping Up in Detroit and Its Suburbs (Detroit Metro Times)

Want even more links? Support us on Patreon to receive a second ICYMI post just for CARD members.

Solidarity Forever

Recently I spoke with activist and journalist Molly Conger about everything she’s doing to fight hate and increase transparency in Charlottesville, Virginia for our CARD Patreon podcast. I’ve been obsessed with Molly’s work for a long time and it was fantastic to talk to her about how Charlottesville has fared since 2017, and get her advice on how to fight hate in your own community.

The podcast is now available online. Listen here. 

Early access to our podcasts are just one of several rewards we have for our Patreon supporters. If you want to support CARD and receive even more content consider becoming a member.

Support Ctrl Alt-Right Delete on Patreon.

Next week we’re taking off in observance of Labor Day in America. Talk to you again in two weeks!