Misinformation Report - A Fractured Landscape
The most recent analysis of the misinformation-space in the United States of America suggests an increasingly disordered set of narratives on the political right. This demonstrates a surprising amount of disunity, and interestingly a crisis of faith for Trumpism. Simultaneous to this phenomena, there has been an evidenced increase in the hardening towards action through planning and mobilization
The disjunction is interesting and suggests the onset of dysfunctional dynamics among the groups on the far right. Part of this may be explained by the relative chaos caused by the transition of political power. A secondary catalyst may be the disruption of social-media groups and social networks spreading misinformation and violent narratives through the broad moves among social media companies to also ban far-right users spreading harmful content.
These bans have seemingly resulted in several changes in the dynamics of the far-right movement. They have severely limited the ability to recruit people from outside of their relatively-hardline environments. As a result, only those dedicated enough to moving to new services and joining relatively closed online communities will be directly exposed to posters and narratives. Some of these groups are large but have nowhere near the broad reach of conventional social media platforms.
A contributing factor to the witnessed disjunction in narratives may be the migration of propagandists and subscribers to misinformation towards decentralized platforms, such as Telegram. Despite these limitations, we, unlike others, are at this point hesitant in proclaiming that the spread of misinformation has been significantly reduced. To do so would require a long-term analysis, and commitment from platforms to the universal and consistent application of their policies, as we hope they will.
With the decentralization of narratives, we have seen an increase in confusion, notably among typical “followers”. One can assume this is resulting from the lack of clear “marching orders coming from centralized figures and sources of power as the movement has become accustomed to. We have however seen content such as the following post, seemingly stemming from Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio about the return of his podcast WarBoys.
Discourse on the message board shows a plurality of narratives, ranging from those declaring the end of the Trump era, to those who remain faithful, and hopeful, in the future of Trumpism. Our perspective at the Khalifa Ihler Institute, as an organization primarily focused on counter-extremism and peacebuilding, might be unique. We neither wish to downplay the current scale of the issue of misinformation, nor the real threat of real-world harm it poses. We have taken this position due to our intimate access to information on core militant thought, and up-to-the-minute monitoring of misinformation spreading.
By viewing the landscape of misinformation in a historic context, through a lens of aesthetic analysis, and in the scope of our overarching work we hold these developments in the space of fascist, far-right extremism and misinformation, as equal to or a greater danger than the original rise of said movements.
While we are seeing militant supporters of President Trump we are also seeing militant groups “jumping ship” as they feel abandoned by their figurehead. An increasing amount of content is spreading claiming Trump in fact is a leftist and not a genuine supporter of the agenda of far-right militant groups. This fragment has a high potential for causing harm and may result in the decision to pick up arms not in defense of Trump but in defense of the far-right militant agenda of which they viewed Trump as a leader.
This, in combination with the dissemination of explosives manuals, action planning, army field materials, as well as content rehashing and reiterating of grievances, persecution narratives, and false claims such as "Liberals want to send us to reeducation camps" is cause for concern. A high degree of hatred also continues to target social media giants as they proceed in their efforts to take down accounts associated with the spread of harmful materials.
We, and members of the Khalifa Ihler Institute’s network, are working with companies to root-and-stem the biggest nodes in networks responsible for the dissemination of harmful misinformation and content with the potential to radicalize individuals into violent extremism. Unfortunately, this is a game of whack-a-mole. Taking down larger nodes in networks spreading misinformation stems the tide, but only temporarily.
Having witnessed the harm caused by such narratives and misinformation we will continue working at a structural level for the consistent design, and application, of policies and structures to fight against the mass-spread of radicalizing misinformation. Our primary aim is to see the reduction of such occurrences to a point where it no longer poses a threat to society. We view this as our duty as citizens of the internet and as an organization seeking to promote peaceful coexistence and healthier communities on-, and off-line.