telegram soc med chat

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PRIMARY 11 24 NYT YIKES MILITIA trifecta

NO BAK?

see qanon

see encrypt soc media fever swamp incubator --> echo/ escalator

see also rumble telegrAM DISINFO

eg

MMA 8 23

Conspiracy theories are increasingly crossing from the fever swamps of Spanish-language media like Telegram onto mainstream social media platforms and news networks like Americano Media. For instance, on the July 11 edition of Battleground Americano, host Jesús Márquez claimed that a so-called “New World Order” and the elites seek to manipulate all countries worldwide through international institutions, that they aim to “enslave the majority of the population,” and that “climate change is an excuse to drive changes that favor the elite.”

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• Finally, Lara Logan warns that "there is an aggressive plan underway to take the House and the Senate, impeach Pres Trump & then savagely consolidate a permanent grip on power": "We are in a war. If you fail to see that, you will be one of those crying out in shock as they usher you into a gas chamber or killing field."

teHtf

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AN 10 25

In an exclusive story, Politico got access to thousands of private messages revealing young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers and slavery, among other "insensitive and inexcusable" topics.

The chats took place on theTelegram app, Politico reports. In them, they "referred to Black people as monkeys and 'the watermelon people' and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers."

Kansas Young Republicans vice chair William Hendrix, former vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans Bobby Walker and Chairman of the Association of New York State Young Republican Clubs Peter Giunta were among the Republican leaders named in the report.

“Can we fix the showers?” Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for the New York State Young Republicans, replied.

“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committeewoman, said.

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The 2,900 pages of chats shared among young Republicans between January and mid-August also featured members talking "about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO."

Giunta, Politco reports, apologized, saying “I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans."

“While I take complete responsibility, I have had no way of verifying their accuracy and am deeply concerned that the message logs in question may have been deceptively doctored," Giunta said.

Social media, however, wasn't so accepting of the apology, nor were they surprised about the context of the messages.

"Shocked. Shocked I tell you. Who could have expected this from them?" wrote veteran Kirk Wolffon X.

"This is Charlie Kirk's legacy," wrote Drew Smith on X.

"They can't even scream liberal 'fake news!' cause it was leaked by Republicans," wrote Profiteroles Carmichael on X.

"This is sickening, the rhetoric needs to be toned down on both sides, and even though I voted for Pres Trump 3 times, he needs to stop it too, we need a calm leader who wants to unite the country, not childish memes and name calling," wrote Sherri Twigg on X.

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Small local organizations called Active Clubs have spread widely across the U.S. and internationally, using fitness as a cover for a much more alarming mission. These groups are a new and harder-to-detect form of white supremacist organizing that merges extremist ideology with fitness and combat sports culture.

Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence. The clubs commonly use encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, Wire and Matrix to coordinate internally. For broader propaganda and outreach they rely on alternative social media platforms such as Gab, Odysee, VK and sometimes BitChute. They also selectively use mainstream sites such as Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok, until those sites ban the clubs.

Active Club members have been implicated in orchestrating and distributing neo-Nazi recruitment videos and manifestos. In late 2023, for instance, two Ontario men, Kristoffer Nippak and Matthew Althorpe, were arrested and charged with distributing materials for the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division and the transnational terrorist group Terrorgram. Following their arrests, Active Club Canada’s public network went dark, Telegram pages were deleted or rebranded, and the club went virtually silent. Nippak was granted bail under strict conditions, while Althorpe remains in custody.As a sociologist studying extremism and white supremacy since 1993, I have watched the movement shift from formal organizations to small, decentralized cells – a change embodied most clearly by Active Clubs.

An investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation tracks down two Ontario-based Active Clubs that recruit and train young men to fight.

White nationalism 3.0

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According to private analysts who track far-right extremist activities, the Active Club network has a core membership of 400 to 1,200 white men globally, plus sympathizers, online supporters and passive members. The clubs mainly target young white men in their late teens and twenties. Since 2020, Active Clubs have expanded rapidly across the United States, Canada and Europe, including the U.K., France, Sweden and Finland. Precise numbers are hard to verify, but the clubs appear to be spreading, according to The Counter Extremism Project

, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and my own research. The clubs reportedly operate in at least 25 U.S. states, and potentially as many as 34

. Active U.S. chapters reportedly increased from 49 in 2023 to 78 in 2025. The clubs’ rise reflects a broader shift in white supremacist strategy, away from formal organizations and social movements. In 2020, American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo introduced the concept of “White Nationalism 3.0

” – a decentralized, branded and fitness-based approach to extremist organizing. Rundo previously founded the Rise Above Movement, which was a violent, far-right extremist group in the U.S. known for promoting white nationalist ideology, organizing street fights and coordinating through social media. The organization carried out attacks at protests and rallies from 2016 through 2018. Active Clubs embed their ideology within apolitical activities such as martial arts and weightlifting

:{. This model allows them to blend in with mainstream fitness communities. However, their deeper purpose is to prepare members for racial conflict.

An actor reconstructs how British broadcaster ITV News infiltrated and secretly filmed inside Active Club England, documenting its recruiting process, activities and goals.}:

‘You need to learn how to fight’

Active Club messaging glorifies discipline, masculinity and strength – a “warrior identity” designed to attract young men. “The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo explained via his Telegram channel. “They never were like, ‘You need to learn how to fight so you can beat up people of color.’ It was like, ‘You need to learn how to fight because people want to kill you in the future,’” a former Active Club member told Vice News in 2023.These cells are deliberately small – often under a dozen members – and self-contained, which gives them greater operational security and flexibility. Each club operates semi-autonomously while remaining connected to the broader ideology and digital network.

Expanding globally and deepening ties

:{:{Active Clubs maintain strategic and ideological connections with formal white supremacist groups, including Patriot Front, a white nationalist and neofascist group founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.Active Clubs share extremist beliefs with these organizations, including racial hierarchy and the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims white populations are being deliberately replaced by nonwhite immigrants.}:

While publicly presenting as fitness groups, they may collaborate with white supremacist groups on recruitment, training, propaganda or public events. Figures connected to accelerationist groups – organizations that seek to create social chaos and societal collapse that they believe will lead to a race war and the destruction of liberal democracy – played a role in founding the Active Club network. Along with the Rise Above Movement, they include Atomwaffen Division and another neo-Nazi group, The Base – organizations that repackage violent fascism to appeal to disaffected young white men in the U.S.}:

Brotherhood as a cover

By downplaying explicit hate symbols and emphasizing strength and preparedness, Active Clubs appeal to a new generation of recruits who may not initially identify with overt racism but are drawn to a culture of hypermasculinity and self-improvement.Anyone can start a local Active Club chapter with minimal oversight. This autonomy makes it hard for law enforcement agencies to monitor the groups and helps the network grow rapidly. Shared branding and digital propaganda maintain ideological consistency.

Through this approach, Active Clubs have built a transnational network of echo chambers, recruitment pipelines and paramilitary-style training in parks and gyms.Club members engage in activities such as combat sports training, propaganda dissemination and ideological conditioning. Fight sessions are often recorded and shared online as recruitment tools.Members distribute flyers, stickers and online content to spread white supremacist messages. Active Clubs embed themselves in local communities by hosting events, promoting physical fitness, staging public actions and sharing propaganda. Potential members first see propaganda on encrypted apps such as Telegram or on social media. The clubs recruit in person at gyms, protests and local events, vetting new members to ensure they share the group’s beliefs and can be trusted to maintain secrecy.

From fringe to functioning network

Based on current information from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, there are 187 active chapters within the Active Club Network across 27 countries – a 25% increase from late 2023. The Crowd Counting Consortium documented 27 protest events involving Active Clubs in 2022-2023. However, precise membership numbers remain difficult to ascertain. Some groups call themselves “youth clubs” but share similar ideas and aesthetics and engage in similar activities. Active Club members view themselves as defenders of Western civilization and masculine virtue. From their perspective, their activities represent noble resistance rather than hate. Members are encouraged to stay secretive, prepare for societal collapse and build a network of committed, fit men ready to act through infiltration, activism or violence.

Hiding in plain sight

Law enforcement agencies, researchers and civil society now face a new kind of domestic threat that wears workout clothes instead of uniforms.Active Clubs work across international borders, bound by shared ideas and tactics and a common purpose. This is the new white nationalism: decentralized, modernized, more agile and disguised as self-improvement. What appears to be a harmless workout group may be a gateway to violent extremism, one pushup at a time.

Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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A Wisconsin teenager accused of murdering two family members and plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump was inspired by Terrorgram, a white supremacist network that operated on the Telegram messaging and social media platform for half a decade, according to federal court records.

The Terrorgram community, which has been linked to around three dozen criminal cases around the globe, including at least three mass shootings, was profiled last month in stories and a documentary produced by ProPublica and FRONTLINE.

The court documents allege that Nikita Casap, a 17-year-old from Waukesha, Wisconsin, wrote a three-page manifesto calling for the assassination of Trump in order to “foment a political revolution in the United States and ‘save the white race’ from ‘Jewish controlled politicians.’”

In his manifesto, Casap allegedly encouraged people to read the writings of Juraj Krajčík, a longtime Terrogram figure who murdered two people in an attack on an LGBTQ+ bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2022, according to the court records. Casap also allegedly recommended two publications produced by the Terrorgram Collective, a secretive group that produced alleged hit lists, videos and written publications — including instructions for building bombs and sabotaging critical infrastructure — and distributed them throughout the Terrorgram ecosystem.

Launched in 2019, Terrorgram was a constellation of scores of Telegram channels and chat groups focused on inciting acts of white supremacist terrorism and anti-government sabotage. At the network’s peak, some Terrorgram channels drew thousands of followers. Over the past six months, however, the network has been disrupted as authorities in Canada, the U.S. and Europe have arrested key Terrorgram influencers and community members.

But the violence hasn’t stopped.

Casap in February allegedly shot and killed his mother, Tatiana Casap, and stepfather, Donald Mayer; stole their property; and fled in their Volkswagen Atlas, Waukesha County prosecutors say. He was arrested in Kansas. Prosecutors have charged the teen with two counts of first-degree homicide, as well as identity theft and other theft charges. He is expected to be arraigned on May 7, according to court records.

A witness told local investigators that Casap “was in touch with a male in Russia through the Telegram app and they were planning to overthrow the U.S. government and assassinate President Trump,” according to charging documents in the Wisconsin case.

The newly unsealed federal court filings indicate that the FBI is investigating Casap in connection to the alleged assassination plot.

The bureau declined to comment on the matter.

Last fall, federal prosecutors accused two Americans of acting as leaders of the Terrorgram Collective and charged them with soliciting the murder of federal officials and a host of other terrorism-related offenses. The U.S. State Department has officially designated the Terrorgram Collective as a terrorist organization, as have officials in the United Kingdom and Australia. The two Americans have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

“Do absolutely anything you can that will lead to the collapse of America or any country you live in,” Casap allegedly wrote in his manifesto, according to an FBI affidavit. “This is the only way we can save the White race.”

The teen’s writings and online postings that are cited in the affidavit indicate that he is a believer in militant accelerationism, a concept that has become increasingly popular with neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists over the past decade. Militant accelerationists aim to speed the collapse of modern society through acts of spectacular violence; from the ruins of today’s democracies, they aim to build all-white ethno-states organized on fascist principles.

Matthew Kriner, executive director of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, a nonprofit think tank, called the alleged Casap plot unique. “It’s the first time we’re explicitly seeing an individual tie an accelerationist act or plot with the president of the United States as a means of collapsing society,” Kriner said. “I think what we have here is a fairly clear-cut case of an individual who is being groomed to take drastic terrorist action in an accelerationist manner.”

Casap’s public defender could not be reached for comment.

A Telegram spokesperson said, “Telegram supports the peaceful exchange of ideas; however, calls for violence are strictly prohibited by our Terms of Service and are removed proactively as well as in response to user reports."

A ProPublica and FRONTLINE review shows that Casap was recently active in at least five extremist Telegram channels or chat groups, including a Russian-language neo-Nazi chat in which posters uploaded detailed instructions for crafting explosives, poisons and improvised firearms. He was also a member of a chat group with more than 4,300 participants run by the Misanthropic Division, a global neo-Nazi organization.

Casap, according to the federal documents, also sought out information online about the Order of Nine Angles, a cult that blends Satanic concepts and Nazi ideology and has increasingly turned to Telegram to recruit and proselytize.

“This is a clear example of how Terrorgram continues to influence murder,” said Jennefer Harper, a researcher who studies online extremism. “Nikita was influenced online by an assortment of ideologies and groups that intersect with the Terrorgram ecosphere.”

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2 25 wash state gov bob ferg groyper nazi

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:{alternet

US extremists are rattled by new sanctions against global terrorism group

Jordan Green January 15, 2025

The State Department has applied the “specially designated global terrorist” designation to the Terrorgram Collective in a groundbreaking move that for the first time sanctions a transnational white supremacist terrorist group with a significant presence in the United States.

The announcement on Monday — one week before President Biden leaves office — justified the designation based on the group “posing a significant risk of committing, or having participated in training to commit acts of terrorism, that threaten the security of United States nationals or national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.” Terrorgram is an amalgam of the words “terror” and “Telegram,” the latter of which is a social media platform used by members to distribute propaganda.

“This is the first time you’ve seen a white supremacist group that had members or supporters in the U.S. receive the designation,” Seamus Hughes, a researcher at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center at the University of Nebraska, told Raw Story.

Two of the group’s leaders, Dallas Erin Humber of California and Matthew Robert Allison of Idaho, were indicted last year on charges that included conspiracy, solicitation of hate crimes, solicitation of the murder of federal officials, and conspiracy to provide material support for terrorists. Two other individuals, Brandon Russell — founder of the neo-Nazi terror group Atomwaffen Division — and Andrew Takhistov, who each face federal charges related to plots to attack the power grid, are also linked to Terrorgram.

The indictment against Humber and Allison describes Terrorgram as “a network of channels, group chats, and users on Telegram that promote white supremacists accelerationism: an ideology centered on the belief that the white race is superior; that society is irreparably corrupt and cannot be saved by political action; and that violence and terrorism is necessary to ignite a race war and ‘accelerate’ the collapse of the government and the rise of a white ethnostate.”

Terrorgram is not the first transnational white supremacist terrorist group to be sanctioned by the State Department. In 2020, under the first Trump administration, the State Department applied the “specially designated global terrorist” identification to the Russian Imperial Movement, which was implicated in a series of bombings in 2016 and 2017 that targeted refugee shelters in Sweden. Nordic Resistance Movement, a group founded in Sweden, was added to the list last June.

The specific bans designated groups and individuals from holding property and financial interests in the United States, while also prohibiting U.S. citizens from engaging in financial transactions with them.

Following the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., the Russian Imperial Movement invited the organizers to visit its paramilitary training camps in St. Petersburg, according to Nathan Sales, a former Trump administration State Department counterterrorism official who testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Sales said there is no evidence that the Charlottesville organizers accepted the invitation, but the following month, Russian Imperial Movement leaders traveled to the United States to network with white supremacists, and one posed for a photo with the group’s flag in front of the White House.

“What is most interesting for me is this represents the first time when a designation would have ramifications for U.S. prosecutors,” Hughes said. “There’s not a cadre of Russian Imperial Movement adherents in the U.S., whereas there is a good number of individuals that were drawn to Terrorgram in the U.S.”

Hughes said the designation will give prosecutors the ability to request terrorism enhancements during sentencing.

“It helps for them to tell the story to a jury that this is not just a bunch of angry people online, but an actual terrorist group,” he added.

The designation is also likely to make social media companies more reluctant to allow members and associates to organize on their platforms.

“Because tech companies can face legal risks if they provide services to designated groups or individuals, sanctions can prompt them to sever ties with those listed as terrorists,” Sales testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee back in 2022.

The announcement about the State Department sanction against Terrorgram is already causing ripples of unease across Telegram.

Reacting to the announcement on Monday, a neo-Nazi channel that advertises itself as a source of “tradecraft to evade authorities online,” posted: “We all know we are operating on borrowed time here on Telegram. It is unfortunate, as it is a hell of an app.”

The post went on to say that users should not trust Pavel Durov, the Russian founder and CEO of Telegram, to protect their data.

“We don’t want any of our admins or subscribers to wind up in federal prison over ironically being part of a ‘terror group,’” the post continued. “With no publicly available criteria to determine guilt or association, the juice is not worth the squeeze. It doesn’t make sense to maintain a presence where the enemy has the advantage.”

Prior to the arrests of two American leaders last September, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced charges against two unnamed Ontario men “alleged to have participated in the creation of Terrorgram Collective manifestos and Atomwaffen Division recruiting videos.”

The Canadian arrests in December 2023 followed an 18-month investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That timeframe puts the launch of the investigation roughly in June 2021, the time of the first Terrorgram publication Militant Accelerationism, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center investigation.

Federal prosecutors allege that Humber and Allison joined Terrorgram in 2019, and became leaders of the group in the summer of 2022, “after one previous leader was arrested and charged with terrorism offenses and another became aware that he was the subject of a terrorism related investigation.”

Following Humber and Allison’s arrests, three foreign nationals appear to have taken over leadership of Terrorgram. The State Department designation identifies Ciro Daniel Amorim Ferreira of Brazil, Noah Licul of Croatia and Hendrik Walh-Muller of South Africa as “leaders of the Terrorgram Collective” and “specially designated global terrorists.”

Terrorgram is linked to two other federal prosecutions in the United States beyond Humber and Allison. Russell, the Atomwaffen founder, was arrested in February 2023 and charged alongside codefendant Sarah Beth Clendaniel in an alleged plot to carry out a coordinated attack on electrical substations designed to create a widespread power outage in Baltimore.

While Terrorgram is not directly mentioned in charging documents for the case, a review of Russell’s Telegram chats by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that he forwarded a Terrorgram document called Make It Count to another Telegram user.

Court filings by the government also allege that Russell told an FBI confidential human source that they should use Mylar balloons to short out a power transformer. That tactic is recommended in another Terrorgram publication The Hard Reset, which is described by the government as including “detailed information on how to attack a substation, including the use of Mylar balloons.”

The State Department announcement references a planned energy facility attack by Andrew Takhistov in New Jersey last summer without directly naming him.

Takhistov’s charging documents allege that he “claimed to have taken a role in the publication of” The Hard Reset and that he sent a PDF of the document to an FBI undercover employee. Takhistov allegedly praised The Hard Reset as “the only thing you need” to plan a white supremacist terror attack.

Takhistov was active in the Terrorgram group chats, and Humber posted an Audiobook promoting white supremacist murder in January 2024 in response to a request from Takhistov, according to government court filings. Later, according to the government, Takhistov thanked a Terrorgram chat administrator for posting a video “with instructions for using Mylar balloons to commit an attack on an energy facility.”

Lawyers for Takhistov and Russell could not be reached for comment for this story prior to publication.

The State Department announcement listing Terrorgram as a terrorist entity cited the Biden administration’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, released in June 2021. The framework highlighted the government’s efforts to assess whether foreign entities could meet the criteria for the “specially designated global terrorist” designation.

“These designations are part of a broader U.S. government effort to address the transnational dimensions of the threat posed by [racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist] actors and reflect the Biden-Harris administration’s continued commitment to countering domestic terrorism, which includes REMVE and white identity terrorism,” the State Department said.

The emphasis on tackling white supremacist terrorism under the Biden administration has been embraced by an array of agencies in addition to State, including Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI.

The commitment across the federal government to combating white supremacist terrorism under Biden’s leadership built on a growing consensus within the agencies that took hold during the first Trump administration. It remains unclear whether the second Trump administration will maintain the same course.

“In fact, we viewed it as such a critical threat that back in June of 2019, under my leadership, we elevated racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism to our highest threat priority, on the same level with ISIS and homegrown violent extremists, where it remains to this day,” FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2021.

Wray was appointed to lead the FBI by Trump in 2017.

Kash Patel, who has been named by Trump to replace Wray in the incoming administration, has expressed skepticism towards the government’s focus on “domestic terrorism.”

“Whistleblowers have revealed in multiple ways how the Deep State is continuing to weaponize the power of the state against internal dissidents,” he wrote in his book Government Gangsters. “To pump up public support for their attacks on conservative Americans, the FBI leadership has been reportedly pushing agents to artificially inflate data on domestic terrorism to make the problem seem much worse than it is.”

Asked for clarification on Patel’s views, a Trump transition spokesperson previously pledged to Raw Story that Patel will “protect Americans from terrorism as the agency’s director.”

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01/06/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

• During a prayer event organized by the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins in response to the terrorist attack in New Orleans, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry declared that "fear is not supposed to exist in America" because this nation is protected by God.

* Nick Fuentes announced that he is migrating back to Telegram because of Elon Musk's censorship campaign against far-right voices: "The events of the past three weeks have demonstrated that Elon Musk is not absolutely reliable or as committed to free speech as we thought."

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an 11 24 badsh

donald Trump over the past few weeks has occasionally been discarding his iconic blue suit, red tie, and red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, and instead wearing a black suit, gold tie, and black and gold MAGA hat. Black and gold are the colors of the far-right group the Proud Boys, who “instigated critical breaches of the Capitol” during the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was handed a sentence last year of “22 years in prison for orchestrating a failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 election.”

Months before the insurrection trump had infamously signaled, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

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“The Proud Boys are back in the news today,” wrote Rolling Stone senior writer Tim Dickinson. “Trump is not only bat signaling to the fight club with a black and gold MAGA hat — he’s campaigning for a far-right congressional candidate who had a Proud Boy on payroll.”

READ MORE: ‘Dire Implications’: Trump’s Possible Vaccine Ban Could Spark US, Global Health Crisis

Dickinson pointed to his reporting on Republican Joe Kent, a “far-right candidate for the House, with connections to white nationalists,” who has “extremist views and affiliations, including reportedly paying a Proud Boy as a consultant.”

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Attorney Tristan Snell, who helped lead New York’s successful $25 million prosecution in the Trump University case, warns: “MAGA’s colors have always been red and white. Yet Trump is suddenly wearing black and gold MAGA hats — and even wore a black suit and gold tie the other day, rather than his habitual blue suit and red tie. The Proud Boys colors are black and gold. THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE.”

Calling it “a harbinger of potential chaos,” The New York Times on Monday reports: “Groups backing former President Donald J. Trump recently sent messages to organize poll watchers to be ready to dispute votes in Democratic areas. Some posted images of armed men standing up for their rights to recruit for their cause. Others spread conspiracy theories that anything less than a Trump victory on Tuesday would be a miscarriage of justice worthy of revolt.”

READ MORE: ‘She Kills People’: Trump Amps Up Attack on Cheney After Violent ‘Nine Barrels’ Rhetoric

One post, “from an Ohio chapter of the Proud Boys, the far-right organization that was instrumental in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol,” read: “The day is fast approaching when fence sitting will no longer be possible.”

“You will either stand with the resistance or take a knee and willingly accept the yoke of tyranny and oppression.”

Pointing to “the growth and increased sophistication of the election denialism movement,” The Times reports its “analysis of more than one million messages across nearly 50 Telegram channels with over 500,000 members found a sprawling and interconnected movement intended to question the credibility of the presidential election, interfere with the voting process and potentially dispute the outcome.”

Posts from groups like the Proud Boys, “questioned why states might not be able to fully tally election results on election night and repeated misleading claims about voter registration numbers in Michigan. In one video, a truck with a Confederate flag chased after immigrant children, with a caption reading: ‘1/20/25: Trump is sworn in as President. 1/21/25: Me and the Proud Boys begin the deportation.’”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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On Telegram, a Violent Preview of What May Unfold on Election Day and After

Right-wing groups, which use Telegram to organize real-world actions, are urging followers to watch the polls and stand up for their rights, in a harbinger of potential chaos.

Telegram played a small but significant role in the 2020 election as an organizing tool for planners of the Jan. 6 attack.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

By Paul MozurAdam SatarianoAaron Krolik and Steven Lee Myers

Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano, Aaron Krolik and Steven Lee Myers analyzed more than 1 million posts from election skeptics and right-wing extremist groups on Telegram.

Nov. 4, 2024

:{Updated

Groups backing former President Donald J. Trump recently sent messages to organize poll watchers to be ready to dispute votes in Democratic areas. Some posted images of armed men standing up for their rights to recruit for their cause. Others spread conspiracy theories that anything less than a Trump victory on Tuesday would be a miscarriage of justice worthy of revolt.

“The day is fast approaching when fence sitting will no longer be possible,” read one post from an Ohio chapter of the Proud Boys, the far-right organization that was instrumental in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. “You will either stand with the resistance or take a knee and willingly accept the yoke of tyranny and oppression.”

The messages were all posted on Telegram, the lightly moderated social media platform with nearly one billion users, which has become a harbinger of the potential actions and chaos that could unfold on Election Day and after. More so than other social apps, Telegram is a prime organizing tool for extremists, who have a tendency to turn digital coordination into real-world action.

A New York Times analysis of more than one million messages across nearly 50 Telegram channels with over 500,000 members found a sprawling and interconnected movement intended to question the credibility of the presidential election, interfere with the voting process and potentially dispute the outcome. Nearly every channel reviewed by The Times was created after the 2020 election, highlighting the growth and increased sophistication of the election denialism movement.

The Times reviewed messages from “election integrity” groups across a dozen states, including battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Michigan. Their posts overwhelmingly spewed disinformation and conspiracy theories and featured violent imagery.

More than 4,000 of their posts went further by encouraging members to act by attending local election meetings, joining protest rallies and making financial donations, the analysis found. Posts from other right-wing groups reviewed by The Times urged followers to be prepared for violence. These calls to action extended the right-wing language typically found on other major social media sites into the physical world.

In New Hampshire, one Telegram channel instructed people to question local officials in person about absentee ballot tallies. In Georgia, followers of a local Telegram channel were urged to attend election board meetings to argue for limits to absentee voting. In New Mexico, people were told to monitor voting stations with cameras, file police reports if necessary and be ready to “fight like hell.”

“If you have ever said, ‘What can I do?,’ this is your opportunity,” said one post from a Telegram group focused on Pennsylvania.

Katherine Keneally, a former intelligence analyst with the New York Police Department, said views shared on Telegram should not be dismissed as the musings of a fringe minority but rather seen as a warning about what could happen on Election Day and beyond.

“Telegram is very often central to actually organizing people to engage in offline activity,” said Ms. Keneally, who now works for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a research firm that monitors Telegram. She recalled attending a meeting in 2022 of election skeptics in Montana, where participants taught one another how to use Telegram. Among more extreme movements, she said, Telegram is used “very strategically to radicalize and recruit.”

In a statement, Telegram, whose founder was arrested in France in August on charges related to the spread of illicit material on the service, said it had ramped up content moderation leading up to the election. The company added that it would cooperate with the authorities to remove “criminal content.”

“Telegram does not tolerate content that encourages disrupting legal democratic processes through violence or destruction of property,” it said.

Telegram played a small but significant role in the 2020 election as an organizing tool for planners of the Jan. 6 attack. Today, its influence is greater and potentially more ominous, according to The Times’s analysis.

Right-wing media channels post a stream of news, memes and misinformation about perceived voting irregularities, which are then picked up by other groups that use them to argue that the Democrats have begun to steal the election. Mixed in are calls for citizens to show up at the polls and to monitor and report irregularities — or fight if necessary.

Image

Right-wing media channels on Telegram post a stream of disinformation about perceived voting irregularities, which other groups pick up to argue that Democrats have already begun to steal the election.Credit...Bing Guan for The New York Times.

“While other platforms are primarily about self-expression, ‘owning the libs’ and hateful buffoonery, Telegram often generates an ambience of ‘let’s get something done,’” said Paul M. Barrett, the deputy director of the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University.

The “election integrity” movement on Telegram includes a loose network of accounts devoted to “auditing” the vote and amplifying election malfeasance theories, such as false claims that election workers are giving Republican voters Sharpies that are incompatible with voting machines.

One channel focused on election auditing in New York featured recruitment ads from United Sovereign Americans, which calls itself a national “election validity” advocacy group. One of its lawyers is a former solicitor general of Pennsylvania who defended Mr. Trump during his second impeachment in 2021 after Jan. 6.

Under an image of Uncle Sam and a bold red “WE NEED YOU!” banner, the group recently claimed, without any credible evidence, that 2022 voter records showed “millions of ‘irregularities’ which, when ignored, are election fraud.” Many claims about voter fraud have been debunked. The group did not respond to a request for comment.

Another group, focused on vote auditing in Pennsylvania, offered paid compensation for election monitors but only if they worked in the traditionally Democratic stronghold of Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is.

“Fill out your information, and we’ll contact you to get you trained and ready for Election Day!” the group said.

Another Telegram channel run by a group called the People’s Audit posted a video that offered a “hypothetical situation that is totally possible,” in which the Department of Homeland Security used the driver’s licenses of undocumented immigrants to cast votes en masse for the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. The video floated the scenario even though it is illegal and rare for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.

“Yes, they would be engaging in ID theft, election interference and treason, which is punishable by death,” the video concluded.

Kris Jurski, who posted the video, said on Telegram that it had been taken down from X. He said he was grateful that the video had remained on Telegram, which he used later to advertise a webinar teaching people how to secure voter rolls and deter fraud. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Image

Trump supporters wore attire associated with the Proud Boys — the group’s colors are yellow and black — at a rally in December 2020.Credit...Luis M. Alvarez/Associated Press

Many posts casting doubt on election reliability made their way into the channels of extremist groups like the Proud Boys, which has preferred Telegram to other platforms after being restricted by sites like Facebook, Instagram and X.

The group’s posts questioned why states might not be able to fully tally election results on election night and repeated misleading claims about voter registration numbers in Michigan. In one video, a truck with a Confederate flag chased after immigrant children, with a caption reading: “1/20/25: Trump is sworn in as President. 1/21/25: Me and the Proud Boys begin the deportation.”

“When you look at the postings, even if it’s not actually calling for violence or even if it’s not saying we need to get whoever, there’s a very ugly tone to it,” said Wendy Via, a founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which tracked a 317 percent spike in election denialism on Telegram in October. There was no significant left-wing movement like this, she said.

In recent months, many Telegram channels run by chapters of the Proud Boys have celebrated a return to relevance, including perceived attention from Mr. Trump and his allies. Several accounts pointed to the black-and-yellow ties and hats — which are Proud Boys colors — worn by Mr. Trump in the days before, and the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson during, a recent rally at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Image

Recent posts on Telegram channels associated with the Proud Boys celebrated a perceived show of support from Mr. Trump.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Image

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, at a recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times.

Asked whether Mr. Trump had intended to send a signal, a spokeswoman for his campaign responded, “Lol. No.” Mr. Carlson did not respond to a request for comment but posted on X that The Times “knows a Proud Boys necktie when they see one.”

“They feel activated,” said Michael Loadenthal, who researches political violence at the University of Cincinnati, adding that Proud Boys groups had assembled publicly less often than they had before the 2020 election. “There’s a feeling they are in the right.”

Recruitment messages on the public Telegram accounts of various Proud Boys chapters have sought to capitalize on the perils of election fraud, often implying a need for violence. One popular image showed an armed man wearing a balaclava.

“Free men do not obey public servants,” it read.

Another portrayed a tit-for-tat with “leftist Democrats” going back to Mr. Trump’s presidency.

“Enough is enough!” read a part of the post. “Be ready for anything and everything!”

Methodology

The Telegram channels reviewed in this article were provided in part by researchers at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. The Times used software, including large language models, to organize and analyze the posts and to identify messages with calls to action.

A correction was made on Nov. 4, 2024: An earlier version of this article misstated the year in which Katherine Keneally of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue attended a meeting of election skeptics in Montana. It was in 2022, not this year.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Paul Mozur is the global technology correspondent for The Times, based in Taipei. Previously he wrote about technology and politics in Asia from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul. More about Paul Mozur

Adam Satariano is a technology correspondent for The Times, based in London. More about Adam Satariano

Steven Lee Myers covers misinformation and disinformation from San Francisco. Since joining The Times in 1989, he has reported from around the world, including Moscow, Baghdad, Beijing and Seoul. More about Steven Lee Myers

---

===

// hurric BS?

alternet-

Extremists posing as aid workers urge NC locals to tear down cell towers and hit military

Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer booking photo from 2018

Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer booking photo from 2018 (Courtesy Tucson Police Department)

Jordan Green November 02, 2024

A group of anti-government extremists who showed up in western North Carolina promising to provide disaster relief after Hurricane Helene is now threatening to destroy cell-phone towers and sabotage military vehicles.

The group, Veterans on Patrol, attracted attention by setting up a disaster relief staging area in the parking lot of the Ingles grocery store in Lake Lure, about 50 miles from Asheville.

But locals, including some who initially cooperated with the group, began to complain about threats and harassment.

Over the past three weeks, members of the group, which falsely claims that Helene was caused by a “weather weapon,” have been making conspiracy-driven claims that the U.S. military is attempting to kill U.S. citizens with “directed energy weapons.”

ALSO READ: Inside the grift that could cost Donald Trump the election

Veterans on Patrol’s channel on the encrypted social-media platform Telegram posted a message on Thursday displaying photos of what appears to be a cell tower on a mountaintop. The message asserted that locals “are in Live Exercises where the United States Military is permitted to destroy your homes, bodies and minds,” while suggesting that equipment on the tower “is solely for providing the U.S. military the means to murder Americans.”

“Focus on tearing down their weapons,” the message reads. It continues, “All it takes is one weapon tower being toppled with the stated reason spoken boldly.”

Another message posted in the group’s Telegram channel appears to advocate for sabotaging military vehicles and assets.

“Simple acts of pouring sugar into fuel tanks of military equipment, backup power systems, and personal vehicles of military personnel can wreak havoc on those who murdered all these people out here,” reads the message, which was posted on Wednesday.

Soldiers from Fort Liberty and Fort Campbell have deployed to western North Carolina to assist in the disaster response, along with National Guard members from nine states.

Veterans on Patrol is led by Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, who has a long history of anti-government extremism, dating back at least 10 years. Meyer, according to the extremism watchdog group Southern Poverty Law Center, is not a veteran.

Reached by phone on Friday, Meyer doubled down on the threats.

“Jesus used bullwhips and flipped tables,” he told Raw Story. “We’re going to use our bullwhips and topple towers.”

At first during the interview, Meyer argued that the Telegram messages weren’t advocating for targeting cell towers, saying instead that the group would “surgically” remove the supposed “directed energy weapons." He went on to say that they would provide Appalachian residents with generators and Starlink boxes so they could maintain power and communication links.

Asked about the message referencing “pouring sugar into fuel tanks,” Meyer told Raw Story: “We’re going to destroy your tanks…. You want to get dirty? That’s what we should be doing.”

Veterans on Patrol has promoted multiple conspiracy theories based on false claims since arriving in western North Carolina.

One message posted on Telegram on Oct. 22 claimed that “Helene was a Weather Weapon steered to destroy the area, while also claiming that the investment fund BlackRock is attempting a “land grab” and describing the storm and its aftermath as “an act of war perpetrated against the People.”

As the final day of voting in the presidential election approaches, posts on the group’s Telegram channel have taken on an increasingly urgent tone.

The Oct. 22 post claimed that “stolen elections” are a real phenomenon, along with “weather weapons,” “Satanic pedophiles” and “adrenochrome," which refers to a QAnon conspiracy theory that a cabal of elites tortures children to extract a chemical from their bodies which is then used as a recreational drug.

In another post last week, a Veterans on Patrol member nicknamed “Shepherd” claimed that the U.S. Air Force command is instructing pilots “to deploy additional weather weapons.” The post goes on to say, “These people don’t have 2 weeks to wait for vote and 3 months to hopefully wait for a Regime change.”

Another message on the group channel that was published on Wednesday suggests without basis that Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff is the beneficiary of BlackRock’s supposed landgrab.

Speaking to Raw Story, Meyer seemed to all but dare law enforcement to intervene.

“For people to go and do something to prevent weapons from being deployed — that’s not a crime,” he said. “If they want to bring this to court and charge us with conspiracy, then let’s go.”

The FBI did not respond to an inquiry about Veterans on Patrol's activities, but Meyer told Raw Story in an email that he "would imagine the FBI knows full well what we are attempting through Operation Leaning Tower."

Meyer told Raw Story that he notified the office of Gov. Roy Cooper about his "operation." Cooper's office did not immediately respond to a voicemail message from Raw Story.

Phone calls from Raw Story for this story to officials in Lake Lure and Rutherford County, which surrounds the town, went unreturned.

Meyer’s history of extremism dates back to the Bundy Ranch standoff, when armed militants faced down the FBI and other federal agencies in 2014 during a dispute over rancher Cliven Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees. Meyer’s involvement in the Bundy Ranch standoff came to light later, when the Oregonian reported that he and a group of friends got into a brawl with other anti-government extremists during the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which Bundy and a group of armed supporters had occupied.

Meyer founded Veterans on Patrol in Arizona in 2015, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Prior to presenting itself as a disaster response group in the aftermath of Helene, Veterans on Patrol has claimed its efforts were directed towards rescuing children from sex trafficking, addressing veteran suicide and dubious claims that the military is maliciously harming civilians. Meyer’s activities have frequently landed him in trouble with law enforcement.

Meyer was arrested twice in 2015 after emergency responders talked him down from a light pole in Surprise, Ariz. in 2015.

In 2018, was arrested by the police in Tucson, Ariz. for trespassing and an outstanding warrant for an assault charge, after occupying a tower on an industrial property. A press release from the Tucson Police Department claimed that Meyer “found an abandoned homeless encampment” on the property, “and fictitiously declared, without evidence or corroboration, that the area was the site of a sex-trafficking ring.”

The Tucson police said they received complaints from Tucson residents that Meyer and his followers had threatened and intimidated them, and Meyer made “multiple threatening and hostile remarks directed towards various elected and appointed officials” through social media.

In the summer of 2024, before Hurricane Helene, Veterans on Patrol was active in Spokane, Wash. In Telegram message from July 2, 2024, Veterans on Patrol announced to the police that it “would no longer be safe” for one of its officers “to work his beat.” The channel also posted the home addresses of city council members.

NOW READ: Fox News is the reason the race is close

===

Brandy Zadrozny

USEFUL IDIOT

oct 16

The fake whistleblower videos started popping up last fall, the work of a small but prolific Russian group that researchers call Storm-1516.

Much remains unknown about Storm-1516 — one prong of Russia’s propaganda operation — but it has produced some of the country’s most far-reaching and influential disinformation.

The Storm-1516 campaigns rely on faked primary sources — audio, video, photos, documents — presented as evidence of the claims’ veracity. They are then laundered through international news sources and influencers to reach their ultimate target: a mainstream Western audience.

...

At least 50 false narratives have been launched this way since last fall, according to a count NBC News assembled with researchers. The narratives aim to diminish Western support for military aid in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, a contentious issue in Congress. The videos also back the re-election of Donald Trump, who has pledged to halt military aid to Ukraine, while painting the former president as a victim of a “deep state.” And they attack Vice President Kamala Harris.

In one fake video, a Ukrainian troll farm operative reveals the machinations behind a CIA plot to defeat Trump.

In another piece of propaganda, a woman says she was paralyzed as a child — by Harris in a hit-and-run accident.

In a third, a “whistleblower” falsely claims Ukraine’s leaders spent U.S. aid money on yachts.

The claims peddled by the actors and false primary sources in these videos fall apart upon basic inspection. Experts quickly identified Olesya, the Ukrainian troll, as an AI-generated fake. The 2011 hit-and-run never happened, according to San Francisco police, and KBSF-TV, the local news station behind the claims, does not exist.

And the companies that own the yachts told reporters they hadn’t been sold. But the story spread anyway, and this time, far — from small-time right-wing influencers to members of Congress, including Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, now the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Vance did not respond to a request for comment.

“It is very purposeful, very systematic, and it's a process that we see over and over,” said Darren Linvill, co-director at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, whose team uncovered the Storm-1516 campaign last fall.

Russia is the most active foreign threat to the 2024 election, according to U.S. officials. A pair of indictments unsealed in September alleged an expansion of Russia’s influence operation: from crude, fake social media posts and bot networks in 2016 to more ambitious and successful recent campaigns. That includes laundering propaganda through seemingly independent U.S. actors, according to one of the indictments. It was a scheme that entangled several popular right-wing creators, including Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin and Tim Pool, who all said last month they had been unaware their employer was working with Russia.

“It’s a bigger threat than it ever was,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said of Russia's influence operation at a recent news conference, where federal prosecutors unsealed indictments regarding two alleged state-sponsored propaganda schemes. “Russia has meddled in our society and tried to sow discord for decades. Really what we're seeing is just more tools in the toolbox.”

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

Experts fear Storm-1516 and similar groups have the potential to sway public opinion by undermining the credibility of democratic institutions, influencing U.S. policy and diminishing people’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

Russia is increasingly leaning on an advancing technology landscape — including artificial intelligence and more sophisticated bot networks — to spread its falsehoods. But Storm-1516’s most valuable quality is persistence, according to Clint Watts, the general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center.

“The danger comes with just the sheer volume of claims that they make, and it only takes one person, one influencer with outsized influence, to grab onto a video and amplify it in the United States,” Watts said. “They may miss 99 times, but the 100th time they may get it just right.”

The dozens of Storm-1516 storylines examined by NBC News offer a window into the disinformation pipeline: where the most successful false claims originate and how they spread.

Stage 1: The video

In February, a Russian man falsely confesses on YouTube that Ukraine promised him $4,000 to assassinate Tucker Carlson while he was in Moscow. The man says he was caught before he could detonate a bomb in the underground parking lot of the Four Seasons Hotel there.

Stage 2: The placement

Like a criminal gang’s ill-gotten cash, this video — and its manufactured evidence — is laundered through Kremlin-linked platforms and websites in a quest for legitimacy. First in Russian, then in English.

Stage 3: The spread

Russian propagandists pick up the story. The anonymous account MyLordBebo, known to researchers as a spreader of false stories about Ukraine, first posts the video to X, with English subtitles. Then, a Q-Anon influencer, KanekoaTheGreat, shares it. The videos go viral. no lnx

Stage 4: The mainstream

Simon Ateba, the Today News Africa reporter known for disrupting White House press briefings, posts the video. Right-wing creators and pundits leap on the story, using it to ask whether U.S. funding for the war in Ukraine is being weaponized to kill an American citizen.

Turning Point USA President Charlie Kirk, podcaster Tim Pool, conservative commentator Benny Johnson and comedian Jimmy Dore share the false story with their millions of U.S. followers.

index

videos storm 1516 4 stages

cheap video, 1/2 fail but a few hits/viral

2 picked up by russ sites jrnl fake bio

3 launder thru telegram and local sites that look legit eg duggan mtg shared w 3 mil followers

how-foreign-disinformation-makes-its-way-into-the-american-mainstream-221936709542

---

Right-wing media and social media users spread conspiracy theories about the Trump rally shooting

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN & PAYTON ARMSTRONG

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM JASON CAMPBELL & NOAH DOWE

PUBLISHED 07/16/24

Following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, right-wing media figures and social media users have spread baseless conspiracy theories and claims about the shooting.

They have amplified a 4chan hoax that the Secret Service gave a stand-down order during the shooting; made baseless allegations that Alex Soros was connected to the shooting; falsely claimed a protester at a 2016 Trump rally was the shooter; suggested the shooting could be attributed to the intelligence community, the “deep state,” foreign actors, or an “RNC/Israeli hit job”; and connected the assassination attempt to biblical prophecy and “the hand of God.”

• ## A gunman attempted to shoot Trump at a July 13 rally

• On July 13, a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, injuring Trump, killing one rally attendee, and seriously wounding two others. The 20-year-old suspected gunman reportedly opened fire from a rooftop near the rally, and was fatally shot by the Secret Service. His motivation remains unclear. The New York Times, [7/14/24]

• ## Far-right figures spread a 4chan hoax that there was a stand-down order before the shooting

• :{A 4chan poster falsely claimed to be a law enforcement sniper who was at the Pennsylvania rally and said the Secret Service “refused to give the order to take out the perp.” A user on 4chan’s far-right “politically incorrect” message board (commonly known as “/pol/”) claimed to be “the officer in the famous photo of the two snipers on the roof at Trump's rally” and said that they “had the assassin in my sights for at least 3 minutes, but the head of the secret service refused to give the order to take out the perp.” The Associated Press reported that the claim was false, noting that “the Secret Service and the Butler Police Department say they have no agents, officers or employees with the name of the person claiming to be the sharpshooter.” :{4chan,:(style="background-color:#ff8000ff"):}:** [7/14/24; The Associated Press, 7/15/24]}:

Social media users earned tens of thousands of shares and likes promoting the 4chan post. Multiple users, including QAnon figure Nicholas Veniamin, shared the 4chan posts or its claims, raking up tens of thousands of shares and “likes” on X and Instagram. According to CrowdTangle, posts on Instagram sharing the 4chan hoax received more than 80,000 interactions. Twitter/X, [7/14/24, 7/14/24, 7/14/24, 7/15/24; Instagram, 7/14/24; CrowdTangle, accessed 7/16/24; Media Matters, 3/4/22]

A post amplifying the 4chan hoax was one of the top posts on Reddit’s conspiracy subreddit. On the prominent subreddit “r/conspiracy,” a user posted an image of the 4chan post — though they added, “BIG grain of salt recommended.” The post was one of the top posts in terms of “upvotes” in a 24-hour period between July 14 and July 15. Reddit, [7/14/24, 7/15/24; Media Matters, 9/18/23]

• ## QAnon figures revived a baseless conspiracy theory that Alex Soros had threatened Trump, apparently suggesting it was connected to the shooting

• In January, Alex Soros was baselessly accused of threatening Trump after posting an article from The Atlantic on social media. Conspiracy theorists baselessly accused Alex Soros — the son of billionaire philanthropist George Soros and a frequent target of right-wing attacks and antisemitic conspiracy theories — of threatening Trump after he posted an Atlantic article that featured stock photos of a bullet hole and someone holding cash on X (formerly Twitter). Media Matters, [1/23/24]

:{QAnon figure Woke Societies after the shooting: “Don’t forgot Alex Soros posted this in January of this year. Demons.” :{Telegram:(style="background-color:#ff0000ff"):}:**, [7/13/24; Media Matters, 4/18/22]}:

QAnon figure Pepe Lives Matter: “Remember when Alex Soros tweeted a bullet shot with the number 47 in this ominous tweet that people thought was about Donald Trump and now he was just shot.”Telegram, [7/13/24 , 1/7/21]

QAnon figure Ben Moore, known online as “Sun Tzu,” responded to a user claiming Alex Soros “hinted at what was coming in a X post” by asking if George and Alex Soros should “be designated as enemy combatants at this point.” Twitter/X, [7/15/24; Media Matters, 4/24/24]

Ann Vandersteel, who has promoted QAnon, posted an image of Alex Soros’ tweet with the text “Remember this?” Twitter/X, [7/13/24; Media Matters, 6/7/24]

A user on the online forum GreatAwakening, which is dedicated to the QAnon conspiracy theory, shared a post saying “Y’all remember when Alex Soros posted $47 and a bullet hole?” GreatAwakening, [7/14/24; Media Matters, 6/30/20]

• ## Far-right figures falsely claimed a protester at a 2016 Trump rally was the shooter

• QAnon figure QAnon John falsely claimed that “a guy affiliated with ANTIFA” was actually the shooter. John Sabal, known online as “QAnon John,” falsely posted that the shooter was actually “a guy affiliated with ANTIFA that was actually arrested back in 2016 for being involved in an Anti-Trump protest in Pittsburgh,” and that in response he was “calling on the FBI, DHS & DOJ to designate ANTIFA AS A DOMESTIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.” Reuters reported that the claim is false, noting that the 2016 protester was “not the suspect identified by the FBI as the shooter” and that the photo shared online “does not resemble the suspect identified by authorities.” Gab**, [7/14/24; Dallas Observer, 8/31/21; Reuters, 7/15/24; WTAE, 4/14/16]

Longtime Trump ally Roger Stone claimed that “a number of people have contacted me to say that the shooter is not the man they’ve identified.” During an appearance on conspiracy theory network Infowars, Stone said that “a number of people have contacted me to say that the shooter is not the man they’ve identified, but rather” someone else — the same person mentioned by QAnon John — “who appears to more closely resemble the picture we've been shown that is allegedly the corpse of the shooter.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 7/15/24]

Far-right figures baselessly suggested the shooting could be attributed to the “intelligence agencies,” the “deep state,” foreign actors, or “an RNC/Israeli hit job”

• White nationalist Nick Fuentes floated the idea that “the intelligence agencies” could have been behind Trump‘s shooting. During an X Space discussion following the attempted shooting, Fuentes claimed that “it was either the intelligence agencies or it was these other guys who are gonna benefit with a more favorable advocate in the White House” — after listing people and entities including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ukraine — who “tried to knock him out” with the attempted shooting. Twitter/X, [7/13/24]

Alex Jones claimed that the Trump shooting was “clearly” done by the “deep state.” In the X Space with Fuentes, Jones claimed of the attempted shooting, “Clearly this was deep state.” He said it was evidence of “the deep state trying to kill him,” adding, “This was no accident, in my view.” Twitter/X, [7/13/24]

White nationalist Stew Peters baselessly claimed it was “an RNC/Israeli hit job.” According to Peters, “Everyone is blaming Biden and the Dems when this was clearly an RNC/Israeli hit job.” Twitter/X, [7/13/24; Media Matters, 3/13/23]

Right-wing personality Candace Owens said that if she were a conspiracy theorist, she might think the FBI was behind the Trump shooting. While discussing on her YouTube show the FBI’s efforts to access the alleged shooter’s phone (which it has since done), Owens said, “If I were a conspiracy theorist, and I’m not — I’m not a conspiracy theorist — some people might be thinking, though, those conspiracy theorists might be thinking, like, maybe it’s because the FBI did it. Maybe the FBI doesn’t want to get into the phone that connects the kid to the deep state.” YouTube, *Candace Owens*, [7/15/24; The New York Times, 7/15/24]

QAnon figure Clandestine claimed, “Whether this was a CIA-coordinated plot, or just a lone shooter, the Deep State are responsible regardless.” Jacob Creech, known online as “Clandestine,” added, “Either they planned the hit, or their years of violent rhetoric and endless MSM propaganda, created the vitriol that led to the attack.” Telegram, [7/14/24; Anti-Defamation League, 4/5/22]

• ## Far-right Christian media and right-wing social media influencers invoked biblical prophecy and “the hand of God” in discussing the shooting

• Charisma News, which has been a sponsor of the ReAwaken America Tour led by Michael Flynn, published multiple articles linking the assassination attempt to biblical prophecy. An article titled “3 Prophecies Fulfilled with the Trump Assassination Attempt” claimed that “at least three different prophetic voices have had words about something massive that was coming to America.” Another article, titled “Prophecy Foretold Attempted Assassination Months in Advance” and focused on a March 2024 interview with guest Brandon Biggs, stated that “the events of Saturday, July 13, appear to have fulfilled the prophecy Biggs gave in startlingly accurate fashion.” Charisma News, [7/14/24, 7/14/24; Rolling Stone, 2/28/23]

Self-described prophet Amanda Grace said “prayer matters” because the assassination attempt was “meant to kill him and by the hand of God it grazed him” and claimed the “Lord warned” her that it would happen. Grace added: “Saul did this to David. This is that same spirit rising up. Saul attempted to kill David on multiple occasions and never was able to succeed.” She also suggested that God had warned her multiple times that Trump would be hurt, claiming that “the Lord warned [on] June 8” and “he warned it again two days ago.” YouTube, *Ark of Grace Ministries*,[; Media Matters, 5/30/24] VID]

While discussing the assassination attempt on FlashPoint, commentator and self-described prophet Lance Wallnau mentioned a prophetic “decree” and attributed Trump’s survival to “the impulse of God or an angel that enabled him to not be hit.”Wallnau said that “the brush with mortality is a moment also for President Trump to realize that God himself is preserving him. And let’s agree together in this decree that he will have an ear to hear in every key situation what the spirit of God is actually saying. And he’ll wisely and shrewdly navigate, turning to the left or to the right as the wisdom of God dictates, and that he will stay one step ahead of death.” Twitter/X, [7/13/24; Rolling Stone, 9/29/22]

Far-right figures Dom Lucre and Jack Posobiec shared a video of supposed prophet Brandon Biggs predicting three months ago that Trump would be injured. Lucre wrote that “the prophet Brandon Bible’s prophecy about Donald Trump’s assassination attempt from 3 months ago has resurfaced” and said, “This has been biblical since day one.” Posobiec, who has a penchant for spreading conspiracy theories, amplified the video to his 2.5 million followers. Twitter/X, [7/14/24, 7/14/24; The Washington Post, 8/15/17; Forbes, 7/27/23]

Christian nationalist pastor Sean Feucht shared the video of Biggs and wrote, “Prophecy from March 14, 2024 about Trump being shot in the ear in an assassination attempt!” Twitter/X, [7/14/24; Media Matters, 9/14/23]

---

---

an 7 24

After the attempted assassination (https://www.nationalreview.com/news/explosives-found-in-car-of-would-be-trump-assassin-thomas-matthew-crooks/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=article) of Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday afternoon, July 13, a long list of prominent Democrats — including President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) — forcefully condemned the attack, emphasizing that such violence has no place in U.S. politics.

Regardless, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) — once a scathing critic of Trump but now a devoted loyalist and possible running mate — blamed Democrats for the assassination attempt. Some other Republicans have pointed the finger at Democrats as well.

During an MSNBC segment on July 14, national security reporter Ken Dilanian warned that the Proud Boys and other far-right extremist groups have responded to the attack by calling for a civil war.

READ MORE: See it: Blood-stained Trump whisked off stage by Secret Service after apparent gunshots at rally (https://www.alternet.org/trump-blood-secret-service/)

(https://youtu.be/eYfvEBLDohI), "Several Republican members of Congress have directly blamed President Biden, the Democrats and the media for the assassination attempt. They claim it was a result of overheated rhetoric about Trump and part of a campaign to jeopardize his safety. So, for example, Georgia Republican Congressman Mike Collins posted, quote, 'Joe Biden sent the orders.'"

Dilanian continued, "And Trump campaign surrogate Nick Adams posted, on social media, quote, 'Joe Biden's rhetoric is directly responsible. There can be no discussion. This is a fact.'"

The that although Democrats have "called Donald Trump an authoritarian and a threat to democracy," they "have never hinted that violence was an appropriate response to that."

(https://youtu.be/eYfvEBLDohI), vid?]

"After this shooting, Democrats, including President Biden, have condemned it in the strongest possible terms, and they've called this political violence a threat to democracy…. And experts are worried that this kind of rhetoric increases the risk of more violence."

READ MORE:'I don't want to go down that road': Lindsey Graham ducks question on JD Vance’s rhetoric (https://www.alternet.org/Bank/lindsey-graham-jd-vance/?utm_source=push_notifications)

The MSNBC reporter warned that according to national security experts, "extremists" are "seizing on this incident.

"Telegram channels for branches of the Proud Boys militia group have been calling for civil war and violence," (https://youtu.be/eYfvEBLDohI). "According to Advance Democracy — that's an NGO that tracks this stuff — a user on one forum wrote that the Democratic National Committee, RINOs, and the feds, quote, 'should all be hung in the streets of D.C.' And users on a pro-Trump platform, Patriots.Win, are calling for violence and civil war. One user wrote, 'War now. They don't want to live and let live.' Some really dangerous rhetoric coursing around out there, Kate."

Dilanian observed that although some members of Congress are trying to calm the situation down, "flame-throwing politicians" are "not doing that at all."

"As long as there is some group of people who are throwing gasoline on the fire,"](https://youtu.be/eYfvEBLDohI), "there are sort of a group of deranged individuals out there that are listening to it, paying close attention, and think they are essentially in a civil war."

READ MORE:Historian recalls bipartisan unity after 1981 Reagan assassination attempt: 'We came together' (https://www.alternet.org/beschloss-trump-assassination-attempt/)

Watch the full video below or at this link (https://www.alternet.org/ken-delanian-trump-proud-boys/).

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Amid an ongoing right-wing media panic about a supposed “invasion” of migrants coming across the southern border, a group of right-wing extremists — including members with ties to QAnon, the election denial movement, and anti-vaccine propagandists — have organized a convoy and series of rallies along the southern border. The “Take Our Border Back Southern Border Convoy” has been amplified and celebrated by right-wing media and political figures as posts promoting it have spread across social media.

• ## A group of right-wing extremists are organizing a convoy along the southern border to protest the supposed migrant crisis

• • The Take Our Border Back convoy aims to “call on our government to TAKE ACTION and SECURE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER.”The convoy is set to start from Virginia and travel across various locations on the southern U.S. border from January 29 through February 3, with a series of rallies planned along the way. A GiveSendGo fundraising campaign in support of the convoy has already received over $36,000 in donations. TakeOurBorderBack.com, accessed [1/24/24, GiveSendGo, accessed 1/25/24]

• • The convoy's organizers and sponsors include far-right podcasters, online influencers, and conspiracy theorists. In a video posted to the convoy’s Rumble channel, podcast host Kim Yeater said that she, Noél Roberts, Pete Chambers, Robert Agee, and Mark Anthony are members of the group’s “steering committee.” Yeater’s Take Your Power Back podcast, Robert's “Patriot Mom 007” account, Chambers’ website, Agee’s right-wing billboard company, and Scotty Saks’ Sovereign Radio program are also listed as sponsors of the convoy. Rumble, *We The People*, [1/19/24; TakeOurBorderBack.com, accessed 1/25/24]

• • Yeater, Chambers, and other organizers have used extreme rhetoric when talking about the southern border, frequently claiming that there is an “invasion” of migrants and pushing the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory. In an interview uploaded to Rumble on January 20, Yeater claimed that migrants at the border are part of a “Trojan horse” of “fighting age men crossing our border.” During a January 24 appearance on Infowars’ The Alex Jones Show, Chambers claimed that “globalists” are using immigration to destabilize the U.S., saying, “This is ‘we’re going to take over your country from within’ stuff,” echoing the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which claims that migrants are being purposefully brought to the U.S. to replace white Americans as a new electoral majority. Rumble, *The Alex Stone Show*, [1/20/24; Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/24/24; Southern Poverty Law Center, 5/17/22]

• ## The Take Our Border Back convoy is being organized and promoted by anti-vaccine figures, conspiracy theorists, and vehement election deniers

• • Kim Yeater, one of the convoy organizers who has promoted it in a media appearance, has a history of promoting election denial efforts.Yeater is a radio host and the CEO of Take Our Elections Back, which aims “to restore the integrity of America's voting system.” She has also promoted multiple events held by election denier Mike Lindell. On an episode of her radio show, Yeater said there is “not even a question anymore, there’s election fraud. Period,” adding that it would be “a problem” if voting machines were used in future elections. Yeater has worked with many of the other convoy promoters in the past and seemingly mingled with multiple far-right figures. KimYeater.com, accessed [1/25/24; Rumble, accessed 1/26/24; Instagram, accessed 1/25/24, 1/25/24, 1/25/24; Salem Radio Network, Take Your Power Back, 8/21/23]

• • At least two sponsors of the convoy have referenced the QAnon conspiracy theory. Right-wing billboard company Banners 4 Freedom, a sponsor of the convoy run by organizer Robert Agee, has shared the “WWG1WGA” hashtag associated with the conspiracy theory. Agee himself has used the QAnon slogan on social media, including during an X Space about the convoy. Scotty Saks, host of Sovereign Radio which is another convoy sponsor, has also used the slogan on social media. Telegram, [1/7/23; Banners4Freedom.com, accessed 1/25/24; Twitter/X Space, 1/23/24, 1/23/24; Twitter/X, 10/10/18]

• • Discussing the federal response to January 6, convoy organizer and promotor Mark Anthony expressed that the convoy would be heavily protected and only going to places where local law enforcement is “on board.” In an interview uploaded to Rumble, Anthony stated that “January 6, that scared the hell out of everyone. I mean scared them to the point they feel like they didn’t want to do anything because they’re scared about the government coming after them.” Anthony added, “Every place that we have, we’ve gotten in with the sheriffs, we’ve gotten in with the local police departments, and these people are on board. Even Border Patrol.” Rumble, [1/19/24]

• • Convoy organizer Peter Chambers, a former Green Beret who claims he retired because of “the mandates for the vaccines,” is also sponsoring the convoy through his Remnant A-Team ministry.Chambers became an anti-vaccine figure during the COVID-19 pandemic and appeared in the anti-vaccine propaganda film Died Suddenly, produced by conspiracy theorist Stew Peters. He was part of a lawsuit attempting to block the military from mandating COVID-19 vaccines, and he has also spread the 5G conspiracy theory. Chambers has also claimed that he “developed friendships all along the border with Border Patrol guys that really want to do their jobs, you know, Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers.” Rumble, [11/4/23; Mother Jones, May 2023; Arizona Mirror, 10/20/23]

• • Noél Roberts, a right-wing podcaster known online as “Patriot Mom 007,” has frequently appeared alongside fringe figures and election deniers. Roberts has interviewed extremist Arizona Sheriff Mark Lamb, right-wing lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, and Turning Point USA influencer Benny Johnson, among others. PatriotMom007.com, accessed, [1/25/24, 1/25/24; Media Matters, 2/9/23]

• • Joshua James, who self-identifies as a “De Jure Sheriff” of Bexar County, Texas, has frequently promoted the convoy on social media and also posted the QAnon slogan. James claims to be “constitutional sheriff” in Texas, but actually is a self-identified “de jure sheriff” -- a term that seemingly flows from the sovereign citizens movement, which holds that local sheriffs are the supreme law of the land and that the federal government of the United States is illegitimate. Instagram, [10/31/20, 1/11/24; Facebook, accessed 1/25/24; Twitter/X, accessed 1/25/24; Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed1/25/24, Sovereign Citizen Watcher,5/21/22]

• ## Right-wing media and political figures have celebrated the convoy as part of an ongoing attack against the Biden administration’s border policies

• • Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) promoted the convoy on X (formerly Twitter), saying “The time is NOW to take action and secure our borders!”Self provided specific dates and locations of the convoy and included a screenshot of the poster advertising it. Twitter/X, [1/22/24, 1/22/24]

• • Chambers appeared on a recent episode of Infowars’ The Alex Jones Show to promote the convoy and fearmonger about “an invasion” happening along the southern U.S. border. During the segment, Chambers claimed that “this is an invasion, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. We briefed Gov. Abbott two years ago on the invasion that was taking place on the border.” Discussing what the “feds” are “going to try next,” Jones suggested, “Maybe they send a shooter down to shoot some of the illegals to make us the — make them the victims.” Infowars, *The Alex Jones Show*, [1/24/24, 1/24/24]

• • Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon mentioned the convoy when discussing the “pure insanity” he claims is going on in Europe, saying that “it’s coming here to the U.S. This is why you’re seeing the farmers and the truckers are going to have a convoy to go to the southern border.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [1/24/24]

• • One America News host Alison Steinberg promoted the convoy, showing its flier during the January 25 episode of In Focus. Steinberg also said that the convoy would be “adding to the escalation,” asking, “Is this a constitutional crisis? Could this be a match that ignites a civil war?” One America News, *In Focus*, [1/25/24]

CitationFrom the January 25, 2024, edition of One America News' In Focus

• • In an appearance on Fox Business, Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) welcomed the convoy to her state, saying: “Bring those beautiful, huge semis, those 18-wheeler bad boys down here to protect our border. … I hope it is a fantastic convoy.” When discussing the convoy with Van Duyne, host Liz MacDonald said “more Americans are stepping up.” Fox Business, *The Evening Edit*, [1/25/24]
• Video file

:{Video

CitationFrom the January 25, 2024, edition of Fox Business' The Evening Edit

LIZ MACDONALD (HOST): We have a new, this new news coming in. A trucker convoy is kicking off heading to the border states — we're hearing February 3 — for a multistate rally at the border in Texas, Arizona, and California. And they're calling on active and retired law enforcement, military veterans, elected officials, small business owners, ranchers to join them to rally in protest of what's going on at the border. What do you make of this? More Americans are stepping up.

REP. BETH VAN DUYNE (R-TX): Hey, don’t forget the mama bears that they’re also asking to go down there, who are seeing what’s happening in schools, where their kids are getting kicked out because they’re having illegal immigrants stay in classrooms.

Yeah, I say bring those beautiful, huge semis, those 18-wheeler bad boys down here to protect our border. They need to understand that this is not simply — you know, they can't sweep this under the rug. People are opening their eyes to it, and I hope it is a fantastic convoy, and I hope it does, you know, shed more light on it, and you're seeing people from around the country. I mean, they're even talking about having folks from Canada now come down because they see the damage that is being caused. So yeah, bring those bad boys down to our coast.

• • “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec shared an image of the convoy flier to X asking, “So, how many fed will be at this?” Yeater replied to the post saying that there should be “NO FEAR” because “GOD IS WITH US.” Twitter/X, [1/25/24]

• • Far-right blog The Gateway Pundit shared information about the convoy and claimed, “This message is being sent all over social media.” The post also claims that “good Americans have had enough of Biden’s destruction of the country.” The Gateway Pundit, [1/25/24]

• • On X, right-wing outlet The Leading Report shared the convoy’s flier. The post also highlighted the convoy’s “opposition to the open border disaster under the Biden administration.” The Leading Report, [1/22/24]

• • An article posted to the website The Politics Brief claimed that the convoy was in protest of “the recent Supreme Court decision that will allow Border Patrol agents to cut razor-wire fencing installed by Texas National Guard personnel.” The article also highlighted Self’s endorsement of the convoy, and former Fox News associate producer Kyle Becker shared the article on X. The Politics Brief, [1/24/24; Twitter/X, 1/24/24]

• • Right-wing outlet Conservative Brief published an article celebrating that the convoy will “draw more attention to President Joe Biden’s lax immigration enforcement policies.” The Conservative Brief, [1/24/24]

• • Conspiracy theorist Lara Logan shared a post on X about truckers going to the border, saying, “This is one to watch.” Other users replied to her post with further information about the Take Our Border Back convoy. Twitter/X, [1/23/24]

• ## Social media users have also promoted the convoy has across various platforms

• • A public Telegram group for the Texas Three Percenters militia directed members to the convoy website for details.The post also threatened “legal action against non-affiliated individuals posting inaccurate, non-approved, offensive, provocative or aggressive content” in relation to the convoy. Telegram, [1/22/24]

• • On Telegram, QAnon promoter Defender of the Republic shared the link to the convoy’s website, stating: “Digital soldiers, it’s time to work.” Their message opened with an appeal to other QAnon followers, reading, “If you’re a follower of Q, the white hats have been asking you to get involved.” Telegram, [1/23/24; Substack, 12/30/23]

• • On X, far-right streamer Ryan Augustine Sánchez shared information about the convoy, claiming that it would be part of a “standoff against Federal troops.”He also stated that the convoy would be in support of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas National Guard. Twitter/X, [1/23/24]

• • Responding to an X post from right-wing account Merissa Hansen discussing the border, one user shared the convoy’s website.The post also mentioned a planned stop along the route where the user states that they plan to join the convoy. Twitter/X, [1/23/24]

• • Right-wing influencer account “Trucker Jake,” who claims that he will be joining the convoy, has repeatedly shared the link to the official website. In one post discussing the convoy, the account claimed that migrants coming across the border “are not economic refugees. They are all criminals, and they all need to go back.” Twitter/X, [1/19/24, 1/24/24]

• • On fringe social media platforms Truth Social, Gab, and GETTR, users have widely shared the link to the convoy’s website. Truth Social, Gab, GETTR, accessed [1/25/24]

• • Details of the convoy have also been posted to a number of public and private Facebook groups. One post celebrating the convoy stated that it was “Doing the lord's work!!!” Facebook, accessed [1/25/24]

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mma 1 24

Following news that a session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting would be focused on the World Health Organization’s preparations for a potential epidemic of a currently unknown pathogen dubbed “Disease X,” right-wing media figures pushed conspiracy theories about a supposed plan to kill off “excess population” and fearmongered over the possibility of another pandemic and lockdowns. Some sought to capitalize on the fear by selling “medical emergency kits” that contain an unproven COVID-19 treatment.

• For years, the WHO has been preparing for so-called “Disease X” — a potential undetermined pathogen that could cause a future epidemic

• • At the World Economic Forum’s January 2024 annual meeting at Davos, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus spoke about the need to prepare for an “unknown Disease X.” In the lead-up to the event, Ghebreyesus and the WHO claimed that Disease X could potentially result in “20 times more fatalities” than COVID-19. World Economic Forum, accessed [1/17/24]

• • Disease X is a placeholder name for a currently unknown pathogen that the WHO uses for hypothetical epidemic prevention planning. The WHO adopted the moniker “Disease X” in 2018. It stems from a series of epidemic prevention plans that began in 2015 in response to the 2014 Ebola crisis. WHO, accessed [3/1/20; The Economist, 3/23/18]

• ## Right-wing figures and social media users have fearmongered and spread conspiracy theories about Disease X

• • On his Infowars show, Alex Jones claimed that Disease X was a “virus scare power grab” by entities that he claimed “want control of our bodies.” In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Jones suggested there is a “Globalist Plan to Launch #DiseaseX to Install World Government.” Twitter/X, [1/17/24; Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/17/24]

• • On Newsmax, disgraced Conservative Political Action Conference chair Matt Schlapp speculated that Disease X was a scheme to kill off “excess population”

because they “want less people.” Schlapp stated: “I think they must know something, and I’m not going to discount the fact that probably Disease X is a thing and could happen, and some people — as evil and dastardly as it sounds — thinks killing millions of people actually could be good for the rest of us who survive.” Additionally, host Chris Plante said that at the meeting, “globalists at Davos ... might not be preparing for imaginary situations, but rather assembling their next global power grab.” Newsmax, *Chris Plante The Right Squad*, [1/17/23; CNN, 12/16/23]

• • Conspiracy theorist Russell Brand posted an episode of his Stay Free livestream titled “‘Disease X Is Imminent!!’ The Next Pandemic Is Here?!” In the episode, Brand claimed that a supposed vaccine for Disease X was being developed “using technology that potentially caused the last pandemic, in a facility that also produces bioweapons.” Rumble, *Stay Free*, [1/15/24]

• • Conservative podcast host Graham Allen, whose show Dear America is exclusively on Rumble, suggested in a livestream that Disease X is a plan “to stop a Trump presidency and/or possibly take over the world.” Later in his stream, Allen’s co-host highlighted a user comment reading “COVID was a test run” for Disease X, and Allen agreed. Rumble, *Graham Allen’s Dear America*, [1/17/24, 1/17/24, accessed 1/10/24]

• • Users in private right-wing Facebook groups spread conspiracy theories about Disease X, sharing right-wing media coverage and claiming that “genocidal depopulation” and “lockdowns” are coming. Users shared right-wing articles and videos — including from The Gateway Pundit, Russell Brand, and Rumble videos — stoking fears about Disease X in groups with tens of thousands of members. Facebook, accessed [1/18/24]

• • Conspiracy theories about Disease X and imminent lockdowns also spread on far-right platforms such as Truth Social, Telegram, and 4chan. Conspiracy theorists and QAnon figures fearmongered that “Preparing for Disease X” was a top priority of the meeting in Davos, with QAnon influencer Jordan Sather writing on Truth Social, “TRY ANOTHER SCAMDEMIC YOU GLOBALIST SCUM.” On 4chan, users claimed that “Disease X is officially spreading, lockdowns incoming” and that “this time … restrictions will never be lifted.” On Telegram, anti-vaccine figure Sherri Tenpenny suggested that a vaccine for Disease X is under development. Truth Social, [1/11/24; 4chan, 1/16/24, 1/16/24; Telegram, 1/15/24; PolitiFact, accessed1/18/24]

• ## Right-wing figures are using fear of Disease X to sell “medical emergency kits”
  • Dr. Peter McCullough, who has spread conspiracy theories about COVID-19, used Disease X to promote an “emergency kit” that sells for $300 and includes ivermectin, which is an unproven COVID-19 treatment.McCullough is the “chief science officer” for The Wellness Company, a right-wing media-associated company that sells supplements. Discussing Disease X during a media appearance, McCullough said, “Wellness Company’s got a wonderful kit at home you can have.” Twitter/X, [1/17/24; The Daily Beast, 12/1/23; The Wellness Company, accessed 1/18/24; NIH, accessed 1/18/24]

• • The Gateway Pundit used Disease X to promote The Wellness Company’s “medical emergency kits.” In a “sponsored message” titled “‘DISEASE X’ — Are The Globalists Planning Another Pandemic?” The Gateway Pundit urged readers, “Don’t be caught unprepared for whatever the WEF has in mind” and “Don’t regret not acting today” in purchasing The Wellness Company’s emergency kits. The post stated, “The Wellness Company and their doctors are medical professionals that you can trust and their new medical emergency kits are the gold standard when it comes to keeping you safe and healthy.” The article also noted that Gateway Pundit would benefit from the sale of emergency kits. The Gateway Pundit, accessed [1/17/24]

• • The Wellness Company also sponsored an article in Breitbart, which encouraged readers to start “stocking up” on medications included in the “medical emergency kits.” The article urges readers to “protect you and your family from drug shortages, ‘Disease X,’ or whatever comes your way,” and it quotes anti-vaccine figure Dr. James Thorp, who claims that the WEF is “threatening us that there’s another pandemic coming.” Breitbart, accessed [1/18/24; Real Clear Politics, 2/24/23]

• • The Telegram channel for Steve Bannon’s War Room promoted a Gateway Pundit article that included promotion of The Wellness Company’s emergency kits. The post urges readers: “Before The Next Crisis Hits – Prepare With A Medical Emergency Kit (Includes Ivermectin and Z-Pak).” Telegram, [1/12/24; The Gateway Pundit, 1/12/24]

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splc accelerationist

...

Online spaces foster terrorists

For this terroristic part of the movement to gather any steam, they needed spaces to congregate and reinforce each other’s belief that violence is, beyond all doubt, the only way to move toward their political vision. In the years since Trump was elected, theaccelerationist movement has grown on places like Gab and, increasingly, on the encrypted messaging app Telegram – both platforms run by techno-libertarians who tout their commitment to a laissez-faire form of content moderation, which, in practice, means allowing extremists to use their platforms largely unabated.

“I guess I have to say it again and again,” a channel admin who uses the name of Fox News host Tucker Carlson as his moniker wrote in May 2019. “Destabilizing the US is the only way to create a mass movement of any kind ever. Therefore Accelerationism is the only path to victory for anyone further right then [sic] John McCain. Lets face it, We don’t have the numbers to win the next presidential election nor the one after that.”

In another post a few days later, “Carlson” admonished those who believe “we are getting out of this without bullets flying.”

Because it tolerates even their most violent ideations, Telegram has become a safe haven for accelerationists in a social media world where the they fear deplatforming (though, it bears mentioning, major social media companies continue to harbor extremists on their platforms and enforce their policies against hate inconsistently and insufficiently).

Hatewatch notified Telegram that far-right extremists were calling for acts of terrorism on their platform in June 2019, but the company did not respond. Some white terror channels were placed in a restricted state in January 2020 and, the next month, a handful appeared to have been removed from the site. The company has not explained why certain channels were restricted. In any case, users have found ways around the restrictions and channels often reappear shortly after deletion.

“Build your base on a platform that doesn’t hate you. Use this superior gathering place to send [Twitter] to its well deserved grave,” one Telegram admin told their more than 5,000 subscribers.

A number of channel administrators have formed a formalized network of users who promote terrorism and violence. They have created a web of extremist content by constantly sharing posts from each other’s channels. While about a dozen core channels in the network set the ideological tone for the rest – one with nearly 6,000 subscribers and many more with close to 4,000 – hundreds of channels contain accelerationist content. In other words, finding your way into just one channel in the network makes it easy enough to completely submerge yourself in an echo chamber of violent extremism.

Over roughly the last decade, terroristic violence has been heralded as a solution by a segment of white supremacist activists – but most of them were sequestered on highly secretive sites where it was difficult for even true believers to gain access. The primary hub was Iron March, a site that was online from 2011 to 2017, during which time it helped launch at least nine fascist groups around the world. Iron March produced both Atomwaffen Division and American Vanguard – whoseoffshoot organization, Vanguard America, murderer James Alex Fields marched with at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville.

The forum had a total of 1,653 posters – far smaller than many Telegram channels peddling accelerationist and exterminationist content. But the small community helped shape the aesthetics, language and ideological foundations that eventually came to proliferate on Telegram. On Iron March, the writings of older figures in the white power movement, like George Lincoln Rockwell and Louis Beam, were resurrected, but**none more so than James Mason**. A committed neo-Nazi since the 1960s, Mason produced a newsletter called SIEGE between 1980 and 1986 that was eventually compiled into a single, unwieldy volume meant to serve as a guide for racist revolutionaries. Readers, the publisher of the volume’s second edition wrote in the introduction, should heed the “clarion call, wage battles of attrition, and act in a manner commensurate to Timothy McVeigh of Oklahoma City fame.” From Iron March, SIEGE and its ideas were launched into the wider spaces of the internet, turning #readsiege into a meme within certain white supremacist social media circles.

For the most part, however, the kind of ideas and discussions found on Iron March – the overt calls for terroristic violence, deep dives into the writings and speeches of fascist thinkers and advice on how to form networks of leaderless cells in the style outlined by Beam – were difficult to find on social media before white supremacists began flocking to Telegram.The platform has radically changed the kinds of rhetoric white supremacists openly use and has, in turn, changed the tenor of the movement as a whole. Just as users on Iron March talked each other into embracing ever more extreme and violent ideas, users on Telegram are doing the same – but they are operating within a vastly larger and more accessible platform that facilitates social networking and peer-to-peer contact.

While still steeped in the language of memes familiar to anyone who has scrolled 4chan’s /pol/ board, the rhetoric on Telegram is remarkably earnest and direct. “Real shit,” one user wrote to their more than 3,000 subscribers last October, “However you try to cut it, there will be violence. An insane amount of bloodshed.”

Once people do find their way onto Telegram (likely through links supplied by extremists on places like Twitter and YouTube), the platform’s design could make it an exceptionally effective space for quickening the process of radicalization. Channels act like a steady propaganda stream in which the admin(s) of a channel can, day and night, tell their subscribers that the white race is being attacked and that it is their job to acquire weapons, learn how to make explosives and become expert in guerrilla warfare and operational security.

Channels are packed with propaganda that is often sophisticated, including branded and highly stylized images and videos. Telegram allows users to upload videos up to 1.5 gigabytes – far larger than any other comparable platform. It became the primary platform through which The Base posted their propaganda, including photos and videos of members engaging in paramilitary-style training.

Within that unceasing stream of posts, subscribers are made to feel as if a race war is looming on the horizon. “Boogaloo soon,” a meme referencing a future civil war, is a common refrain from people like Paul Nehlen, a former Republican congressional candidate turned neo-Nazi who has more than 2,300 Telegram subscribers. One Telegram admin promoted a channel created to “prepare the reader to become and [sic] effective guerrilla fighter.” “Lots of information you will need one day,” they wrote above a link to the channel. “Don’t be the f****t that gets taken out on day one of the boogaloo.” Another provided a simple message to “all Jews…living in White countries around the world: Run.”

White power activists pine for stories they can use to create collective outrage or celebration that will bond members of the community. After a December 2019 shooting at a kosher grocery in Jersey City, New Jersey, for instance, Telegram users posted “Pleaseletitbeawhitemale.” They were evidently hoping their movement had gained a new “saint,” a term accelerationists use to describe many mass killers. When white supremacist shooters do carry out an attack, extremists swarm to places like Telegram and 4chan in ugly veneration and to encourage others to be the next to take up arms for their cause.....

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/white-nationalists/

AH

Historically, one of the ways in which opponents of White supremacists, neo-Nazis and other domestic terrorists have attacked them was by going after them monetarily. But extremists, according to the Associated Press and PBS' "Frontline," are finding a way around that: cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Monero.

In an article that is part of an AP/"Frontline" collaboration, reporters Erika Kinetz and Lori Hinnant explain, "Radical right provocateurs are raising significant amounts of money from around the world through cryptocurrencies. Banned by traditional financial institutions, they have taken refuge in digital currencies — which they are using in ever-more-secretive ways to avoid the oversight of banks, regulators and courts, finds an AP analysis of legal documents, Telegram channels and blockchain data from Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency analytics firm."

Kinetz and Hinnant point to the Daily Stormer, founded by White supremacist/neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin in 2013, as an example of an extremist website that has profited from cryptocurrencies in a major way.

"The Daily Stormer website advocates for the purity of the White race, posts hate-filled, conspiratorial screeds against Blacks, Jews and women and has helped inspire at least three racially motivated murders," Kinetz and Hinnant note. "It has also made its founder, Andrew Anglin, a millionaire. Anglin has tapped a worldwide network of supporters to take in at least 112 Bitcoin since January 2017 — worth $4.8 million at today's exchange rate — according to data shared with The Associated Press. He's likely raised even more."

The reporters add that when Anglin was "cut off by credit card processors and banned by PayPal," Bitcoin became "his main source of funding." When Anglin's "Retard's Guide to Using Bitcoin" was published in April 2020, he said that he had been funding the Daily Stormer through Bitcoin exclusively for four years. But Anglin, according to Kinetz and Hinnant, abandoned Bitcoin in favor of another cryptocurrency, Monero, because "the transactions are all hidden."

According to Beth Littrell, an attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, cryptocurrencies are making it harder to sue violent extremists than it was in the past.

Littrell told "Frontline" and the AP, "We were able to sue the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist organization, in essence out of existence…. The law is evolving but lagging behind the harm."

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/anonymous-hack-fascist-internet/

igor salon

The hacktivist collective Anonymous leaked over 150 gigabytes of private data after hacking the web registration company Epik, a popular domain host for far-right groups.

Popular far-right platforms like Parler, Gab and 8chan, as well as far-right extremist groups like the Proud Boys and QAnon, recently migrated to Epik being banned from other platforms following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot for violating policies on hate speech and spreading misinformation. Last week, Anonymous dumped what it said was a "decade's worth" of company data in a torrent file, including passwords, internal emails, home addresses, and phone numbers.

"After years of bolstering the worst trash the Internet has to offer, this is, truly, the Epik moment we've all been waiting for," the group said in a statement it published along with the data dump, which was first reported by independent journalist Steven Monacelli.

"This dataset is all that's needed to trace actual ownership and management of the fascist side of the Internet," the statement said. "Time to find out who in your family secretly ran an Ivermectin horse porn fetish site, disinfo publishing outfit, or yet another Qanon hellhole."

Extremism researchers say the leak is akin to a "Rosetta Stone to the far right" and is helping them find new links among the groups.

"It's massive. It may be the biggest domain-style leak I've seen and, as an extremism researcher, it's certainly the most interesting," Megan Squire, a professor atElon Universitywho studies right-wing extremism, told the Washington Post. "It's an embarrassment of riches — stress on the embarrassment."

Epik drew national headlines earlier this month after offering support to Texas Right to Life, an antiabortion group whose website was removed from GoDaddy because it solicited information on women who solicited abortions in violations of Texas' new near-total ban. But Epik ultimately stopped working with the site because it violated their rules against collecting private information. Epik has in recent years become a safe space for far-right platforms that were booted from major web hosts like Amazon Web Services, though it has tried to take steps to shed some of its most toxic clients, cutting ties with the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer and 8chan.

"The company played such a major role in keeping far-right terrorist cesspools alive," Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which studies online extremism, told the Post. "Without Epik, many extremist communities — from QAnon and white nationalists to accelerationist neo-Nazis — would have had far less oxygen to spread harm, whether that be building toward the Jan. 6 Capitol riots or sowing the misinformation and conspiracy theories chipping away at democracy."

Epik founder Robert Monster has drawn growing criticism for hosting extremist content. Monster has denied holding extremist views but following that Christchurch shooting in New Zealand that killed 50 people, he uploaded links to the shooter's video and published his so-called manifesto. Monster insisted that his employees watch the video, which he claimed was faked, according to Bloomberg News.

Monster acknowledged the hack in an email to customers last week, alerting them of an "alleged security incident."

"You are in our prayers today," he wrote, according to the Post. "When situations arise where individuals might not have honorable intentions, I pray for them. I believe that what theenemy intends for evil, God invariably transforms into good. Blessings to you all."

But the company has come under "ridicule" from researchers who have "marveled at the site's apparent failure to take security precautions," according to the report. None of the files were encrypted, researchers say, including data revealing the administrators of far-right websites and passwords. The hack also exposed personal data from Anonymize, a privacy service the company offered to users that wanted to hide their identity.Previous similar hacks have drawn investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and hefty settlements.

"Given Epik's boasts about security, and the scope of its Web hosting, I would think it would be an FTC target, especially if the company was warned but failed to take protective action," David Vladeck, the former director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau, told the Post. "I would add that the FTC wouldn't care about the content — right wing or left wing; the questions would be the possible magnitude and impact of the breach and the representations … the company may have made about security."

Epik initially said it was unaware of the hack but Monster, on a "rambling three-hour live-stream" last week, acknowledged there was a "hijack of data that should not have been hijacked," according to the report.

"If you have a negative intent to use that data, it's not going to work out for you. I'm just telling you," he said. "If the demon tells you to do it, the demon is not your friend."

But extremism researchers have likened the leak to the "Panama Papers of hate groups," Emma Best, co-founder of the nonprofit whistleblower groupDistributed Denial of Secrets, told the Post.

"A lot of research begins with naming names," she said. "There's a lot of optimism and feeling of being overwhelmed, and people knowing they're in for the long haul with some of this data."

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/ammon-bundy/

david n kos

One of the consequences of the GOP's sidelong embrace of its extremist elements—from the insurrection denialists and Big Lie gaslighters to the QAnon cultists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert—is that far-right extremists are now perfectly comfortable identifying as Republicans. In some cases, they're demanding the overthrow of the party's establishment—which can't seem to decide whether to fight back or just succumb willingly to the incoming far-right tide.

Establishment Republicans in Western states are particularly under siege from extremist elements among their voting base. I**n Idaho**, for instance, armed-standoff-guru-turned-pandemic-denialist Ammon Bundy filed paperwork to run for governor, in a race already featuring another leading state "Patriot" movement figure. InNevada, an insurgent far-right group organized on social media and led by Proud Boys members are attempting an open hostile takeover of the Clark County GOP, the state's largest county-level Republican organization.

Bundy's filing is rich in irony. For starters, he is currently banned from the Idaho Statehouse in Boise after his two ejections and arrests for defying masking requirements, for which he is currently standing trial. For another, as KTVB notes, Bundy himself is not even registered to vote in Idaho, and has apparently never done so in the five years or so that he has lived in Emmett.

He also named himself the treasurer of his campaign, which means that he will have to refile the paperwork, according to the Idaho Secretary of State's office, which tweeted out an explanation: "Because a treasurer must be a registered Idaho voter, Ammon Bundy will either need to register and refile or name a new treasurer by refiling. IDSOS staff have notified him as such."

The Republican field to replace incumbent Governor Brad Little (who has not announced whether he will seek re-election) is already large, and Bundy's competition in the primary already features another leading "Patriot" movement figure, Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin,who announced her candidacy last week. While Bundy was probably the earliest far-right figure in Idaho to take up the cause of opposing COVID-19-related public-health restrictions, McGeachin—who has supported Bundy and his fellow standoff-loving "Patriots" steadfastly from her office in Boise—has also been on the pandemic-denialist bandwagon.

McGeachin appeared alongside Bundy at one anti-restriction rally in Boise. More notoriously, she appeared in a video in which she brandished a handgun and a Bible while sitting in the driver's seat of a pickup, railing against coronavirus restrictions.

The political insurgency inside Clark County's NV] GOP was reported Friday by Rory Appleton at the *Las Vegas Review-Journal*,who explained that a group of far-right activists with deep ties to the Proud Boys are positioning themselves to take over the county Republican leadership. Some of its members, meanwhile, are alleged to have threatened a number of prominent Republicans.

The group, Appleton reported, organized online—primarily using the encrypted chat app Telegram—while reveling in anti-Semitic and white-nationalist memes and rhetoric. "Two Republican women in public office told the Review-Journal they've been threatened by leaders of the fringe movement, as did the current board of the Clark County party, which is hiring security for a crucial meeting Tuesday," the story reads.

Calling itself the "Republican Chamber of Commerce" (despite lacking ties to any known GOP organization), the far-right group first made its presence felt last month when it organized a late surge in votes favoring the censure of Barbara Cegavske, the state's Republican Secretary of State, for refusing to play along with attempts to overturn the 2020 election results based on Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud.

Since then, it has been preparing to provide a similar wave of votes to sweep three of their three leading figures—Rudy Clai, Matt Anthony and Paul Laramie—into the leadership of the Clark County GOP. The group has no record of doing business anywhere in the state of Nevada, and has no connection to any of the known chamber or Republican groups already established in Nevada.

Yet its website appears to be a nominally mainstream GOP group. Its primary emblem resembles the Republican National Committee's logo but inverted, with a red elephant on a white background encircled in red with the letters "RCC" and "Republican Chamber of Commerce" within.

Anthony has achieved a level of media notoriety as one of Las Vegas' most prominent Proud Boys, though he insists the local chapter is nonviolent and nonracist. After the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, he defended the people arrested and warned against a law-enforcement crackdown on "Patriots": "They're basically going all in on tyranny, guys. … They're watching. It's to be expected. They're the enemy. They're going to shut down our ability to communicate."

As it happens, Anthony is also a fugitive: He is the subject of an arrest warrant from the state of Michigan after he broke probation by moving to Nevada and then refusing to return after Nevada declined to oversee his probation, all stemming from his 2012 arrest on a drug charge.

The group's Telegram channel—owned by Anthony, and administered by Clai—is titled "Keep Nevada Open," apparently an offshoot of a Facebook group with the same name that boasted 17,000 members and organized anti-masking and other pandemic-related protests. Appleton describes a review of the channel's contents by the Clark County GOP executive board, led by chief of staff Richard MacLean:

MacLean showed his fellow board members several pictures and videos posted within the group, though not specifically by Anthony and Clai.

One photo blamed the 9/11 terrorist bombings on Jews. Another video featured a long clip of an Adolf Hitler speech and Nazi soldier marches. Some featured cartoon characters with negative Jewish stereotypes, and one photo featured messages written on dollar bills.

A post even poked fun at Republicans, claiming they seemed to be shocked at certain current events while white nationalists were thrilled by them.

The board promptly ejected the three men from the party. However, on Thursday, 10 people including Anthony and Clai filed a lawsuitagainst both the county and state party central committees, accusing them of illegally boxing them out of Clark County GOP meetings. They claim Clai and Anthony are heading up an alternative leadership slate, and are running against a mainstream ticket headed up by state Sen. Carrie Buck.

Despite the pushback by local Republican officials, the extremist elements remain emboldened in no small part because national-level Republicans have shown their eagerness to ignore the radicalism and even embrace it. Certainly, the local far-right leaders are confident that the party's base supports them, and not the establishment players.

"We have the numbers, and they don't, so they have to play dirty," Anthony said in an interview Thursday. "It's that simple."

McGeachin's campaign signs feature the hashtag #IAmIdaho. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are at a pivotal moment in history, not just for Idaho but for our nation," McGeachin said.

Bundy told NBC News on Monday that, despite the filings, he hasn't formally announced his candidacy, but is preparing to build a campaign organization.

"The people of Idaho are very freedom-minded," Bundy said. "I had never desired (to run for office), but I knew as early as 2017 that I would run for governor of Idaho."

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aha with encryption reversion to old direct mail; complete, no filter/moderation/correction

an ME 221

QAnon believes are known for circulating misinformation campaigns but now it appears they have been duped by fraudsters on social media.

According to The Daily Beast, impersonators of former President Donald Trump and former First Lady Melania Trump managed to dupe QAnon believes who flocked to the private social media platform Telegram after more than 70,000 QAnon believers were exiled from mainstream social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Due to Telegram's end-to-end encryption capability, users have a better chance of having conversations without them being screenshotted or made public which would likely serve as an advantage of right-wing extremists. In a matter of days, QAnon believers were joined by prominent right-wing conservatives and they thought they'd finally found a platform they could use to get their message across.

The publication reports:

Many of the Telegram newcomers found that some of MAGAworld's biggest stars had joined them. Donald Trump himself was on the app, amassing more than 200,000 followers within a few days. So was Melania Trump, posting herself to Telegram as "Lady Melania Trump." Air Force General John Hyten joined the app and began issuing cryptic, QAnon-style pronouncements that thrilled believers eager to see President Joe Biden arrested and Trump returned to power.

However, things did not work out in QAnon believers' favor. All of the accounts claiming to be top members of Trumpworld were fake.

In addition to the fake Trump family accounts, the publication reports that the top, fake account belonged to a hoaxer impersonating former Air Force general Lt. Gen Tom McInerney, who has emerged as a conspiracy theorist who frequently appears on Alex Jones's InfoWars show. McInerney, a highly influential right-wing voice, also contributed to the birther conspiracy Trump pushed about former President Barack Obama.

Although McInerney confirmed back in January that the fake account was not his, that has not stopped it from garnering more than 158,000 followers on the strength of the real former general's reputation. While the publication notes that the account holder does not appear to have ulterior motives, there are still concerns about the rise of fake accounts on social media platforms. Now, some QAnon believers are also wondering about the reason behind the fake accounts.

"Someone somewhere is trying to mind f**k us," QAnon believer Jordan Sather said in a Telegram post.

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https://theintercept.com/2021/01/12/boogaloo-telegram-violence-recruit/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/09/30/the-app-that-the-proud-boys-used-to-celebrate-donald-trumps-debate-performance

bs

who emerged the winner from the presidential debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden?

To many, it was hard to tell. It seemed like cacophonous chaos, the night producing less of a clear victory for either man than an overall loss for a country that had to sit through 90 minutes of barbs, cross talk and ill will. But the crowd on Parler, a new social media app that courts conservative America, including the far-right Proud Boys, seemed to reach a more definitive conclusion: This was a total victory for Trump.

“People were on Parler tonight because they can freely express their views without fear of being throttled, banned, deplatformed,” says John Matze, the app’s founder. He sees Parler as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook, the mainstream platforms that Matze and others believe try to silence conservatives. “Overall, I think their Parler experience contributed to a fair and free election.”

Parler, founded in 2018, has become a beacon for Republicans during the past few months, and in June, Trump publicly flirted with the idea of leaving Facebook and Twitter to concentrate efforts on Parler. He didn’t, though he, his son Eric and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani all made official accounts and became active on the app. So did plenty of Trump supporters. At one point this summer, Parler was getting 500,000 downloads a week, and its user base neared 2 million, many times the amount on the app before Trump highlighted Parler, a place that the Proud Boys have made a home for themselves since Twitter and Facebook suspended the group in 2018.

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• ### ‘Stand Back And Stand By’: Trump Doesn’t Condemn White Supremacists, But Gives Shoutout To Right-Wing Proud Boys
• ### Trump Threatens To Issue Executive Order Preventing Biden From Being Elected President
• ### Who Are The Proud Boys, The Group Behind The Controversial Portland Rally?]

Unsurprisingly then, Parler was a hotbed of activity throughout Tuesday’s debate. John Solomon, the founder and editor in chief of the right-leaning News.com, labeled the evening a “Biden blunder.” The event was characterized in violent terms by one self-described “supremacist” on the app, @MidnightMarauder: “The equivalent of #trump bringing a gun to a pillow fight.” While another user, @HouseofTrump, simply concluded that Biden “truly has no clue.”

Those words glow with only low luminosity when compared to the 10,000-watt intensity on the app after Trump told the Proud Boys during the debate to “stand back and stand by,” a phrase that the group understandably interpreted as a call to arms.

Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs could hardly contain his glee,typing out this on Parler: “Trump basically said to go fuck them up! this makes me so happy.” (He reportedly made similar comments on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that has attracted nationalist groups because of its anonymity-protecting technology.) Biggs has a sizable following on the app, some 34,000 people, and he describes himself in his Parler profile as a “Singer, Motorcycle rider and freedom fighter.”

Enrique Tarrio, another Proud Boys chief, echoed Biggs’ comment. “I’m am [sic] extremely PROUD of my Presidents performance tonight,” he wrote on Parler. The Proud Boys’ widely followed main account, @TheProudBoys, which has 50,000 subscribers, offered up a brief summation of the evening, punctuating their excitement with capital letters: “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!” Below those words was a picture of a black T-shirt with the words “Proud Boys Standing By” emblazoned on it in canary yellow.

Matze, the app’s founder, had this to say about the talk on his app. “We are a neutral town square. As long as [the Proud Boys’] speech is legal . . . and they follow our [terms of service] . . . we do not discriminate based off group or association.”

As it happens, the boys did not, actually, have the last word on Parler last night. An hour after the debate, user @IceQueenAsh, who has decorated her Parler profile with Pepe the Frog and characterizes herself as a “#proudmom” and a “#proud patriot,” wrote: “Screw it I’ll say it! #TheProudGals are here in spirit and damn proud how #TheProudBoys have handled themselves!”

“The Proud Boys are awesome,” she concluded. “Good old fashion red white and blue!”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/white-supremacy-groups-are-hoping-to-leverage-george-floyds-death-into-their-longed-for-race-war/

no lnx pixvid twt

white supremacy groups are hoping to leverage George Floyd’s death into their longed-for ‘race war’

Image via Screrengrab.

Written by Mark Sumner / Daily Kos May 31, 2020

The protests that have spread across the nation in the wake of the murder of George Floyd have attracted a diverse group of supporters that go beyond local Black communities and national organizations. At events in Washington, New York, Minneapolis, and elsewhere, community activists have been joined by allies, by groups supporting Latinos, Indian groups, and even groups of Mennonite farmers speaking out in support and showing up for protests.

But, with dozens of buildings burned and Donald Trump preparing to bring in the military, there’s a growing sense that the violence in many cases isn’t originating from within the local Black community. In multiple instances, there have been incidents that seemed to spring up on the periphery of peaceful protests, leading to violent confrontations and property destruction. And increasingly, there are reports that these events are not originating organically from the protests or from confrontations between protesters and the police. There is a very real feeling that white supremacists are using this moment to create incidents designed to justify still more violence and suppression.

peanut butter cup

@deshawnieboy

Raw footage of who started the looting in Oakland at Walgreens. Had just seen them three blocks down hitting some other businesses. All prepared with hammers. Don’t let them say different.

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With dozens of protests across the nation, not every event is the same. For example, it’s not hard to see what sparked this incident Atlanta, where a police officer slams a bicycle into a Black woman for having the audacity to wave a finger at him while saying “Don’t touch me.” It’s clear that the violence in this particular moment originated direct from the police.

Brittany Miller

@Brittm_tv

WATCH: I was recording when the first clash between police & protestors broke out in Atlanta.  @cbs46 #cbs46 #news #GeorgeFloydprotest

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But in some of the most publicized incidents across the nation, there seem to be a singular nature to some of those involved, as in this recording in which what appears to be a young white man in camo pants and military boots paints graffiti on a federal building.

Fin Gomez

@finnygo

The protest then headed to in front of the White House. A protester was taken by the USSS in front of Pennsylvania Ave into an adjacent federal building. Unclear what he did.A couple men then splintered off from the group and spray painted “F*ck Trump” on the building. @cbsnews

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Or this group which is, reportedly, shown attempting to smash store windows in Minneapolis, with the group initiating this action appearing to be led by a number of white people.

Joy Reid

@JoyAnnReid

• May 30, 2020

Replying to @lewoofl

Yes we are. Absolutely.

Barbara Stiles

@Dovewoman1

This from @Mikel_Jollett

It shows the instigators clearly. They are white. Organized with walkie talkies. pic.twitter.com/zPhBoSg3fE

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And those on the ground reported similar events at other protests in many locations.

Asia

@AsiaJannelll

I was at Downtown Oakland protests a little while ago. Let me say something; the people breaking glass, breaking into windows & starting fires were WHITE men wearing all black. They had hammers and walkie talkies. They were organized. BLM protestors did not start the violence!

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Repeatedly, from eye witnesses and from officials, have come claims that violence in the protests is originating not with those who live in the community, but with others who have appeared to take advantage of this moment.

Joy Reid

@JoyAnnReid

Remarkable info coming out of this presser: Gov. Tim Walls, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and now MN attorney general Keith Ellison ALL alleging outside forces, domestic and possibly foreign, have post-Tuesday infiltrated the state, and are

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And, as Vice reports, far right extremists are trying to use this situation in hopes of bringing about their much-desired “race war.”That effort involves both showing up at protests with guns, initiating violence, and taking to computers to urge everyone involved toward more tragic confrontations. Even the Hawaiian shirt-wearing “Boogaloo Bois” have appeared at some of the protests. The possibility of using these protests as a precipitating incident, and calls for white supremacist militias to confront protesters, are dominating discussion boards and social media for these groups.

This is also generating some genuinely bizarre events.

Fox Wound

@foxwoundband

Atlanta has deployed a child militia at Lenox Mall fitted with riot shields and batons. What the actual fuck is going on?

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The extent to which those trying to instigate more widespread violence are behind the incidents of property damage and physical clashes remains unclear. What is absolutely clear it that white supremacists are hoping to leverage yet another example of violence against an individual Black man as an excuse to carry out a campaign of expanded violence against the entire Black community.

Following closely on the heels of the police murder of Breonna Taylor and the recorded lynching of Ahmaud Arbery—as well as decades in which police violence has been repeatedly excused—there’s no doubt of the weight of grief in the Black community, or the justified anger. But there are definitely those who are seeking to turn this moment from one in which those suffering injustice are finally heard, to one in which that injustice is “justified” and made worse.

And with Donald Trump calling Nazis in Charlottesville “very fine people” and protesters in Minneapolis “thugs,” there seems little doubt about which side he is ready to join.

Joy Reid

@JoyAnnReid

• May 30, 2020

Replying to @JoyAnnReid

And the governor says he has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, and fully mobilized the MN National Guard for the first time in 164 years. This is a continuing story and presumably we will begin hearing it echoed in other cities.

Joy Reid

@JoyAnnReid

Mayor Carter said EVERY person arrested last night during the protests was from out of state. The governor said it is at least 80 percent, and that they will begin releasing the names. Dept of Safety Commissioner John Harrington says they are contract-tracing arrestees:

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==

ref

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pkyb9b/far-right-extremists-are-hoping-to-turn-the-george-floyd-protests-into-a-new-civil-war

no lnx pix vid twt

Far-Right Extremists Are Hoping to Turn the George Floyd Protests Into a New Civil War

Armed extremists are showing up to protests and urging a "boogaloo" — code for civil war — online.

By Tess Owen

May 29 2020, 2:57pm

Far-right extremists are showing up, with guns, to the protests against police brutality that have exploded across the country.

Others are egging on the violence from behind their computers, urging followers to carry out acts of violence against black protesters with the goal of sparking a “race war.”

Their presence makes an uneasy addition to the escalating unrest, which was triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who was choked to death by a white Minneapolis police officer earlier this week.

But there’s a range of motivations that’s driving far-right interest toward the protests, which are being led by community members and Black Lives Matter, and bolstered by antifascists.

For example, the so-called Boogaloo Bois — a group of armed anti-government extremists made visible by their Hawaiian shirts — have reportedly shown up to some of the protests.

READ: The cop who kneeled on George Floyd's neck was just charged with murder]

The “boogaloo” is code for impending civil war or violent confrontation with law enforcement, and that’s what they’re hoping to get out of the protests. Their main reason for being there is their antipathy toward law enforcement, and so they’re trying to position themselves as allies of Black Lives Matter protesters. They’ve made police brutality one of their central issues, which was explored at length in a Bellingcat article this week.

Their approach to police brutality links the victims of the deadly standoff with federal agents at Ruby Ridge in 1992, to the victims of modern police brutality, including Floyd. But unlike the vast majority of protesters, they refuse to acknowledge the fact that police brutality is an issue that disproportionately impacts people of color.

There have been scattered reports of Boogaloo Bois’ presence at the protests, which were compiled by a Bellingcat investigative journalist in a thread. He includes an audio clip (stripped of video per activists’ requests) ofprotesters saying they’d wrestled a handgun from a “white nationalist” agitator — whom he describes as a Boogaloo Boi who became overly rowdy.

READ: New video shows three cops kneeling on George Floyd as he lay dying]

Another photo, shared across private Boogaloo Facebook pages, showed one of their own unfurling their trademark flag during the Minneapolis protests.

And one protester posted a picture of himself wearing a gas mask to Instagram, under the hashtag #Boogaloo.

While some Boogaloo Bois say they’re just libertarians, others will, on occasion, veer into racism — and make no secret of their desire for violence. In addition to their physical presence at the protests, the #boogaloo hashtag on social media has been flooded with memes in the last couple days egging on violence, and talking about how they hope this is the beginning of a civil war.

While more established militia types sometimes share those perspectives, they often view themselves as intermediaries between law enforcement and civilians. For example, two armed white men were interviewed by the Minnesota Reformer, a local independent news organization, outside a tobacco store in Minneapolis this week. They said they were protecting businesses from looters, but were also there to defend civilians should they need to.

“Cops are less likely totread on people’s rightswhen there’s other armed people around them,” one of the men told the interviewer.

Local activists identified another group in Minneapolis as members of the III% militia, one of the largest militia networks in the U.S.

But perhaps the most troubling of all are the hardcore “accelerationists” who are encouraging their neo-Nazi followers to go to the protests and carry out acts of violence against black people — all with the goal of “exacerbating the ethnic tensions” and sparking a “race war.”

Accelerationists promote violence to speed up the collapse of society. Aneco-fascist Telegram channel wrote to its nearly 2,500 subscribers on Thursday that “a riot would be the perfect place to commit a murder.” Accelerationists often seek to exploit moments of political or civil unrest, and the widespread protests that have unfolded across the country fit the bill. Similarly, 4chan is full of racists cheering the violence and saying that they hope it’s the beginning of a “race war.”

Cover: Protesters are trapped between police and other protesters who gathered in a call for justice for George Floyd following his death, outside the 3rd Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

==

==

On March 21, another YouTube video was uploaded saying Gates wants to implant microchips in people and calling them a “mark of Satan” that could be used for “identifying us to the United Nations.” The video has received nearly 1.8 million views and at least 1.2 million Facebook engagements, according to the tracking tool BuzzSumo. That includes shares in QAnon Facebook groups and on a major anti-vaxx Facebook page.[pix w/ pyr eye]

throughout the rest of March, more videos popped up on YouTube (despite the platform’s pledge to crack down on coronavirus misinformation) accusing Gates of wanting “eugenics” and “population control” and claiming he is the antichrist and that he essentially supports genocide; they racked up another 1.6 million views combined. The videos included a clip from anti-Semitic conspiracy theory outlet TruNews and a video whose title called the virus a “hoax” (those videos received hundreds of thousands of Facebook engagements combined)....[rw talk?]

Videos on social media platform TikTok pushing the conspiracy theory in late March and early April also racked up many views (despite the platform’s anti-misinformation policy). One video that received more than 230,000 views included in the caption “#fvaccines” andaccused Gates of pushing for everyone on the planet to have a “digital ID … by combining mandatory vaccines with implantable microchips.” (Media Matters removes identifying information from videos created by or featuring minors to protect their identity.) Another video that received tens of thousands of views claimed Gates was “evil” and connected him to a plan to “get everybody microchipped” via vaccines.

...[pix]

The conspiracy theory continued to spread following news in early April of Gates’ spending for a coronavirus cure. Another major white nationalist Telegram account shared a post saying Gates wants the population “extinguished,” and multiple accounts on Facebook and Instagram, including QAnon and anti-vaxx accounts, shared a meme urging people to take “no vaccine from some shady ass nerd that wants to depopulate the planet.” Ben Garrison, a far-right and pro-Trump cartoonist, drew a cartoon pushing the conspiracy theory that portrays Gates as a Nazi, which was also posted on the backup site of the pro-Trump subreddit “r/The_Donald.”[pix meme blk kid]

...By April 6, bigger QAnon accounts on social media had spread the conspiracy theory, such as Dylan Wheeler, who accused Gates of using “microchip[s]” in order to be “the face of the New World Order.” [telegram]

220

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/anti-semitic-telegram-channel-targeting-jews-created-facebook-page-facebook-said-it-doesnt

Update (2/27/20): Facebook and Twitter have now suspended the Telegram channel’s accounts on their platforms, with the former taking nearly 48 hours to take action and the latter taking more than 48 hours. In a statement to a reporter for New Zealand’s Newsroom, a Facebook spokesperson said, “We have removed this Page for violating our Community Standards,” which contradicts the platform’s initial review of the page.

An anti-Semitic Telegram channel known for targeting Jews created new Facebook and Twitter accounts to cross-post its harassing content. Despites their policies on harassment and hate speech, neither Facebook nor Twitter has taken action on the new accounts, with Facebook claiming the page does not violate its policies.

The channel, as Mother Jones' Ali Breland wrote in September, has been compiling “an online list of Jewish people who are critical of white nationalism” since it was created last summer. The list includes “archived tweets from individuals criticizing white supremacy, misogyny, and other types of bigotry,” along with tweets “in which the person in question describes themselves as Jewish.” Breland noted that the list “includes many who are not public figures, or who have only modest profiles as rank-and-file activists, journalists, or social media figures.” Breland added that the channel had become “the fastest-growing alt-right group” on Telegram at that time. In February, he tweeted that other white nationalist Telegram channels had forwarded the channel's “content around the time of” a pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, that white nationalists had organized around.

On February 25, the channel posted that “Operation ‘Mass Kvetching’ is underway,” and urged its supporters to “follow [it] on the following platforms,” posting links to both Facebook and Twitter accounts.

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On its Facebook page, the account was already cross-posting its content targeting multiple people for harassment (Media Matters has removed and blurred out images and names from the posts). Despite explicit policies prohibiting bullying, harassment, and hate speech, Facebook wrote in response to Media Matters flagging the page that the page “was reviewed and it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.” Facebook has also recently failed to enforce its policies on harassment and extremism.

Additionally, the channel’s new Twitter page -- which is also cross-posting its harassing content -- comes a few months after Twitter had permanently banned another account the channel had created on the platform. That means the new account is evading a Twitter suspension -- a clear violation of Twitter rules. It is also violating Twitter’s policies prohibiting “hateful conduct” and “targeted harassment.” But as of this posting, Twitter has taken no action against the account. The platform has repeatedly struggled to detect accounts evading their bans, and it continues to have a white nationalist problem.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fake-news/white-nationalist-created-hoax-about-gun-confiscation-leading-calls-violence

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A white nationalist created a hoax about gun confiscation that is leading to calls for violence on social media and message boards

Special PROGRAMS

GUNS & PUBLIC SAFETY

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

PUBLISHED 12/18/19 10:17 AM EST

A noted white nationalist fabricated a claim about guns and Virginia’s governor that has spread in the past week throughout social media and on far-right message boards. The hoax has drawn tens of thousands of engagements and views, and some have issued calls to violence in response.

Following the Democratic takeover of the Virginia state legislature in November’s elections, the state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, said he would reintroduce multiple gun safety bills. In response, multiple counties in the state declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries,” adopting largely symbolic resolutions that say they will not enforce what they deem to be unconstitutional gun laws.

On December 13, Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA) suggested that Northam use the state’s National Guard to enforce the bills if they become law.That same day, the Twitter account for the Virginia National Guard tweeted that it had “not received any requests from the Governor, or anyone on his staff, about serving in a law enforcement role related to any proposed legislation” and encouraging residents to “be patient while we allow our elected officials to work through the legislative process.” Northam himself a day earlier had said that there would be “consequences” if localities did not enforce the law, but he said only that he would “cross that bridge if and when we get to it.”

Also on December 13, Hal Turner, a white nationalist radio host who has a history of spreading false claims and hoaxes, posted on his website that Northam had “allegedly ordered a small cadre of staffers to begin the process for determining how to cut off electricity, telephones/ FAXES, Cellular phones AND DATA, as well as the Internet, in areas where he plans to send Virginia National Guard Troops to forcibly seize guns when the Democrat legislature convenes in January.” Turner further claimed that the order “was allegedly given to a very small and trusted group of staffers, some of whom it turns out, do not agree (at all) with this idea.”

Hal Turner Virginia hoax

Over the next few days, the hoax spread on multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, Instagram accounts, and multiple YouTube channels, some of which are proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory.Users claimed Northam’s supposed response was “why the founding fathers put in the 2nd amendment,” calling for “patriots around the country” to “go after [these] anti-gunners with extreme prejudice,” and calling for “troops [to] remove this traitor from his position.” According to the tracking tool BuzzSumo, posts linking to the hoax article received more than 25,000 engagements on Facebook and Twitter combined.

Twitter Virginia hoax1

Facebook Virginia hoax1

Facebook Virginia hoax4

YouTube Virginia hoax2

Additionally, the hoax circulated throughout multiple message boards, including pro-gun forum AR15.com, where a user asked if there was “any truth” to the hoax and users said it could cause a “civil war.” Another message board that saw traffic on the hoax was the backup site for thesubreddit “r/The_Donald,” where users called the “new rumor” a reason to “plan, act, purchase, train appropriately” and an “absolute necessary step to guarantee full scale revolution in the state ending in executions for all government officials.”

The Donald subreddit backup site Virginia hoax

The hoax was also repeatedly mentioned on 4chan’s “/pol/” message board, where multiple users posted images of the headline or the text of Turner’s article and responded by writing that they were “glad to be fighting age” and urging others to “take care of this faggot” because “americans killed a president for much less.”

4chan Virginia hoax1]

By December 17,multiple white nationalist channels on Telegramwere also posting the hoax, via text from Turner’s site or from another radio host and QAnon supporter, John B. Wells, who had cited Turner and posted the same text on his site on December 15. One of those Telegram channels was that of Paul Nehlen, a former congressional candidate who ran against former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and who has openly expressed white nationalist views and issued calls to violence.

Telegram Virginia hoax2]

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