When Donald Trump told US-based white supremacist group the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”, right-wing extremists in Australia were listening.
Groups such as Reclaim Australia and The Lads Society — which are strongly influenced by Trumpist rhetoric — have always been monitored by security agencies, but the scope of their influence has been unclear.
Today’s launch of a landmark study, Mapping Networks and Narratives of Online Right-Wing Extremists in New South Wales, changes that.
Published by Macquarie and Victoria Universities, the report uses data from social media platforms to delineate a network of online communities which radicalise individuals and introduce extreme rhetoric into Australian politics.
On unregulated platforms such as Gab, Reddit, 4chan and 8chan/kun, along with the poorly-moderated Twitter and Facebook, there is a plethora of messages advocating violence, the report found. However, the actual threat of violence was difficult to distinguish from ironic and exaggerated posts.
“We know that individuals with violent intentions exist on these platforms. However, this environment is full of bragging, irony, and fantasy, meaning identification of violent threats is difficult,” the report says.
Right-wing extremists are defined by the researchers as communities and individuals committed to an extreme social, political, or ideological position that is pro-white identity and actively suspicious of non-white others.
In these social media echo chambers, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic messaging and far-right conspiracy theories such as QAnon are used to recruit and engage users.
QAnon was the major influence on the Christchurch terrorist who live-streamed the fatal shooting of 51 worshippers at two mosques in 2019.
The dangers of these narratives are that, as well as fostering violent extremism, they serve to “polarise political debate and undermine trust in institutions and democracy,” say study authors Dr Julian Droogan, Dr Brian Ballsun-Stanton and Lise Waldek.
COVID-19, of course, has made everything much worse. Right-wing extremists have been exploiting the fear about the virus by promoting conspiracy theories and misinformation.
“Conspiracy theories regularly play a critical role in the development of extremism through the formation of crisis narratives. These narratives offer individuals a framework to identify an enemy that can be held accountable and that requires decisive actions against so as to protect the believers from destruction,” the report says.
For instance, people who are nervous about using vaccines are told that pharmaceutical companies are in the pocket of politicians and are therefore part of a powerful cabal, Droogan says. Believing this gives people a sense of agency in a time of crisis and an explanation for acts such as refusing a vaccine.
In 1996, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson referred to Australia being “swamped by Asians”. According to the Macquarie University report, racist rhetoric in this country transitioned from a mainly anti-Asian discourse to an anti-Islamic one in the early 2000s. This was triggered by 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of Islamic State, and the 2014 Martin Place siege.
With less than four weeks left until the US election, the extremist language on these social media platforms will only get worse. Recently, Donald Trump tweeted a conspiracy theory about ballot fraud, fuelling fears he will refuse to stand down if he loses.
“THE MEDIA IS CORRUPT, JUST LIKE OUR DEMOCRAT-RUN BALLOT SYSTEM IS CORRUPT. Look what’s happening with Fake, Missing and Fraudulent Ballots all over the Country??? VOTE” he tweeted. His supporters are preparing to vote, but the Proud Boys heard something extra. They are standing back and standing by, with arms.
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Hey Margot, I was saying house our homeless way before Trump was on the hustings!
It appears if any Australians say house our homeless before these freeloading refugees, we are automatically right wing extremists.
I think those that espouse such sentiments have serious integrity and ideological issues.
Or are you, Margot, of the pursuasion, “Let them eat cake?!”
I almost don’t want to dignify this comment with a reply, but you accuse refugees of being free-loadong without there being any evidence for this whatsoever (the opposite, in fact), & imply they’re responsible for homelessness/housing shortages, when there’s no evidence for this either. You’re the one with ideology/integrity issues.
Don’t forget traffic congestion – they’re responsible for that too!
Check the numbers with ABS. 80% plus of a ‘certain’ ethnic group are unemployed and have never worked since they arrived in Oz.
Meanwhile people are homeless while this crew show up and get all the benefits.
Please…enough of the self righteous conceit. Play the ball. Not the man.
Howard, i would think as you boasted the stat, you should be the one providing the proof, not telling others to ‘check the numbers’. Poor form.
Hey Howard, thanks for the empathy. I’m guessing you are not homeless nor a refugee, no mental health issues (wait, maybe that’s not correct) and have family and money in the bank/under the mattress. Try walking in someone else’s shoes for a day and then tell us about integrity and ideological issues.
LOL!
Do you work hard at that kind of snivelling crapola…or does it just come naturally.
ABS tells us there are over 130K homeless people in this country.
How come these free-loaders show up, get housed, medicare card, ‘special payment’ (just on $600 a week) a social worker visits twice a week, and a few other perks also.
Enough of the self righteous, ideological conceit already.
To someone who, just minutes ago, advocated no ad homenin….?
You forgot the free 4 w/d and 4 storey house.
Why, actually, house our homeless before housing refugees? Can you actually state one good reason?
Me neither.
I don’t care what you imagine you’re labelled as, the label is as empty as your self-pity.
LOL!
Sorry about that Howard
The question turns upon what are known in mathematics as ‘boundary conditions’. It is clear that the homeless issue is very much a function of a government failure of policy on account of having no comprehensive information as to the nature and composition of the problem. There is also the administrative aspect of solving one problem prior to embarking upon another.
However, if we are going to have a situation of quasi world socialism then if houses can be provided for immigrants then, ipso facto, for the homeless too; unless one wishes to make a distinction between hardship in another country and economic hardship domestically.
House our homeless before refugees; for Australia these have never been “mutually exclusive” until, for a small minority, quite recently.
We’re a wealthy country, we can handle it.
We have built our country on the backs of people Howard Juno describes here as “freeloading refugees”.
Initially we gave the “reffos” disparaging epithets; wogs, spicks, dagos, chinks.
Over time a level of integration occurs to a point where we all think the Mediterranean Diet is great and so many elements of Southern European and Southeast Asian culture mix with our Anglo-ness.
I thought the longterm economic benefit was also beyond dispute.
Those seeking refuge today are generally in far more danger in there home-countries than the post-war refugees from Europe that came here.
Since the only differences between the earlier lot and todays refugees are race/religion, it’s hardly surprising that those claiming this time we should offer no refuge are saying so on the basis of race/ethnicity.
On that point, failing Howard Juno’s inability to provide any other “excuse” for blocking this era’s refugees, I’d say most likely he is a racist.
If so, he’s most likely to find his like-minded mob amongst right-wing extremists.
Or maybe HJ is suggesting the Post WW2 refugee intake was also wrong, and we should send all those Fierraventis and Freudenbergs back too?
Just looking for a bit of consistency in his logic…
Well above standard with regard to sophistication, Doug, but there is the long term of about (7.6 – 1.8) billion people in the world that have damn all and about a third of those do not have access to clean water (puts the Covid-19 stuff into context does it not?).
Someone on CentreLink, by comparison, is doing very well indeed.
The matter is rather more than who is waiting to be processed or otherwise. If it counts for anything, I recall, at the last year of primary school, (rather toffee school) having to write one page essays (200 words) as to the justification (or otherwise) regarding ten-quid poms.
DougZ, I agree with what you say, though I’m against population growth for Australia as we are already over our environmental carrying capacity. The nexus between refugees and homelessness is just not there, so the causation couldn’t possibly connected. Refugees make up a minuscule proportion of our population growth. But before you dismiss the bleatings of a likely racist like Howard I think one should perhaps listen a bit harder and try to understand what is driving the concerns of these people which is likely to be more than racism. You say, ‘we are a wealthy country, we can handle it’. True. But do we ‘handle it’ for our poor and homeless? I would say in many cases we don’t. Successive governments have dismantled our once good social security system with the ideology that making the poor hungry gives them a greater incentive to worker harder for less and that the government has few resources. Its not surprising then that there are groups of people who are resentful of easily identifiable outsiders who ‘appear’ to be consuming those scarce resources. I would also suggest that for many new migrants (refugees are minuscule in number so are mainly irrelevant to the argument), the standard of living (& income) they experience in Australia is better, whereas for our increasing number of working poor, their standard of living has been falling. Again the voters attracted to Hanson see migrant families doing well and are resentful. In some ways it is axiomatic that the deliberate policy of forcing lower wages costs for business through immigration will engender resentment and dissatisfaction from those already in Australia who are adversely affected (and this will happen even if migration boosts aggregate incomes).
Have you one fact to support an assertion that we are over our “environmental carrying capacity”. It’s a preference, not an assertion, and you’re welcome to that preference obviously. But the awkwardly robust continued existence of countries like, say. Israel or Japan should give some pause for thought on environmental imperatives.
Of-course it’s subjective. I’d say ‘water’ and our natural environmental heritage. Others would say ‘climate’, others extinction. But then a person prepared to live in an environment more like a human colony on Mars would say differently. The indigenous people who lived in the Tanami desert pre European colonisation/occupation,, the ‘Lizard people’, had a successful existence and rich culture but the longevity of individuals was around 30 years. Is this the life you want for your children? So, yes, carrying capacity depends on lots of things, but do we really want to condemn our descendants to a Marscape to live on? You might, and if you do you can now go live in Ultimo or New York, or Mumbai right now, if you so choose. But it’s a bit rich to force that sort of life on the rest of us. Why don’t you go explain to the South Pacific Islanders how destroying their homes is a good thing.
It is a matter of judgement at any precise point, but at the extremes (drought, floods, topsoil loss, salination, landfill, dust storms, bushfires, wood chipping, urban decay, species extinction), it’s pretty visible – we just don’t have ways to measure it precisely.
Don’t measure it precisely. Use common sense. Can we seriously think Australia has reached its population limit given what other countries take in their stride?
Very dangerous; almost lethal. Such is the approach of ya average pollie.
The regional areas could (and should) be developed but because there are no votes in such a project it is
never going to happen.
What is required is a rigorous assessment of the energy requirements, water requirements and general planning (overnight postal delivery was discontinued in Perth three years ago – an abysmal service now) of requisite infrastructure.
THEN, with a bit of modelling, forecasts can be produced.
And here I was reading along being convinced, as I am very concerned about the rise and rise of fascism here in Australia, until I got to the comment, ‘people who are nervous about using vaccines are told that pharmaceutical companies are in the pocket of politicians and are therefore part of a powerful cabal’, and all credibility went out the window. Big Pharma in the pockets of politicians? Well, No; it’s political parties in the pockets of Big Pharma. Have you seen the published donations of Medicines Australia to the big p9itical parties? Do you not think that Big Pharma wines and dines and gifts etc etc key politicians and public officials, just like they do the medical professionals (who claim that such treatment doesn’t affect their decision…right, yeh)? Yes, I know that in Australia a board of experts assess whether a vaccine goes on the schedule. But that’s the problem, because fascist sympathisers, like Morrison, have been actively undermining the independence of such ‘independent’ boards, allowing conflicts of interests to flourish and is steadfastly refusing any transparency, anti-corruption or integrity body.
I would also think that the increasing propensity of the federal government in viewing particularly during COVID times that the rule of law doesn’t apply to them (Tudg, Mackenzie, Morrison) the governing class and only applies to citizens, the governed class is giving significant encouragement to the fascist right.
Psychologists have long proven that giving something as small as a bottle of wine makes you psychologically beholden to a person.
All gifts to politicians should be banned. Completely banned.
Look what that $60,000 “scholarship” for Tony Abbott’s daughter ended up costing us in terms of policy. Remember? The wide opening of private colleges up to HECS. New schools popped up left and right. Degrees you would wipe your arse with.
Why are gifts allowed at all? Does no politician have the fortitude to do something really good for our system and shut gifts down? It could be one of the easiest and greatest changes for our democracy.
You can ban it, but you won’t prevent it.
You have to attack the problem from different angles.
For example there was a candidate in an ACT election a few years ago who had as a promise that his appointment book was open to the public and that any journalist could sit in on any meeting he had with a lobbyist or other representative.
Banning gifts for individuals or donations to the party face the same problem, under the table paper bags.
However, if dealt with from the other end – require detailed receipts for unexplained wealth or expenditure such as political ads. & campaigns etc – it would put a crimp in the plans.
And there would be the extra fun of watching those too dumb to realise that they will be caught fluster & bluster when pinged.
I doubt these groups are “strongly influenced” by Trumpist rhetoric. I think the reverse is true: Trump sees it as a way of getting a group of people off their fanny to vote, so he believes in it.
That’s an interesting report, but it is cute that their history of right-wing extremism only goes back to 2004…
The squatters of Sydney argued (successfully) for twenty years, after a legislature was introduced at all, that only (male, white, British) land-holders should be allowed the vote. That was eventually extended to all white British males over 21, in 1858.
And who can forget de Groot and the New Guard of Australia usurping the Premier’s opening of the harbour bridge, in 1932.
Yeah, not really a new thing…
It is at this point that we refer to de Tocqueville who identified five qualities that would secure a civilised society but with the exception of free markets and, possibility, individualism de Tocqueville had little faith of the other three being realised.