Study: The alt-right ‘weaponizing internet culture’ to spread message globally

File photo (Photo by William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)

According to a new study by the the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, the alt-right is “weaponizing internet culture” in order to spread their message around the world.

Julia Ebner and Jacob Davey spent several weeks undercover in internet forums to identify the tactics used by the alt-right, which included “crowd-funding platforms, custom-made social media platforms and even the use of leaked military and intelligence resources from [U.K. intelligence agency] GCHQ and NATO to run campaigns against their own governments.”

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“Their strategic, tactical and operational convergence has allowed the extreme right to translate large-scale online mobilisation into real-world impact,” the authors of the study wrote, noting that this kind of online presence allowed those on the alt-right in both the United States and Europe to work together.

Specifically, they pointed to the collaboration between American and German members of the alt-right in influencing the recent German federal election: “Instructions from the U.S. elections on how to obfuscate and manipulate the media space were recycled and adopted to a German audience: this included memetic warfare albums such as ‘normie memes’, and psychological operations resources, such as a ‘step by step how to manipulate narratives’ that links to GCHQ online deception and disruption playbooks.”

The study warned that the strategies were “more reminiscent of state-led psychological operations than that of terrorist groups” and urged public leaders to take steps to safeguard against them.