By David Pratt
Subcultures are usually places where people can find themselves, feel comfortable and express their personalities in positive ways. In recent years however, the internet has been permeated by a sinister online far right subculture, one that has made many people realise the negative effects that internet subcultures can sometimes have.
Although subcultures are renowned for amplifying marginalized voices, not all of these voices are positive. Some belong to people with toxic and dangerous views, the extreme far right being one of them. The extreme far right, or ‘Alt Right’, use the broad reach of the internet to promote their hateful views, with their infiltration of various internet spaces such as YouTube helping in reaching larger audiences.
Youtube is a video sharing website which has been around since 2006. On this site anyone who makes an account can upload a video, something that has made it very popular with people interested in politics. Although YouTube has an anti-harassment policy which bans insults against people based on race, gender, and sexual orientation, the alt-right can somehow still get their views across in videos without being banned from the site.
Through the use of ‘dog whistles’, the act of not explicitly stating something racist or xenophobic but saying it in a way where the intended audience will know what you mean, the far right have managed to stay on YouTube and create a large presence and support for their views within these online spaces. This has lead to an online subculture of far right supporters being heavily represented in similar online spaces.
Dog whistles are often used by various far right YouTube channels such as ‘The Golden One’ and Sargon Of Akkad. Both of these channels, whilst not outrightly being racist or xenophobic, will use far right dog whistles while discussing politics. They do this because it stops them from getting their YouTube accounts taken down, but also because it helps ease people into the far right ideology by hiding their extreme views as just common sense rather than racist or xenophobic, due to the fact that they haven’t explicitly broken any of YouTube’s rules.
Most people watching these videos will not make the connection that what someone is saying is a watered down ‘YouTube friendly’ version of a far right political opinion. Findings from a report by Bellingcat stated that from an analysis of comments by 75 far-right individuals on how they were converted, they found that most of these far right supporters were radicalised by consuming online content, with YouTube being the most discussed website. 15 out of 75 of the far right supporters they studied credited Youtube with changing their political opinions.
YouTube has clearly had a part to play in online radicalisation and the rise of the extreme right online, and as another study from 2018 by the EU research group Vox-Pol found out, out of nearly 30,000 twitter accounts that tweeted extreme far right content or followed people who tweeted far right content, there were about 74,000 of their tweets linking to YouTube videos. The next-closest site was Facebook, with only 23,000.
What these studies show us is that undoubtedly YouTube has had a role to play in the rise of these far right subcultures online. Some of the videos they host and the far right messages within them can have dire consequences when it comes to online radicalisation, something that is extremely concerning especially when looking at one specific case from 2019.
On Friday the 15th of March 2019 in Christchurch New Zealand, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, a local white supremacist, armed himself with various semi-automatic weapons and committed two consecutive shooting attacks at mosques in Christchurch, the first being at the Al Noor Mosque and the Second being at Linwood Islamic Centre. With 51 people dying and 49 people being injured, this act of domestic terrorism shook the western world.
Before the attack, Tarrant posted a manifesto which detailed his inspirations and why he committed the attack. His manifesto called ‘The Great Replacement’ echoed the white supremacist theory of the same name, which claims white people will become minorities in their countries due to mass immigration and immigrants creating children at a faster rate than the white ‘native’ population. ‘The Great Replacement’ is a theory which was originally created by French writer Renaud Camus, but was made famous more recently by far right Canadian YouTuber ‘Lauren Southern’, with her video on the theory having over 680,000 views on the site.
Brenton’s manifesto also opened the world’s eyes to the extreme far right subculture that is permeating the internet through their far-right videos, memes and ‘shitposting’. Shitposting here meaning a form of abstract humour on the internet that tends to involve images.
Although for some people the memes are just light hearted edgy humour between friends, it’s clear that they have an influence on people’s actions in the real world. Before his attack on the mosques Brenton posted on online message board 4chan saying “Well lads, it’s time to stop shitposting and time to make a real life effort post”.
Brenton stating “time to make a real effort post” shows us how what can start as ‘edgy humour’ and ‘shitposting’ within an online subcultural community can manifest as something worse down the line, something that is typical of far right online radicalisation,.
In his manifesto Brenton also stated the conservative commentator Candace Owens was a major influence, saying that “the person that has influenced me above all was Candace Owens. Each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over meekness”.
Candace Owens works for Prager U, an American non-profit organisation who create far right videos online on places like Youtube, videos such as ‘The Charlottesville Lie’, a video where they claim to be ‘debunking’ the idea that there were Neo-Nazis at the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite The Right” rally (something that has be routinely proven to be true). Prager U’s videos are very successful in radicalising people into believing the views of the far right. This is due to the short nature of their videos, with ‘The Charlottesville Lie’ coming in at just under 6 minutes, and the way they frame Prager U, as an ‘online university’ to give it credibility.
With the success that the far right has had online on spaces like YouTube, it makes you wonder, what can be done to fight back against this? I spoke to Marijam and Rowan who run youtube channel Anarch Angony Aunts, a left wing YouTube channel which discusses sex, relationships, and left wing politics. They often speak about what should be done to fight against this rise odf the alt-right, and if YouTube and other websites have a role to play in protecting people against online radicalisation.
Anarcho Agony Aunts
What was the purpose of creating Anarcho Agony Aunts, and why did you decide to use the specific format of video you do?
M: We were noticing that we both knew a lot of excellent single cis men who were unable to find partners or had many questions about intimacy and relationships, but didn’t have a safe place to ask questions. The show works as a type of fly-on-the-wall approach. The viewer is meant to feel like they’re with us in a pub or overhearing our natural conversations. We don’t discuss our answers in advance, so the reaction is genuine and often surprising. The response thus far has been incredible, with quite a few people getting in touch with the most heart-warming feedback, saying how much we’ve helped them etc., so that’s what keeps us going! We are very raw on the show and it potentially hurts our professional image, but we feel like our work is important and wish to continue to share our experiences as much as we can.
How important is it for the left to have a presence on places such as YouTube, and why?
R: There are two main tasks for a leftist presence on YouTube as far as I can tell: to produce content that wins people over to the left, and to produce content that turns people away from the right. I’d say both these aims are pretty important political projects, particularly since, as we all know, the far right have managed to utilise, and pretty much monopolise, YouTube culture and algorithms for some time now. However, I think it’s important that not all lefty energy is spent on trying to win back ground lost to the alt-right, and that we also make time to produce content for each other – it would be pretty arrogant for me to say that just because I’m well versed in feminist theory I don’t have anything left to learn about, say, Kropotkin. Emotional exhaustion can be a problem in content creation as well as interpersonal dynamics, particularly content such as ours, and education is an exhausting field to be involved with. That’s why it’s exciting to see so many new and diverse lefty YouTube channels appearing in recent years. As Samwise Gamgee once said, “share the load”.
The extreme far right have a heavy presence online, do you think more can be done to fight against this and increase the left’s presence online? How do you think this should be done?
M: Yes, the progressive left has been sadly very slow at recognising the power of far-right organising online, and the strength of their internet media operation and infrastructure. We are certainly playing catch up in this space! We are encouraged by a rise of left-wing YouTube channels and independent media organisations, but worry that a lot of the time these are preaching to the already converted. I think there’s enough progressive content out there, but we must rethink how we can find original modes of distribution, hooks that could actually change someone’s mind. How could information insemination be connected to real life events, socials, et cetera?
Do you think companies such as YouTube have a responsibility to protect their users from extreme right propaganda on their platform? Are they doing enough? If not, what do you think should be done?
M: Yes, for-profit organisations like YouTube do in fact have a duty of care to make sure their platforms don’t host content that is oppressive to entire populations or has fascistic tendencies. Sadly, the opposite is the case – reactionary content tends to get clicks, and hence the platforms are slow in imposing any preventative measures. Conflict and arguments back and forth feed this ecology, and provide profit for both content creators and the companies hosting them. Increasing government fines on platforms that are being slack with moderating such content is vital, as well as clamping down on other ways these characters get investments and are able to establish networks.
What do Anarcho Agony Aunts have planned for the rest of the year?
M: We’ve got a couple of radio interviews coming up soon, that’s exciting. Once the lockdown is off we want to organise a couple of live shows again. We did two last year and they were a load of fun – engaged audiences, cocktails, gorgeous rooftop location, it felt nice to have our show brought to life in real interactions like that. In general, Anarcho Agony Aunts is just a joyful project that we try and keep on the side to our main interests and professional activities, so we don’t necessarily put exclusive effort into it. But if anyone has suggestions, we’re always open to them, of course!
R: Well, we would have possibly been going to some anarchist bookfairs and festivals, but that’s been brought to a halt by our good friend Covid-19.
Rowan and Marijam clearly think that more needs to be done to halt the monopoly the far right have over online spaces like YouTube. Anarcho Agony Aunts is just one of the many left wing channels who have been trying to fight back against the monopoly the far-right have on Youtube. With London Metropolitan Police chief Neil Basu stating in 2019 that “the fastest-growing terrorist threat in the UK, is from the far-right, online radicalisation is clearly something that needs to be challenged, before, similarly to what happened in New Zealand in 2019, people who have been radicalised take it that step to far”, it is clear change is needed, and urgently.
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