Amanda Marcotte has written a fascinating deep dive report on online radicalization for Salon that I highly recommend. I’ll just excerpt this piece of it:
The same rabbit-hole phenomenon that can draw social media users deeper into the world of eating disorders or suicidal ideation also appears to be a factor in online radicalization. Lisa Sugiura notes that many of the men she interviewed while researching the “incel” community were first drawn into that world through unrelated or apolitical online material, before the algorithm turned their heads toward darker stuff. One interviewee, she said, had done a “simple Google search” about male pattern baldness and eventually ended up on “incel forums, which were heavily dissecting and debating whether being bald is an incel trait.”
That man became an incel “very much through the algorithm,” Sugiura said, and through online conversations with people who “showed him a different way to view the world.”
“Pathologies like eating disorders and suicidality exist on a continuum with radicalization,” said Brian Hughes, the American University scholar. “In a lot of cases, they’re co-morbid. Depression and radicalization are commonly seen together.” Just as online merchants hawking dangerous diet products exploit young women’s insecurities, he added, the world of far-right influencers displays “an obsession with an idealized masculine physique, which often leads to steroid abuse.”
The most famous example of that phenomenon is Andrew Tate, a British influencer currently being held by Romanian authorities on charges of rape and human trafficking. Tate’s alleged victims say he choked them until they passed out, beat them with a belt and threatened them with a gun. A former kickboxer, Tate has made a fortune by showing off his muscular physique and expensive toys, gizmos and gear to attract a massive online following of young men, promising that he can turn them into “alpha males.” Tate has become so popular with boys and young men in the English-speaking world that educators are organizing and sharing resources in an effort to combat his influence.
“There’s been a huge increase in rape jokes that the boys are making,” a seventh-grade teacher in Hawaii told Education Week.
“Pathologies like eating disorders and suicidality exist on a continuum with radicalization,” said Brian Hughes of American University. “Depression and radicalization are commonly seen together.”
Conspiracy theories and right-wing propaganda often hook people, as Tate does, by appealing to anxiety and insecurity, especially regarding hot-button issues like race, gender and status. In his legal brief in the case of Steven Carrillo, Hughes explained that the murderer “was gratified by the feelings of anger and indignation” from far-right videos he saw on Facebook and “was rewarded with more extreme, more angering content.” (Carrillo pleaded guilty to murder and eight other felony charges last year, and is serving a life sentence without parole.)
“Facebook algorithms would encourage Carrillo to join a Facebook group called ‘/K/alifornia Kommando,'” Hughes wrote. Once there, “his deterioration increased at a terrific speed. He fully embraced the new identity of Boogaloo revolutionary.”
Jason Van Tatenhove understands how that process works. A former member of the Oath Keepers, he offered dramatic testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee last year, explaining how leaders convinced their followers to join the insurrection on Trump’s behalf. In his book “The Perils of Extremism: How I Left the Oath Keepers and Why We Should Be Concerned about a Future Civil War,” Van Tatenhove details how he first got sucked into the group, and what it took for him to get out.
“There’s kind of a formula to what we were doing,” said Van Tatenhove, who was hired to do communications work by Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who was recently convicted of seditious conspiracy and various other charges, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. “We were always watching the news aggregates. We would set up Google alerts on certain keywords,” in order to tailor recruitment content to what potential prospects were seeking out, especially on social media.
“What were the issues that really got people outraged and angry? Because that’s the low hanging fruit,” Van Tatenhove added. “We were looking for that outrage and that anger, because it seems to short-circuit our critical thinking centers.”
There are some possible solutions and she goes into them. It’s going to be a challenge but it’s not impossible.
If you think this stuff is just a fringe concern, here’s Paul Ingrassia, a Claremont fellow and Trump insider:
