ExtremismHow Far-Right Extremists Are Exploiting Pandemic

By Masood Farivar

Published 24 April 2020

Far-right extremists have been linked to bombing plots tied to the coronavirus pandemic, spotted holding anti-Semitic signs at protests outside state capitols, and seen trafficking on fringe platforms in all manner of conspiracy theories about the virus. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage millions of lives and paralyze much of the economy, these extremists in the United States are seizing every opportunity to reach out to thousands of potential followers and expand their ranks.

Far-right extremists have been linked to bombing plots tied to the coronavirus pandemic, spotted holding anti-Semitic signs at protests outside state capitols, and seen trafficking on fringe platforms in all manner of conspiracy theories about the virus.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage millions of lives and paralyze much of the economy, these right-wing activists in the United States are seizing every opportunity to reach out to thousands of potential followers and expand their ranks.

Take, for example, the recent hack of nearly 25,000 email addresses and passwords belonging to the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and other organizations combating the pandemic.

When the hackers released the information this week, online activists swung into action. On Telegram, a popular messaging app, at least a dozen so-called terrorgrams published links to the leak Wednesday, encouraging users to read the emails to support conspiracy theories about Chinese and Israeli ties to the virus.

People are scouring their emails and … just found stuff related to HIV being spliced into COVID-19. … This is big,” one poster wrote.

Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University in North Carolina who researches online extremism, said the far right is exploiting the pandemic to push propaganda.

The memes are flowing pretty freely,” she said. “They’re definitely working every angle, from the Chinese virus stuff to a Jewish plot to control the world and all that sort of thing.”

The pandemic has set off a perfect storm of fear, anger and uncertainty generated by the loss of 26 million jobs and seemingly endless lockdowns over a deadly virus that as of late Thursday had killed nearly 50,000 Americans.

With people staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, extremists are bound to find easy targets for propaganda and recruitment, said Jeff Schoep, the former commander of the National Socialist Movement, one of the nation’s largest neo-Nazi organizations.

I know most of the groups are using this as an opportunity to recruit,” Schoep, who left the group last year, told VOA.

Recent rallies over shelter-in-place orders presented another opportunity for recruitment, according to Schoep, who is widely credited with building NSM into the nation’s largest neo-Nazi organization.

I can say that if I was still running the organization, we would probably have people passing out business cards at those demonstrations,” Schoep said.