ExtremismAnarchist Groups Tied to Riots in 4 U.S. Cities
Far-right groups in America such as the anti-government Boogaloo Boys have long used a host of tactics and platforms to incite violence, including dehumanizing memes, online forums and organized militias. Now, left-wing groups are employing many of the same tactics against police and other targets during the social justice protests since the death of George Floyd, according to a new report.
Far-right groups in America such as the anti-government Boogaloo Boys have long used a host of tactics and platforms to incite violence, including dehumanizing memes, online forums and organized militias.
Now, left-wing groups are employing many of the same tactics against police and other targets during the social justice protests since the death of George Floyd, according to a new report by researchers affiliated with Rutgers University.
“Many of the features of anarcho-socialist extremism seem to parallel the key tactical structures documented in libertarian-anarchist and Jihadi extremism,” says the 24-page report, entitled “Network Enabled Anarchy.”
The report underscores that far-left movements such as antifa, while decentralized and seen as less lethal than their counterparts on the far right, are just as capable of turning peaceful protests into violent confrontations with law enforcement.
It comes as President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr continue to blame much of the violence at the protests on antifa and anarchists. To date, though, the Justice Department has not charged any left-wing groups in connection with the civil unrest, and extremism experts say while the threat of violence from antifa is real, organized groups on the far right pose a greater threat of violence.
The report was issued by the Contagion Network Research Institute, an independent nonprofit that tracks hate on social media. The group lists the United Nations, the Anti-Defamation League and liberal billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations as its affiliated partners.
In an earlier report on the Boogaloo Boys, an anti-government militia, researchers at the Contagion Network looked at more than 100 million social media posts, concluding that Boogaloo messaging, while a joke for some, “acts as a violent meme that circulates instructions for a violent, viral insurgency for others.”
Joel Finkelstein, founder of Network Contagion and lead author of the report, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
For the report on anarchist violence, the researchers examined more than 100 million posts on platforms such as Twitter and Reddit, finding a “rapidly growing” online ecosystem of what they call “anarcho-socialist extremism” with ties to rioters in a number of U.S. cities.
Social media memes and code words that dehumanize police such as ACAB, short for “all cops are bastards,” surged during the protests, with Twitter and Reddit seeing 1,000% and 300% increases in postings respectively, according to the report.
