Augusta DellÕOmo: Welcome to Right Rising, a podcast from the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right. On your host Augusta DellÕOmo. Today, I'm thrilled to bring back three of our most popular guests. Dr. Eviane Leidig, Dr. Will Allchorn in our newly minted, Dr. Ashley Mattheis and I've coerced and back to the podcast to do our year in- review episode, and do a round table with all of us to talk about how the far right has really evolved over the past year. So thank you three for joining me today. 
Ashley Mattheis: Thanks for inviting us. 
Will Allchorn: Thanks Augusta. 
Eviane Leidig: Thanks!
AD: So, Eviane I think I'm going to throw it to you first just to kind of get the ball rolling. And if you could walk us through some of the key developments in the far right globally, perhaps since we first launched the podcast in September of 2020.
EL: Yeah. I mean, such a big question, but certainly one that we can, I think, discuss endlessly. Um, so I mean, there's a couple of few points that I wanted to bring up when it comes to looking at the far right globally and especially since we had launched this podcast last year, The first one of course is, uh, you know, how the far-right has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Um, I think, you know, many of us at least based in Europe and North America are quite familiar with far-right responses to the pandemic. Uh, you know, whether that be things like anti-mask protests and the sort of overlap with the anti-vax movement and, and even during the US with QAnon um, and that overlap there. Um, certainly also the rise of sort of anti-government militia presence, uh, new groups, like the Boogaloo Boys and so forth, um, in this type of sort of anti-science, anti-elite narratives that became quite dominant during the pandemic that we saw sort of encouraged by far-right leaders like Trump. Um, it also figures like Bolsonaro in Brazil, where we see really similar dynamics at play.
But I think we often forget that the far-right response has been quite fragmented globally as well. Um, so in India, the region that I work with most closely, it's been quite a different story in the sense that there's a far-right government in power, but there was been broad support for initiatives like the national lockdown. And we saw far-right paramilitary groups that were roaming the streets to enforce the government's rules with the lockdown. And then of course, with this, we saw similar trends to what we've seen elsewhere with the resurgence of like Islamophobic narratives and spreading disinformation about Muslims being super-spreaders of coronavirus in India, which really echoes much of this type of globalist discourse that we see um, amongst Western far-right narratives and sort of the conspiratorial element of really who is sort of behind the, the, the pandemic. 
Um, the second area of development when it comes to looking at the far right globally, um, has I really been really a focus spotlights. Um, and I'm sure Ashley can talk about this, but on gender and sexuality dynamics of the far right in the mainstream consciousness, in particular discussions about masculinities and violent misogynism. So certainly we saw the rise of groups, like the Proud Boys, which really became part of the mainstream consciousness. Um, while, themes like female supportive misogyny has remained somewhat invisible in the public conversation with the exception of, you know, phenomenon like QAMoms, which I'm sure Ashley can, can talk about in depth.
And then finally, the third point when it comes to the far right globally and its key developments is really, we've seen the legislating of far-right agendas, uh, worldwide. Right? Whether that be legislating on uh, reproductive rights across the world to, um, you know, very distinct, um, sort of anti-immigrant, um, and really, uh, sort of exclusionary practices that we've seen been quite successful on legislative agendas, uh, that have really affected sort of the everyday lives. So those are really the three, at least main developments that I see when we look at the far right globally. 
AD: Fantastic. Will and Ashley, anything that you'd like to add on?
AM: I would say that stepping back a little higher level than legislative, there's also been a lot of narrative transfer globally. Um, specifically I think yesterday I saw that the a multi-part video series by, Nigel Farage about why, um, mail-in voting won't work in the UK, which seems to be a pretty clear draw from the current situation in the US that's a little concerning. Um, so it's happening at kind of multiple levels. And I would add in terms of kind of the gender discussion, um, in the U S at least, right, the incursion of, uh, QAnon women in politics, for some reason they've been more successful and we could talk about that. But like Marjorie Taylor Greene, uh, Lauren Boebert, but then also local women and running in local elections, um, is, is another interesting gender kind of development that's, that's seeming to have some legs lately. 
WA: I mean, in terms of, in terms of the, like the, the UK picture what's been quite interesting is which is something that Eviane alluded to un terms of the Boogaloo Boys is a broad reaction by the far right to Black Lives Matters movement as well. So at least in the UK being tied up around conversations too do, with colonialism and statues of people who yeah um benefited from the slave trade. So that's become quite a kind of rallying point in, in some sense, especially in the UK, we have a very strong, uh, extra parliamentary. It's fragmented, but fairly strong, extra parliamentary kind of far right. So they really rallied around that last, um, last summer. And there's also been other instances of, of anti-, um, migrant, anti- asylum seeker, uh, vigilante actions. So people like Nigel Farage have been visiting hotels who purportedly been posting large numbers of asylum seekers, but also, yeah Um, kind of highlighting this. There was a large increase, um, last summer in terms of refugees coming over from the French side of the border, across the Channel, and that kind of sparks off a yeah a large round a of these kinds of, yeah inspired attacks against things, migrants more broadly. 
So I think another interesting trends has been, and this is more of a policy piece has been around the discussion of how we treat far-right violent groups and terror organizations, which we might want to revisit a bit later in the podcast. But it's been interesting, especially with the prescription or designation of the Russian Imperial Movement, um, as perhaps a starter to this like year-long conversation that's been happening, governments kind of globally, some fairly interesting prescription actions in Australia, prescribing a UK based group. And then more recently the UK is prescribed a US-based group. Just some really I think we're still unpacking this, this debate about the benefits of prescription, uh, group-based prescription. What else is in the toolkit when it comes to limiting, um, the actions of these more violent extremist groups. But I think that's also been kind of another part of the picture, which has been fascinating for observers of the far extremism as well globally. 
AD: Yeah. And I think this, this entire conversation about the policy implications of this past year of far-right development is definitely something that we're going to get into later, particularly, and I'm, you know, really showing my US bias here as a researcher based in the US, but particularly after January 6th in the US, there's been a really serious conversation around policymakers of how do we actually, is it worth it to designate specific groups as terrorist entities? And what does that mean when we actually think about combating the growth of the far right? But before we go there, I want to actually go back to a point that Eviane mentioned and Ashley, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, um, just gender in the far right. And how this movement has really changed over the past year, particularly with  QAnon. You mentioned, and it's a, it's a good point, that the women, the people that have become so successful out of the QAnon movement have mostly been women and so what does that tell us about how these actors are evolving in particular? How do they see - how have their goals really shifted over the past few months, um, as the new Biden presidency has come in, I'm thinking also about the sort of anti-vaccination narratives that are becoming even stronger in the US so if you could just talk about that for a little bit I think our listeners would really appreciate it. 
AM: So, I mean, this is rested on a long history of gendered kind of involvement and gender divisions of participation in far-right movements that we're seeing today. So, um, kind of the women who are participating have their forms of activity, which are often not understood as active participation by the outside world. Um, which include things like lobbying right practice in government, uh, changing textbooks. So one of the things that I've been looking at recently is how does the sort of electoral politics around QAnon and women engaging specifically in QAnon to join electoral politics, um, relate to something like the longer history of white women supporting the Lost Cause and maintaining Lost Cause mythology, embedding it in schools, in textbooks, building statues all over America. Right. How, how does that maybe history play out in what we're seeing today, is that a particular thing that's going to kind of continue longer term with the, with the change that women are now actually running as candidates, as opposed to just lobbying or just, um, taking on those sort of, uh, social movement oriented roles?
Um, and I certainly think we're going to still see both, right, because the whole QAMom integration was about a social movement organizing principle around that #HijackSaveTheChildren. So it's a really interesting kind of, um, thing to put a slightly historical lens on it and see if, if they are kind of looking back or if there's some sort of affinity with past frameworks, but then Q is very kind of specific in terms of the different strands. So it's not just, we're seeing the most kind of electoral politics broadly because Q ideology is the strangest. And so people are reporting on people who adhere to that, but there are other kind of vectors of far-right ideology that are being embedded in politics through women's participation, um, as well. 
AD: So our fourth guest has now joined the pod, AshleyÕs dog.
AM: Something's going on outside, but he feels the need to talk about. Um, so basically there's a different kind of modalities by gender. So while we might see the, the Boogaloo Boys or the Proud Boys out on the street participating, we would also see kind of women's engagement in certain ways and the insurrection brought that together in a different kind of mix specifically through the kind of embodiment of Ashli Babbitt. Um, the woman that was killed at the Capitol insurrection while trying to breach, um, the Senate complex, uh, the Senate offices and the way that certain groups in the far right have attempted to martyr her since then. Um, I think Simon Purdue had a really good piece out about this, this week actually for CARR. Um, but the kind of rising tide of attempting to map her onto the historical figure of Vicki Weaver from the Ruby Ridge, um, event where the FBI, uh, went into Ruby Ridge and, uh, had an altercation with the Weaver family and Vicki Weaver ended up dying, um, along with other people in the family. So apparently that, that strand for particularly the militia movement that's involved in the Capital Insurrection is really important and they've taken her up.
WhatÕs particularly interesting is that the QAnon groups and, Ashli Babbitt was a QAnon  member, had a lot more conjecture about whether she should be upheld as a martyr. There's a few people sort of earlier on that, that think it's a problem and sort of see her in that light. And then there becomes this narrative of um, essentially saying she's a crisis actor. It's not real. That didn't happen. It's a false flag operation. So Q's handling that a little differently. QAnon is handling that a little differently than other groups. And so it'll be interesting to see how that gendered logic of, um, using women as a, as a banner to promote the vanguard of male activity will work.
AD: Well, and Eviane, anything that you were seeing, I know, Eviane, you specifically work on India, so I'm very curious as to how you see this sort of gender masculinity component, particularly manifesting most recently in a lot of the discussions around India's response to COVID-19, as you know, as the past few weeks cases have really skyrocketed, and there's been a lot of pressure on the BJP and how you see that dynamic playing out, if at all. 
EL: Yeah. Um, well, in terms of, I suppose, the specific gendered aspects of, you know, how the far-right in India has responded to the pandemic, um, what we've seen is really the reproduction of sort of preexisting relations in the sense that we see in sort of these paramilitary or militant men that are out there in the streets attempting to sort of, uh, reinforce, uh, the government's measures on the lockdown. Um, and then what we see similarly is, I mean, you know, something that I didn't really get to ttalk about because it's, it's quite specific. But, um, when I think about the role of gender within the far-right in India, Um, something I do like to point out is that women in far-right movements in India are expected to build up strength through paramilitary drill exercises and shooting exercises and so this element of like physical bodily strength is something that I think is pretty different from what we see from most sort of Western, uh, far-right movements and the role of women. Of course, the role of women in the Indian far right is primarily that of being like the wives and daughters of the nation, right. Um, but there is this extra element of like, reinforcing physical strength in order to protect themselves against Muslim men, hyper-sexualized Muslim men. Right. So that's an important caveat there. This is only sort of allowed within certain boundaries. 
Um, but I bring this up because we've sort of seen some of the women that have been, been called to action in the midst of the pandemic as well. Um, in the sense that in addition to their primary role as caretakers, um, you know, during the pandemic, they're also sort of being called in this emergency and or this crisis situation also step up into the public space. Um, and to really try it to sort of stand with stand quote unquote Òwith their men,Ó not just behind their men and sort of reinforcing some of the public spaces, um, and, and the dominance over certain minority groups, um, in public.
AM: Oh, I just, I'm curious, because I've been working on kind of anti-vax stuff. What are the kind of anti-vax or are there anti-vax things floating around in the Indian context and what do those look like? 
EL: That's so interesting because India itself is a pretty worldwide distributor of um, medicine and in vaccine distribution. Um, and there has been an Indian vaccine that's developed they've exported to other countries early on, um, as a form of vaccine diplomacy. So in general, there's this notion that Indian that the Indian far-right sees themselves as quite superior because they're quite advanced in their technology and science, uh, and able to sort of produce, um, the, the vaccine and so forth. So I think that's a really interesting element to see the far right take on this really strong, like scientific advancement and in progress rather than the sort of anti-science and anti-vax that we see elsewhere. 
AM: Yeah, that is really, really interesting, especially given kind of, um, the very strong anti-vaccine sentiment that's animating things here in the US right now. 
AD: That anti-vaccine sentiment in the U S what's also very interesting is, you know, there is the, the far right element of it, but then you also have the kind of like New Age, uh, stereotypical sort of like hippy lefty, right? Like we're just going to heal ourselves through crystals and, and things like that right. They're, they're kind of merging in the US where, you know, and Ashley, you can talk more about this, but the landscape of anti-vaccine sentiment is really changing quite a lot with COVID. And there was a lot of early reporting, particularly from some of the larger national outlets that it was specifically Black Americans or Americans of color who are the most resistance to vaccines, but now that's not the case um, and in many cases I've seen that, you know, those numbers were being over-reported. And so it's a really, it's been difficult, I think for a lot of people to understand who exactly is refusing to get vaccinated and what is their rationale for why? So Ashley, if you could just talk a little bit about, you know, the anti-vaccination landscape in the US and kind of how it intersects with the right. Um, particularly as you know, uh, just, just yesterday, you know, uh, just yesterday CDC said that all vaccinated, people can just get out there and go crazy without their masks.
AM: Right. It's free for all. Um, so I would actually say one of the, the kind of interesting parts of like, who is hesitant and who is not, or who was resistant and who is not, is that Black communities and communities of color have real historical reasons for hesitancy and concern, given the level of experimentation, um, that has typically been done on their communities and the lack of transparency that the medical establishment has offered them. Um, and so within like Black community public health, like that is and has been a long part of addressing COVID and working with those communities within the kind of, um, far right, um, but also New Age communities, anti-vaccine communities online, right? We've had a resurgence, actually a, uh, a kind of debut in some ways of public anti-vaccination along with COVID that we didn't have before, where people feel really comfortable being very public about their stances.
Um, among the kind of white middle-class communities like that history is not the same and the concerns are rooted in a much different kind of sensibility about, um, kind of individual liberty versus actual physical safety, right. Actual like attempted, um, harms. So there's an interesting disparity there about like how we define what you know, vaccine concern is, but, but don't say it when we're talking about it in the media, um, the kind of newest strand that I've seen is this idea that people who have been vaccinated can shed the vaccine, can shed the spike protein, um, which is not true, but apparently like that is a, is running rampant and in particular that has coincided with fears over the vaccine, possibly causing the sterilization, uh, or fertility issues specifically for women right. So men are never mentioned when that comes up. So there's like a whole hesitant population of women who are concerned that, you know, they might not be able to get pregnant or want to be mothers and so they're waiting at the very least, but this coincides with this idea of viral shedding, and we've had cases where business owners have refused to allow vaccinated people into their place of business under the auspices that they're protecting their female customers who might be subject to vaccine shedding and therefore like lose their fertility, or it might disrupt their pregnancies.
So there's like a really strong, gendered, protective narrative there that, that is something that is more a hallmark of sort of right-wing thought than it is of saying New Age thought right in many ways, um, So it's an interesting kind of swirling thing, how these things are kind of coming together and taking pieces and breaking off and, and making new things. Um, but yeah, the, the anti-vaccine community, and this has really tied in a lot of ways. So this larger Mom community at the QAMoms are a part of, right they've been very braided together for the last year, um, because they're deeply embedded in those communities. And that process are ranged from very kind of back to the lands, you know, sort of very more homesteader oriented. We don't trust the government, which sort of links to Trad wives and the right wing all the way through to the very kind of New Age, what we would see almost as kind of a leftist ideology that has now been sucked into a more white right wing frame through QAnon.
So it'll be really interesting to see how that plays out and definitely the pandemic and the vaccine are on the QAnon boards that I'm, that I see both standard boards and Mom boards, like that is just a repeating issue that they're looking at and discussing all the time, because as every change that comes out, there's going to be a discussion about how that fits into their worldview. So it's definitely a point of concern still and I think we'll see new conspiracies coming off it. Eviane?
EL: Well, I just wanted to jump on a point that you were making concerning this fear of like fertility or infertility with the vaccine, because this is something that I picked up on when I was writing my book about far-right women in North America, which is the way that they would spread this disinformation on their social media channels, which ties in, I think later on to our discussion about policy and sort of the role of tech companies and moderating this content. But something that I noticed was how adept they were at spreading this disinfo about infertility in like sort of manipulating the way that they would sell like the COVID vaccine. So then that way they wouldnÕt get flagged, um, on Instagram, which redirects some users to like the World Health Organization, like official information about the vaccine. Um, so I mean, this is something we can talk about later, but it's, it's really intertwined and how our policy responses, um, to the far right, are quite intertwined within these gender dynamics of understanding this landscape.
AM: Yeah, I think it's really important to talk about like how people have learned to utilize platforms and utilize technology in ways that can spread their disinformation. The other thing that I've also seen is more of a narrative format that tries to do a similar type of thing around this issue, which is the idea of the personal story. You can't fact check a personal story. So someone says, this is my experience, or, you know, my best friend said, right? Like, so there's definitely narrative ways and technological ways that people are spreading this information that I think are hugely important when it comes to policy and practice.
AD: Fantastic. I think I'll shift the conversation slightly towards policy. And one point that Ashley brought up about, you know, the kinds of narratives that we're seeing around anti-vaccination and vaccine hesitancy. In some ways there's been a push by the US government to try and come up with, you know, information narratives to counter these really harmful posts, messaging that are coming from not only the far right, but other communities within the US that are really pushing this anti-vaccination agenda right - this, the shedding, the spike protein is one that I've also seen recently. And Will, I wanted to ask you, because I know you've been working on counter-narratives and counter-messaging. Can you talk a little bit about the research that you've been doing and how you see, you know, counter-narratives, really working in the future as we move towards to combat some of these really harmful, but very prevalent messages that we're seeing, not only in the far right, but now in really mainstream platforms as well.
WA: Um, thanks Augusta. Yeah. So yeah, we've been doing some, some projects with CARR alongside the Hedayah, looking at kind of how we can mobilize kind of counter narratives as part of the toolkit to kind of at least kind of sow seed of doubt when it comes to the voracity, like the legitimacy and the vitality of, of extremists, um, messaging. And I think kind of the first kind of takeaway from some of the findings of that project has been that engaging people at a rational level on these topics is, is very difficult, especially when it comes to more kind of conspiratorial narratives around COVID-19. They often have a fairly kind of self-seeding, kind of property and people sort of react to questioning figures, even if they're kind of factually correct. So often is, is around trying to kind of put together counter-narrative messaging that kind of even targets people who are perhaps less committed to these ideas and narratives, or trying to kind of find ways of hitting people at more kind of an emotive kind of level with this. So there's been some research around a technique called attitudinal inoculation, especially by Kurt Braddock at American University. So looking at how you can perhaps fall on people about an extremist group, that's going to talk to them about a certain topic and just, yeah, giving them that kind of warning, um, shown kind of experiments or research to be quite effective in terms of people kind of counter arguing. 
So that kind of gives a role for, I guess, for more educational kind of techniques, especially around kind of critical thinking as well of the kind of preventative level at the kind of counter-radicalization level. It's actually quite fun. It's quite, it's quite hard. Often people in fairly enclosed silos of maybe encrypted chats, maybe down the rabbit hole quite far, in terms of these ideologies often basing off evidence of organizations like Moonshot, often more kind of psychosocial messaging is better though, rather than kind of countering the ideology. So thinking about messaging again, let's go back to what Ashley was saying in terms of these personal stories, but hitting people at a more personal level. So, so yeah, like if they're questioning their involvement in the movements, you'd be pointing out questions like, are you feeling kind of disillusioned, are you feeling kind of, um, Uh, out of, out of kilter, uh, with the movement itself, and often it takes kind of what some people refer to as like a cognitive opening for people to then consider kind of leaving these movements. And that's perhaps where referrals to kind of counselors might be, or former extremists are trained to talk to people is, is going to be. It's been piloted quite a lot, but perhaps it'll become more of a run of the mill thing, especially when we're considering doing more kind of hybrid forms of work anyway, but also because of, and I think this is connects back to the, um, some of the kind of policy discussions after the, the Capitol siege in January was around how do we divert people away, um, who being deplatformed who are affiliated with the broad kind of Q non ecosystem and making sure that they don't go down further extremists kind of rabbit holes towards the more extreme kind of Nazi end of things and that we lose them all together. 
Um, so that's quite a big question and it's, yeah, it's interesting to see the innovations that are being put forward, but obviously none of them are golden bullet and a lot of the work for people who are at the more harder ends, it's going to take a lot, a lot longer. It's not going to take one kind of message on, um, on Google or Facebook for them to step outside of these movements.
AD: It strikes me that there's, it seems, as if there's three major sort of policy questions that are floating around and in this space, the first being the one that you just touched on, Will, right, like, can we stop people from getting radicalized or can we deradicalize people who are involved in these movements and what are ways that we can do that is it counter messaging, is it personal testimonial, you know, what is it that's going to pull people out? I think the second is something that Eviane mentioned, which is this what should the online, what does de-platforming look like, what is the appropriate amount of moderation that needs to occur on these sort of platforms? And one of the big challenges with that is these are global companies these can't be legislated at the national level that this is something that really requires, uh, an international lens, which is not something that policy, particularly in the US at this moment and we're not really in this fantastic multilateral space when thinking about policy. And then I think the third is something we talked about at the top, which is, you know, for these more militant groups, what does it mean to designate them as a terrorist actor? What does it mean to sort of continue - what does, what does policing them look like for lack of a better word? You know, how do we actually combat groups that have already started to engage in this kind of organization that are involved insurrection and what happens perhaps when we disproportionately focus on specific actors?
I think one of the things that all of us have probably noted in some form in the US there's been a lot of conversations about the Proud Boys or QAnon, right? Like there's a disproportionate focus on specific organizations, but is that shaping how we're thinking about policy for the whole, um, so for Eviane, I know you're really, you're working now in this policy space, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
EL: It's a really so much to disentangle here right? So I will say that, uh, CARR is partners with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism or GIFCT for short. Um, and for those who don't know about it, it's an initiative that was founded by four big tech companies - Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter. And now there's a number of other companies that are members of GIFCT, and that ranges from Airbnb to MailChimp, to Discord. Um, it it's really quite broad. Um, and the aim of this initiative is a collaboration between tech companies, governments and civil society actors uh, including academics, um, to help create policies to counteract terrorists' use and exploitation of platforms. Um, so in terms of thinking about policy, there are a number of, I suppose, different actors, um, or stakeholders. So it GIFCT is one of them, and in terms of like perhaps the most international in scope, that would be the case. There's also of course, more regional actors, like the EU Internet Forum. Um, and then we can go down more to, to different national and local actors as well, but there's certainly, you know, different stakeholders that we can work with when it comes to designing, uh, policies concerning violent extremism and terrorists, and even hate speech policies a little bit, although itÕs kind of seen as something that's separated, um, when it comes to this, this industry in this space, which I personally find a bit problematic because it, you know, it is quite a spectrum um, but you know, this is the mandate, at least for, uh, these stakeholders. 
Um, so that's a partner that CARRÕs been working closely with and when it comes to actually designing policies, um, like I mentioned, and it's focused primarily on violent extremism and terrorism. Um, but you know, CARR has been really trying to push for, um policies that focus specifically on right-wing extremism and violent misogynistic actors on these platforms. Um, because we have seen up to this point that a lot of the tech policies that were developed to counteract terrorists and use of technology were designed actually to contract ISIS um, and Islamists state actors on these platforms. We haven't really seen the same type of systematic application of these policies when it comes to the far right. So that's something that car is trying to develop in our partnership with GIFCT. \
But also concerned with that is, um, yes, a very strong sort of focus on, you know, certain groups are prescribed, particularly prescribed groups. Um, but again, this gets quite messy, right? Proud Boys are prescribed in Canada, but not the US and so on and so forth so definitely complicates the landscape, um, which you know is pretty insufficient when it comes to recognizing the actual landscape of, you know, I don't want to say lone actors, because for me it seems a bit strange. I mean, these aren't lone actors, they're, they're definitely individuals that are embedded into very well-known communities and online cultures, right. So it's sort of a misnomer to call them lone actors. Um, but trying to sort of write policies around networks of users, is this quite difficult, um, for these companies at the very least, because they're trying to abide by legal frameworks in jurisdictions when it comes to, uh, like application of, of these policies in different national contexts.
And then the last thing I wanted to add here was that when it comes to developing these types of counter narratives, or even just not just countering narratives, but a broad range of approaches, whether that's d- platforming demonetization, content moderation, shadow banning, manipulated search results, algorithmic ranking, all these types of like technological approaches, um, in addition to counter narratives, we've seen that, at least in the evidence shows us that there's way different types of audiences that one can target. So it's those who have already been quote unquote, radicalized, those at risk of radicalization, and then sort of the general public, and research shows us that the most effective measures has actually been towards the general public because of, I mean, a number of factors. But at least if we're looking at like mainstream social media sites, like Twitter or Facebook, these are sites that primarily operate to give exposure and amplification as opposed to sites where there's already some sort of like in-built community of people who have been radicalized already, like Telegram or Discord.
AM: Yeah. I would say that a lot of these conundrums are really interesting. And, um, from the, from the US angle, right, ride on the issue of the first amendment, um, particularly group prescription and why that's difficult right? So, um, group prescription could be used in particular ways that would breach first amendment rights of other actors. Um, and actors who may be considered problematic by certain governments or certain government officials at certain times. Right? So there's, there's a whole background to that, that makes policy complicated in terms of how do we deal with it in the US but then also, how do other countries relate to US-based policy? Um, one of the kind of frames that's been talked about is utilizing the, um, designated foreign terrorist organizations. So as other right-wing groups are prescribed in other places, there's the potential to, to leverage that if there's an interconnection transnationally between people in the US and those groups. So that could be a potential place to look, um, that would at least allow for certain types of material support charging, and different types of charging um, to happen.
But there was a pretty good, uh, article using a data set that my team at UNC had built and that's published through CARR by the Marshall Project, talking about the intricacies of like, how does prosecution work? What does that look like in terms of right wing versus other forms of terrorism, like how are we dealing with this in this space now? Um, because of the data set I created is, is federal charging for, uh, right-wing extremist action over the last decade or so. Um, and so that article is, is really useful. That data set of people are interested in looking at that as is available through CARR. Um, but there's definitely like intricacies to how do we develop policies learned from past problems. Like I know a lot with the kind of prevention space, right people are looking right now to the big campaigns in the UK and other places, the Prevent strategies, discussing how those impacted communities right. Um, and, and what that would look like if we did it in the right wing space, but there's a tension there as well around the kind of racialization of global terrorism. And I say that in quotations and what the US we refer to as domestic terrorism, which typically means white supremacist extremism or something along those lines. The, the term of art these days is racially and ethnically motivated, violent extremism here in the US um, so there's a lot of threads that need to be pulled through. 
I do think that there's some very successful models of civil state actors. Things like PERIL, the PERIL center out of AU that is looking at actually the kind of inoculative model. Kurt Braddock works with them, but looking at it in young kids. So like middle schoolers, they've got a program right now that they're running with the SPLC where they're talking to the caregivers, teachers, adults who interact with middle school age kids, um, to kind of do a preventative seeding that is not the same type of idea as Prevent or PVE, but this is like even a step further, right? It's further up the stream and I think that's a really important model going forward. Um, questions about de-radicalization and, and things like that can get very murky because it's much more resource intensive, um, to even begin to start talking about deradicalizing people that are already radicalized. And I think those conversations specifically relate to sort of more traditional groups as opposed to something like QAnon, QAnon is a whole different wicket with a much larger potential radicalized base, um, that we don't even have a sort of footprint for de-radicalization necessarily yet. So it's a very complex kind of set of issues. I am excited to see the range of options that companies are coming up with now. So, um, not just de-platforming, de-platforming can work, but also the suppressive measures that Eviane was mentioning and things like that. Um, the, the work that Moonshot is doing and Hedayah like there's, there's really interesting things happening and I'm looking forward to seeing how those develop over the next couple of years.
AD: The last thing that I, well, I have two more questions, but one of the last things that I wanted to talk about is something that all of us, I would say have probably been impacted in some way, but Ashley I'll throw to first because I know you've been working on it most specifically is researchers and journalists and people who work on the far right and study the far right and researcher safety and what that means both in terms of - often the conversation is framed around individual preventative measures right. That we should be taking to protect ourselves. Um, but one of the things that I know you've been working on, um, with Ashton Kingdon, who's also been on the podcast, is this idea of what responsibility do these institutions that we work for have to protect us, um, because working on the far right -  especially if you're someone that maintains any kind of online presence, especially if you're a woman or a researcher of color if youÕre queer research, or it can be a lot more dangerous and it can be quite scary. Um, so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about how you see the conversation around safety for people who are working on these issues really evolving over the past year, particularly because the, the temperature of these conversations, I feel like has been raised, um, a great deal.
AM: Yeah. So there's definitely been an uptick in researchers themselves talking about this issue, um, and, and bringing it to the fore and kind of more public contexts and that can be anything from having to view, um, really disturbing content like, and how that builds up over time and how you, you might need emotional, mental health support around that and what protocols for that might look like. But it's also the issue of networked harassment, of targeting, I mean, groups will attempt to get people fired and they do tend to attack, um, women of color or women, women of color and scholars of color more than anyone else. And that holds true whether you're researching extreme groups or you are just a scholar who is sharing your work online. Um, so there's a broad base of online researchers and researchers who have to share their work online because that's part of what we do now, um, to do public facing work that are impacted by this. So the kind of far-right research or extremism research is the canary in the coal mine in some ways for that. But it's, it is a much broader community as well. 
Um, and, and what we were finding is we were looking at manuals and things like that. There's not many of them. Um, there's, there's a few really, really good ones. The Association of Internet Researchers has multiple guides that are meant to be read consecutively that have developed over time. Data and Society has one box, has some good resources, but a lot of the information is directed for researchers. So like, how do you manage your footprint online? How do you address this at a personal level? How do you seek help? Without thinking about the fact that institutions that, um, have research missions and have people working for them that do research have a responsibility to their researchers, for them to be able to work in a safe environment. Right? Um, unfortunately those rules are usually in the US, um, in the context of sort of this kind of history of human subjects research coming out of medicine, um, and social science, but particularly kind of medical sciences where subjects were harmed, um, studies, MKUltra, studies where subjects were actually very, very harmed by the academic community. And so those rules really focus on the safety of subjects and don't think about how researchers might be in danger outside of, you know, a chemical spill in a lab. 
So what Ashton and I have argued a lot about is that the institution has a responsibility to understand what is going on online, understand that these are tactics used against researchers of particular types of identities, of particular career stages, right. It's easier to attack junior researchers than it is to attack senior researchers. Um, and to, and to find ways we suggest several kinds of ways institutions can, can deal with this. But it's, it's really interesting because institutions like my institution has no policy The institution I got my PhD from has no institutional policy on what happens if you get trolled or harassed or who you should talk to or how that should work, if you need support, if you're doing potentially quote unquote risky, I don't like that term, but if you're doing research on bad actors, how you, how you should protect yourself, like - should you use our VPN or should you get your own VPN? Do they want the university network impinged in this way? Like, there's a lot of questions that don't even get to the actual ethics of the research before we get there, um, that are not addressed. And so we're asking that institutions look at that from that top down level, because researchers alone cannot stem the tide of these things and they cannot deal with them. And so what happens is either they get attacked and quit doing the research. They decide not to go into the research because they don't want to deal with the attack, right. It limits our ability to produce knowledge, um, and to do it successfully. 
And it's really important for institutions, at least again, in the US context, but I would argue everywhere to think about this as a civil rights or kind of a work rights issue. If certain groups are attacked more often, if certain groups are pushed off the internet more often in terms of public engagement or career advancement, then that is an inequivalence, right? That means if the answer that a woman gets, when she says, Hey, I'm being harassed is - just stop posting online - but you need to post online to like be on the job market. That means you don't have as much access to the job market. So it is a rights issue when it comes to those things. And that's at a minimum, a reason institutions should be worried about it beyond, you know, caring about the people that work for them. 
El: Um, well, I will say that, you know, this is always a bit awkward for me, but based on personal experience in the last few years, I've been based at the Center for Research on Extremism and also, um, which is an institute composed of researchers, academics, who, who study the far right. So because of the founding of C-Rex. Um, there were a number of security protocols that we had established in place, and I felt really fortunate as a PhD student to be able to have this environment and this institutional support, whether that be themes like addressing protocols, concerning threatening, or unpleasant situations or hacking, or sort of viruses on, on our, on our, um, software, um, the, you know, certain measures that were put in place like the reporting of, uh, field work and interviews so that we would notify, um, the leadership when we be going out into the field, um, and into potentially threatening situations, um, certain security measures that were put in place when we were organizing events and you know, and also the, the type of resources and mental health resources that we could seek out. Um, and with C-Rex, we had built a really good relationship with, um, the Oslo police, as well as university security, but this was all put in place organically from the fact that we had researchers at C-Rex that were being targeted, um, in pretty life-threatening situations, and so even though we were a research center that already had sort of raised red flags early on, based on the very founding and our mandate. We still had to fight to put those protocols in place. 
Regardless of that, I am really fortunate to have sort of been in a very sort of supportive environment as a, as an early career researcher and certainly within CARR, this is something that, as Ashley mentioned, something that we're trying to, to push for, um, quite visibly. Um, so. Um, I think, yeah. Uh, others, uh, Will, do you want to say anything? 
WA: I mean, um, it's, it's become really kind of burning question. Yeah. In terms of how we both kind of support kind of mental wellbeing of, of researchers as well as kind of their physical and online security. And so CARR, we, um, kind of putting together along with. Ashley and also with the help of Ashton as well, some ways of, of kind of, um, protecting or informing researchers, how they can better ensure, ensure their safety. And it's also, we're, we're, we're launching a, an MA program. So this is something that's been on our minds in terms of the safety of students, but also faculty and staff in terms of things like not reporting, the location of the sessions publicly. I think there's kind of a, an interesting yeah balance in terms of ensuring safety, but not over alarming people who aren't necessarily in this space, but also taking it incredibly seriously, especially if there's early signs of, of more kind of concerted harassment. So yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people outside of the community of researchers, their minds probably goes directly to something fairly extreme in terms of examples. But yeah, I think it's right to kind of be kind of cautious and aware of, of how these, um, actors might, um, envy upon the research community specifically when we see it, especially in the UK kind of vigilante actions against journalists and researchers, yeah. conducting research in this space. So, so yeah. Um, it's something on our minds as we develop this, this MA along with Richmond University. 
AD: Thanks for that Will, and the last thing that I will, I will do what no scholar really should do, and I'm going ask the three of you to make predictions, which I know that you all hate, and you're immediately going close out the chat and refuse to continue the podcast, but I'd love for you to be a little predictive, for us just as to kind of round out today's episode and talk about, you know, for each of you, what do you think are going to be some of the key issues for the far right, moving forward, particularly as we move into the summer over the next year, what do you think are going to be big issues that they're focusing on - is it going to be more of the same around the vaccination, but, or is it something that's not on our collective radars yet? Is it something that, you know, the mainstream we're, we're kind of missing? Is there something else that's bubbling below the surface? So I will throw that to whichever one, of you wants to take that.
WA: I'll go first. I mean, I think in terms of one of the interesting things that we emerge from various like lockdowns will be how, um, Yeah. Um, actors on the far right, um, converge with more kind of libertarian actors when it comes to calling for faster rates of, uh, lockdown release. Yeah. In the UK, um, it's interesting. Um, Nigel FarageÕs new outfit though, he's kind of stepped down from frontline politics again for like the hundredth time, but the, the Brexit Party, now, the Reform Party. It'd be interesting to see how, how these movements kind of try to engage with popular demands around from lockdown release going forward. And yeah, it'd be, it'd be interesting also to see how these, these movements yeah, try to weaponize kind of popular, kind of resentments around, around that as well. I don't know if I had point, but I forgotten it. So I'll wait for others to speak and then I'll then I'll, I'll come back with some amazing point. Yeah. 
EL: Well, something that I'm going to keep a close eye on is, now with Trump out of office, how is the far-right going to refashion itself and not just in the US and North America, but globally as well. Bolsonaro for instance, was very reliant on Trump to bolster his image within Brazil, and now there's upcoming elections. So how is BolsonaroÕs popularity going to be effected by the fact that he's no longer the Trump of the tropics as he's called. Um, and similarly with just far-right movement school, globally, Modi and Trump, were very good friends, and so now with Trump out of the picture, does Modi still feel like his actions are being legitimized? Um, when, you know, when the world was focused so much on the US and what was happening in the US under Trump. So something I'm just going to think about just how is the far right going to refashion itself, certainly after January 6, we saw a lot of, uh, activity taking place. Something I noticed for instance, was this, uh, shifts towards, um, like prepper mentality and this notion that with, with Trump gone now, the far-right had to sort of find a way in order to sort of refashion and reorganize itself along this like apocalyptic prepper style, uh, um, mentality. Um, and so I think that's something that we will keep an eye out on is how the far right is going to, I mean, my fear is that the next really successful far-right leader, at least in the US is going to be somebody who's very articulate and well-educated, and somebody who's learned the lessons from the Trump era. Um, and so that's sort of my fear at the very least, that we're going to see a very sort of intellectualizing in a very sort of legitimized or normalized, um, manifestation of really the next far-right leader, uh, when it comes to the US but yeah, that's something I'm going to keep an eye out on 
AM: Um, so. I would say Trump may be out of office, but sitting here in the US, Trumpism is alive and well, and in some ways, getting scarier by, by the minute, in terms of particularly responses to the Capitol Insurrection. Um, so I think what the 2022 midterms bring will be very interesting and formative in shaping kind of the next several years of how people are going to interrelate right? So we see people who are in clear support of Trump and Trumpism, and then we see people on the far right who are really frustrated with what happened and sort of post Trumpians silence from Trump, right? Who feel let down by him as if they wasted their time. Um, so there's some conjecture happening. So as, as Eviane suggested it will be interesting to see how they reform. 
Um, I'm interested in seeing how deeply into kind of mainstream politics this can continue to be embedded, before 2022 and what 2022 will bring, like, because I think there's a tension in our relationship between the voters and what's going on with that right now. If, if there's a sort of, not a kind of resounding shut down on some of this, I think it will, it may not be the kind of overwhelming, oh, you have a president in office, but it'll continue to grow in certain ways. Um, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Certainly with QAnon in particular, the incursion of more candidates who are Q-focused candidates, it's still going on and that's going to keep happening. So it'll be interesting to see how those play out, because I think, um, there's a tension there because that's made more inroads than I would say the far, far right type of candidates, although they've made alliances in the national um, political sphere, right? So you have representatives who we would have said a few years ago, represented a more far right position who are aligning with the kind of people talking, making cute talking points right now. Um, so it'll be interesting to see what happens and how that shapes the kind of national political conversation in terms of making inroads for new narratives of the far right. 
So as kind of, hopefully COVID right as that kind of dies out, coming into 2022, we hope, you know, with the pandemic coming to an end and more vaccination, what are going to be the new things that are taken up, what happens with the current infrastructure debate? Like things like that that could give fuel to certain strands and fires around climate change around gender right? If we have a bunch of QAnon women candidates run again, there might be a big debate around gender and politics. So it'll be interesting to see how that shapes us.
AD: Fantastic. I think that's a, that's a great note to end on. So I just wanted to thank the three of you for, for joining me today and, um, for rounding out our first season of Right Rising. So, this has been another episode of Right Rising. We will see you all back in September when we have new episodes and new guests and new content for all of you. So thank you very much for sticking with us through this first season, and we've greatly appreciated you all listening and doing this with all of you. So thanks again, and we'll see you in September!