Why does criticizing shitty opinions somehow mean that you “can’t handle different opinions than your own” and you’re “attacking free speech”? like criticism /is/ free speech, it’s the exercise of it what the fuck is the deal with that?
It’s part of Stormfront’s forum invasion instructions, if I recall.
Explain
Stormfront used to circulate a document through its forum membership, specifically its subforum for indoctrinating the membership of other websites, no clue if they still do. This was 2010 or so? It was a list of talking points, key phrases, strategies, and methods for invading other forums and bringing them around to a more receptive environment for their rhetoric.
It had instructions on how to make it look like there were a lot more people agreeing with you than there actually were, in order to make it seem as if the fight was already over and the website was only safe for white supremacists and fascists; on how to shut down dissenters of the new status quo, usually with spam or key phrases like the ones you mentioned; how to become a moderation staff member and who to target and how from there.
I’m not saying at all that they invented any of this chatter, that would be patently ridiculous. But I do think this activity had a huge effect on how it’s become a lot more common on the internet and especially with the sub-30 crowd. Stormfront has made no secret about how they’ve taken over 4chan, for example, which was the breeding ground and organization point for the “alt-right.” They didn’t just implement the rhetoric there, they taught it to others memetically.
4chan has a userbase that goes disturbingly young in many cases, so the kids that thought it was fresh six or seven years ago are young adults now. And those that were young adults then are now comfortably situated and camping out in more mainstream venues with these fringe ideas and fringe talking points, and from YouTube comment fields and Twitter diatribes and so on you see those Stormfront techniques passed knowingly or unknowingly to a much wider audience, who are willing to readily accept it as just how things are.
I don’t have a bird’s eye view of any of this. But every time I see those phrases from young people like me, I immediately remember that invasion document.
*blink*
*blink*
*blink*
This is called SWARMfront, and the people who do it are called BUGs. Their strategy includes memetic mantras like, “Anti-racist is code for anti-white,” and shit about “white genocide.” They also do shit like asking why there’s no White History Month or White Entertainment Television while pretending to be pro-equality, or saying only “white countries” allow immigration of people not of the majority race, attempting to get white people who don’t really think about racial issues to see themselves as subject to unfairness and oppression.
The mantras and shit are obvious, but they have way more subtle and insidious strategies, which is why there’s been such a marked rise in their rhetoric being spread across the internet.
Sorry for the ugly link but http://truth-zone.net/forum/the-human-condition/64500-stormfront-neo-nazi-propaganda-tactics.html
Here’s a copy-paste of what appears to be the rules used by SWARMfront to propagandize
Thanks to steviemcfly for mentioning this keyword so i could look it up
What I was talking about in Scotsblr. It’s likely all of these people jumping into the fray about how punching a nazi ‘makes you just as bad as them’ are St*rmfr*nt agents. Pay close attention to the blog’s content, whether it recently made, the username itself, et al.
I don’t think it’s likely at all that all of those people are from stormfront, or on the far right at all. that’s leaving liberals off the hook. but definitely that’s the exact kind of rhetoric nazis will use, even if they don’t believe it themselves for a second. and that’s why liberals shouldn’t be let off the hook for adhering to it.
I think the general gist of this was that they were using liberal ideology against itself by trying to popularize this line of thinking to sort of open up a space in the public dialogue for their racist politics. Like it wasn’t that everyone using this idea is a nazi but that nazis are actively trying to popularize the idea among regular people so that they can be allowed to crawl out of the gutters
This, very much.
QueerAnarchism 