The rapid move from online activity to political reality is an example of how a process can be hijacked by what researchers describe as a global network of nationalist, far-right activists. In this case the efforts were spearheaded by popular YouTubers and political \u201cinfluencers\u201d such as Austrian far-right activist Martin Sellner, then coordinated via chat groups and hyper-partisan websites.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at nationalist parties across the globe, you see these parties are part of a specific niche, and a specific network. All these actors inform each other, and adopt each others political positions,\u201d said Ico Maly, a researcher who teaches new media and politics at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
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Martin Sellner, a leading member of the Identitarian Movement, chats with visitors at a gathering entitled Europa Nostra in Dresden in August 2018 | Sean Gallup\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In Austria and Italy, the researchers found that a surge of online activity preceded government decisions to change tack on the U.N. Global Compact for Migration. A total of 152 countries ended up approving the deal, but the United States, Hungary, Israel, the Czech Republic and Poland voted against while 12 others abstained, including Austria, Switzerland and Italy.<\/p>\n
A report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), which monitors extremism online, looked at the discussion surrounding the U.N. deal in Europe. Analyzing tweets and posts on YouTube and Facebook, the researchers found that \u201cright-wing extremist and right-wing populist actors played a disproportionate role\u201d in influencing the discussion around the deal before last October.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the agreement was barely talked about on social media until mid-September, far-right and right-wing populist influencers discovered the issue in mid-September and began spreading large-scale distorted interpretations and misinformation about the U.N. migration pact,\u201d the researchers wrote in the paper.<\/p>\n
From that point, the discussion developed around social media accounts operated by the website Epoch Times;<\/a> right-wing populist columnist Thomas B\u00f6hm<\/a>, who runs the \u201calternative\u201d information campaign website journalistenwatch;<\/a> and the nationalist, anti-Islam blog Philosophia Perennis<\/a> \u2014 all of which featured in the top 10 mentioned accounts in over 1 million analyzed tweets globally after October 31.<\/p>\n \u201cYouTube plays a particularly important role in the dissemination of distorted or even false information within the right-wing populist and extreme right-wing scenes,\u201d the researchers added, stating that right-wing populists and conspiracy theorists were responsible for about half of the top videos about the deal.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the prominence of the anti-migration narrative across the different groups in that space, the U.N. migration pact was something that could galvanize these groups all over the world,\u201d said Chloe Colliver, head of the digital analysis unit at ISD.<\/p>\n \u201cU.S. and European groups do work together. But within Europe the problem has become the mainstreaming of these ideas, and it is more organic than we think. It is pushed by certain groups, but it has taken on a life of its own now,\u201d Colliver said.<\/p>\n ISD found that for months, the most shared link on German social media channels was to a petition against the U.N. pact organized by Sellner, an Austrian far-right activist who was called \u201cthe new face of the far-right in Europe\u201d by the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n After Heinz-Christian Strache, the countrys vice chancellor and leader of the far-right Freedom Party, expressed his objections to the pact in September, Sellner picked up the theme. In a video<\/a> he calls for an \u201cinformation war\u201d to start \u201cspreading fire.\u201d According to Sellner, the pact would mean the \u201cdemise of the European people\u201d and the realization of the \u201cvision of the future of the global elites.\u201d<\/p>\n Sellners videos made it to the top of the list of most-viewed YouTube clips about the migration pact, according to Tagesschau<\/a>, a news program by the German public broadcaster, closely followed by Russia Todays German edition RT Deutsch.<\/p>\n It was Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz who in October started the ball rolling in Europe, announcing his government had decided to pull out<\/a> of the U.N. pact. Kurz is in a coalition government with the Freedom Party.<\/p>\n Sellner said the campaign was about creating public discussion. \u201cThe pact was very ambiguous and we just understood in the way that most ordinary people who read it did. It is a pact for more migration,\u201d he told POLITICO in an email.<\/p>\n An off-road vehicle with a U.S. flag drives near the Mexico border fence east of Calexico, California | Apu Gomes\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing is,\u201d he added, \u201cwithout our campaign there would have been no public debate at all.\u201d<\/p>\n It didnt miss its goal. Soon after Kurzs move, similar debates cropped up in the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic \u2014 all countries where the far-right online movement has proven influential on political processes.<\/p>\n Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n and U.S. President Donald Trump had already pulled their governments out of the deal.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump instantly dropped out [of the U.N. process] to draft the deal, but in Europe no one will follow Trump. Then there was Orb\u00e1n but that too is not someone that youd back instantly,\u201d Bart De Wever, leader of the Flemish-nationalist New Flemish Alliance, which pulled out of the Belgian government over objections to the U.N. deal<\/a>, said at a leaders summit in Marrakech in December.<\/p>\n When the U.N. deal was finally voted on in New York on December 19, five countries voted against and 12 abstained.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cIts only when Austria, as the first normal country, so to speak, said they were unsatisfied, that our alarm bells went off,\u201d De Wever told public broadcaster VRT in early December.<\/p>\n In Italy, the government, which includes the far-right League, followed in Austrias footsteps in backtracking on the deal<\/a> in November. According to ISDs research, League leader Matteo Salvini, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Deputy Prime Minister Luigi di Maio were in the top 10 most-mentioned accounts in a dataset of over 1 million tweets globally.<\/p>\n When the U.N. deal was finally voted on in New York on December 19, five countries voted against: Hungary, Poland, the U.S., the Czech Republic and Israel. Twelve countries abstained: Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Italy, Latvia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Romania, Singapore and Switzerland.<\/p>\n In a speech<\/a> at a U.N. conference in Marrakech, Louise Arbour, the U.N.s point person who drafted the international migration deal, looked back on the weeks and months leading up to the summit. \u201cIt is surprising that there has been so much misinformation about what the compact is and what the text says.\u201d She dismissed claims spread on social media that it creates a \u201cright to migrate\u201d or that it would directly impact national legislation.<\/p>\n Louise Arbour, the U.N. secretary-generals special representative for international migration, second from left, during the migration summit in Marrakech | Fadel Senna\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not my interpretation of the text \u2014 it is the text,\u201d Arbour said.<\/p>\n Her statement was a swipe at the far-right vloggers, influencers and trolls who waged a monthslong campaign to sway the positions of mainstream politicians.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that politics is being done within national borders has long vanished,\u201d said Maly. \u201cWe have to start looking at this in a global perspective. New right is a global network.\u201d<\/p>\n Original Article<\/a><\/p>\n [contf] [contfnew] A coordinated online campaign by far-right activists pressur..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"yoast_head":"\nAustrias far-right drove agenda<\/h3>\n
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