Has social media made the UK more right wing?

[youngbob]

In a few years, someone will release a study where they manage to take a bunch of seemingly normal people, take over their twitter or instagam feed and radicalise them 100% via social media. Here's Lawrence, 5 years ago he was a happily married, upper middle class, reasonably popular actor, now he's a broke divorced dad who sells his outrage and votes for extremists.

Has already happened to be fair.

 

[supercity88]

It's quite alarming just how targeted it is. However, the amount of time we spend scrolling through things on social media means we are looking for certain things to capture us. And often it will be something you don't like/agree with rather than something you do. I'm often scrolling through and see a post that slags off Arsenal and give it a split second, chuckle to myself and move on. But if it's something slagging off City I sit up and take notice and get nice and angry.

 

[domalino]

The majority of this forum similarly sits on the left and sometimes far left

Statistically this is just very unlikely.

What's more likely is that you're a lot further right than you think, and are viewing the majority in the middle as left.

 

[Phil1]

Statistically this is just very unlikely.

What's more likely is that you're a lot further right than you think, and are viewing the majority in the middle as left.

He 100% is more right than he lets on.

 

[inbetween]

Statistically this is just very unlikely.

What's more likely is that you're a lot further right than you think, and are viewing the majority in the middle as left.

Maybe! Who knows :) My perception is I'll be voting Labour this year and since Corbyn was booted out Labour often get bad press on here for some reason...

 

[domalino]

Maybe! Who knows :) My perception is I'll be voting Labour this year and since Corbyn was booted out Labour often get bad press on here for some reason...

Ah well that's probably just due to the nature of forums where the people who speak most speak loudest. There's 4 posters who are responsible for 90% of the anti-Startmer and anti-Labour posts.

We see 100 posts and think it's a mainstream opinion, but then you realise it's just the same few people posting and liking each other's posts.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

Julia Ebner is an academic who infiltrates far-right and Islamist groups, both online and in person (right down to donning a blonde wig to make herself look more Aryan in one instance), though latterly she has been focusing more on the far-right.

Am about half way through this latest book of hers which is out in paperback soon:


In it she argues that there has indeed been a shift to the Right in the Overton window, as evidenced by the mainstreaming of what were previously extremist beliefs.

Social media certainly has played a part in this, especially X, through co-ordinated efforts by what are now transnational organisations like, say, the Identitarian Movement, to cause these beliefs to trend.

Ebner does describe in more detail how this effect is achieved. However, as her book lacks an index, I have not been able to find the section where she does this and am a bit short of time in making this post. Otherwise I would type out what she has to say.

But anyway, let's look at one example: the baseless Great Replacement conspiracy theory, as I can quote her on this. At one point, she highlights how 'populists who sit in parliaments...have played a crucial role in normalising...and amplifying the ideologies that drove the Christchurch and Poway attackers.'

She then specifically cites politicians who have referenced the baseless Great Replacement conspiracy theory 'either implicitly or explicitly' [like] 'former Austrian Vice Chancellor H.C. Strache, who vowed 'to continue the battle against the Great Replacement'. Then there is Dries Van Langenhove from the Belgian far right party Vlaams Belang, who 'repeatedly wrote on social media that 'we are being replaced'. Like Strache, Van Langenhove won a seat in the 2019 European Parliament elections.

Meanwhile, the AfD in Berlin even featured the conspiracy theory on its campaign posters, that said, 'Learning from Europe's history [...] so that Europe will not become Eurabia.' See also this article on Italian PM Georgia Meloni:

Italy Now Has Conspiracy Theory as National Policy

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni believes in the racist great replacement theory—and is putting it into in practice.

foreignpolicy.com

Television host Tucker Carlson has also endorsed the Great Replacement myth. And 'Lozza' Fox has referred to it just in the last 24 hours in one of his tweets (I also recall that his mate and ex-GB News presenter Calvin Robinson did too a while back).

So it is worth recalling that Brenton Tarrant cited ‘The Great Replacement’ as a rationale for killing fifty-one people at two different mosques in New Zealand, while Patrick Crusius killed 23 people at WalMart in El Paso with an AK-47-style citing concerns about a ‘Hispanic invasion.’ Additionally, John Earnest claimed that the reason he killed one person and injured another three at a California synagogue was his belief that Jews are responsible for non-white immigration into the United States.

So far, no mainstream UK politician or party has cited this theory to the best of my knowledge. But Ebner mentions that 30% of Leave voters believe in it (as opposed to 6% of Remain voters), citing this study:

Brexit and Trump voters are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories | YouGov

YouGov-Cambridge research shows the extent to which conspiracy theories have become mainstream

yougov.co.uk

Must emphasise again that this is just one example and I am only part way through the book. But what the author does is chart the trajectory that ideas like this have taken from their origins in some off-the-grid online forum, like the bit of 4Chan where Incels hang out, for instance, to their endorsement by social media influencers and politicians.

Whatever one thinks of her thesis, all this makes for fascinating reading. Her previous book Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists is also, as one reviewer noted, ‘riveting and often deeply disturbing’. So to finish, here’s a link to an interview with her about that one:

Julia Ebner: ‘There's an adrenaline rush in undercover work, getting inside a far-right movement’ | Books | The Guardian

Julia Ebner spent two years infiltrating far-right networks. The counter-extremism expert discusses fear, loathing and democracy in an age of disinformation

amp.theguardian.com

 

[Brewster's millions]

I actually think that social media targets everybody in a way that is far more inclusive than you think. Nothing sums it up more than the title of this thread because I know that Rascal sits on the far left. His views mean that quite literally anything will sit to the right of him so of course the perception will be that social media is dominated by the right.

The majority of this forum similarly sits on the left and sometimes far left so of course many people are going to be concerned on here about this 'rise' of the right. However, the reality is it couldn't be further from the truth, it's just that normal, common opinions appear to be on the right. I mean look at the polling for the next election, if we're all being influenced to the true right then how are Labour set to win a landslide election this year?

What many people on here hate is the fact that most average and relatively apolitical people do not sit on the left, instead they mostly sit in the centre and centrist votes are often not decided by ideological lines. The reason why there is concern over the picture painted to centrists above all else is because it is this group that will decide any election.

At the end of the day you cannot have a socialist utopia or a far right empire unless the centrists agree to it. This is why both the right and left hate the way in which social media operates, it's because social media generates profit from participation from all corners of the spectrum.

I would say that about 30% of people on here are far left, probably another 35% are more moderately left wing but still definitely to the left (although it could be vice versa) then there’s about 25% who are in the middle with the remainder sitting on the right. Although having said that, 10% seems quite high for the right of centre.

It’s definitely not a normal distribution of political views.

 

[Scottyboi]

I would say that about 30% of people on here are far left, probably another 35% are more moderately left wing but still definitely to the left (although it could be vice versa) then there’s about 25% who are in the middle with the remainder sitting on the right. Although having said that, 10% seems quite high for the right of centre.

It’s definitely not a normal distribution of political views.

30% far left lol I highly doubt it.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

30% far left lol I highly doubt it.

His Overton window is >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> skewed.