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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

Forensics on the Internets: Right Wing Watch [rightwingwatch.org] undertakes to analyze an alt-right troll. Autopsies are not for the weak of stomach. You have been trigger warned, marshmallow snowflakes.

Beneath every far-right internet troll is a person with a name and a life offline. Across the United States and abroad, there are otherwise normal people living out secret lives on the internet where they are engaging in a culture of harassment, hate-spreading, and radicalizing themselves with extremist ideologies.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

Many of the people existing in this space online do so behind pseudonymous display names and social media accounts they believe conceal their identity. But it doesn’t always work, and sometimes we get an opportunity to examine under the hood and try to understand how the radicalization machine works.

Right Wing Watch is revealing the identity of one of these trolls. We are not “doxing” him—we will not share his address or private personal information. Rather, we are showcasing publicly available details about his life to try to better understand how an ostensibly run-of-the-mill person becomes an online hate-monger.

Oh, OK, so it's not, I repeat, not Joe.

This user was exposed to extremist content foremost by Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys hate group. Despite McInnes’ insistent denials that he is fomenting hate in the United States, the user we highlight here is a clear reminder that he is. Ushered by McInnes, he entered a sect of social media that escapes meaningful moderation from tech platforms such as Twitter. In these circles, users are egged on by people like white nationalist podcaster Mike Peinovich, who has burned through dozens of Twitter accounts—some of which Twitter has disabled (but not all)— to maintain his presence on the site, and people like Norman Garrison, who spends his days instigating harassment and violent threats against journalists. Tech companies know this ecosystem exists and they allow it to remain online; it is luring young men and ruining their lives as it creates a dangerous environment for the rest of us.

Kind of what I have been trying to say! Consult the Fine Article [rightwingwatch.org] for complete details.

Original Submission