[The Library] Anonymous Operations: Front Line of the War Against White Supremacy

in #politics7 years ago

Anonymous Operations: Front Line of the War Against White Supremacy



The Southern Poverty Law Center cites an FBI report that in 2015, crimes against Muslim minorities rose by 60 percent. The same article cites that while outright racist symbolism, ie swastikas and other Neo-Nazi symbolism and salutes, saw a drop of 32 percent since the year before, there was a rise in what the author called "intelligent" racism. This kind of racism is instiutionalized, rebranded, and runs through a neat PR cycle before being introduced to the various propaganda mechanisms of the new, upstart movement of the "Alt-Right". 

The Alt-Right's propaganda machine can be seen in many facets of society, and has an upsetting level of support throughout corporate America. The SPLC used ACT for America as an example, an anti-Muslim, anti-Immigration lobbyist group that greets users with an interactive, colorful front page with clear signs of PsyOps pasted all over it. The only links the user can see on the front page are generally agreeable causes like supporting veterans, and their motto is "We are the NRA of National Security", a clear propaganda message used to gain support from 2nd Amendment supporters and cover up their anti-immigration agenda with the cause of "National Security".

Keep in mind, ACT for America is the organization that disgraced National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was an acting board member of. While outright Nazism has seen a decline, it's because the bigots have donned suits and titles, and are trading skin-head bonfires for corporate board meetings. Lynch mobs of the 1900s have been traded for lobbyist firms in the 21st Century. The Klan didn't have any power outside of the backwoods Alabama suburbs they cleaned their white hoods in years ago, but now they have an international voice to spread hateful rhetoric under the guise of National Security and public safety.


Combatting Hateful Rhetoric Online: Operation Resistance 


Enter Uriel. Uriel is an online fighter of this hateful rhetoric, using undercover tactics and social media Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) to combat the hateful rhetoric he sees online. Uriel, along with a devoted team of active propagandists, is fighting back using the bigots own tools. Much like Operation Pedo in my last post, Operation Resistance relies on a team of overt and covert social media presence to comb the web for those spreading hateful rhetoric online. When he finds pages, they go through a stringent vetting process to be sure they don't target innocent pages and disturb online freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is a huge concern for Uriel and the rest of Operation Resistance. I brought up the matter in our interview, and he had some fascinating insight into the matter. He says that while they have the right to spread hateful rhetoric online and in the streets, he and the members of Operation Resistance have the right to shut it down using their own propaganda mechanisms. Twitter, he says, is a private medium. They reserve the right to suspend accounts for acting against their set policies.

This is where the reporting side comes in. Uriel and others find profiles that spread outright hate online, vet them to be sure they are indeed spreading Nazist or otherwise racist propaganda, and mass report them to Twitter or Facebook. This is an overt tactic that is used by many Anonymous operations, an overt attempt to quell the presence of racist propaganda online.


The Covert Side: Anonymous Spies Against Online Racism


Uriel hinted at the presence of a covert operation as well as the overt, reporting based social media ops. Covert operations are quiet and undercover, a tactic that is more effective in many ways in taking Nazi propagandists offline. He said he has members infiltrating the groups to get an idea of their infrastructure, after which he uses publicly available tools to take their propaganda sites offline. 

This is an important part of the information war that they're fighting. Disturbing the information pipeline with DDoS attacks or other forms of takedowns ruins the mission that these "alt-right" soldiers are trying to fight. If the propaganda cannot reach an audience, it's ineffective. There is an intense psychological side to these kinds of operations as well: if Alt-Right and White Nationalists cannot trust the members of their group online and can't trust their infrastructure, it makes organizing and operating much more difficult.


Alt-Right Fighting Back


Uriel says that the Alt-Right is fighting back in the same way they're getting hit. Many of the Alt-Right are using bot accounts to mass report Anonymous OpResistance members. A says that in one instance, himself and several of my other contacts were labeled by an Alt-Right undercover propagandist as "Russian Bots", bots used in the Russian campaign of disinformation to flood Twitter with propaganda. This lead to the "Shadow Ban", or silencing of Twitter users without an outright ban, of several Operation Resistance members, resulting in significant time and effort being spent to lift the bans.

Alt-Right propagandists are experts of their trade. Their crusade marches under the banners of free speech, National Security, and anti-PC culture movements. They have a thick veil set between them and outright racism, allowing mainstream and almost mainstream media outlets to gain a certain kind of legitimacy. They put the words non-profit, political think tank, and charity in front of their cause to tug the heartstrings much like the Clinton Foundation's depictions of their political heads "helping" third world countries and legitimize their propaganda as media.


Anonymous Operations in the Political Sphere

Anonymous has been labeled a leftist movement since their ties with Occupy Wallstreet began. It's a tough label to lose, especially when dealing with rightist propagandists. They make sure to play the part, using propaganda labels like Marxist, snowflake PC culture. They may not be far from the mark, but the truth of the matter is, the propaganda behind the label is a dangerous tactic.

Anonymous members with Operation Resistance face an uphill battle against neo-right propagandists. Their covert and overt operations face a wide variety of challenges, one of the biggest being the legitimization of Neo-Nazism in the Alt-Right. They're the front line of the propaganda information warfare between the far right and those in search of the truth.


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This is the second episode of a series documenting the multitude  of Operations that Anonymous is currently or has formerly been engaged  in. Because of the nature of some of their Operations, I have worked  with members of Anonymous to decide how they would like to be  identified. The safety of my sources is paramount. 
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About 20-25 years ago I would probably agree with you here. However a.t.m. this is by far not the case anymore. Talking about white supremacy seems to be the easy card to draw again.

Politicians are even scared to reasonably talk about these 'taboo' topics, which is madness if you ask me... The great replacement is in full swing (as intended).

We are being told we are not sovereign, we have no culture worth preserving and that it is we that have to change. That girls cant wear skirts anymore, becuase by doing so they asked to be raped themself... And if it doesnt work out, we have to change some more and some more. These a all failed policies, which we cant talk about becuase we are instantly markt as nazies. But as a concerned citizen, are we really?

And to make matters worse, becuase we do not seem to even handle the above we also have to deal with the economic migrant tsunami. Just few people fully support this and many oppose it. But our political leaders dont even seem to care much, as long as we just pay our taxes heh!?

Is there a non-violent way forward, lets hope so. History however teaches us something different i'm afraid. You can push people around for some time, just not all the time.

Your comment is interesting in a lot of ways. I don't quite understand your skirt metaphor and how it ties in to the matter at all. As for culture, outside of a very long reach in saying that banning certain confederate symbols is robbing one of one's heritage, nobody is trying to get rid of anyone's culture. I'm of the opinion that, on both sides of the board, whether it be the right saying that immigrants are taking their culture or the left's ridiculous buzz word "cultural appropriation", nobody is taking anybody's culture or trying to eradicate it...

Except for Neo-Nazis and White Nationalist. They've said it directly.

Your comment seemed a little disorganized. If you'd like to further discuss, feel free to leave a comment. I enjoy intellectual conversation.

I dont support any supremacy whatsoever but i saw this so called white suprenacy in this article. I think white supremacy is less and less strong. World politics are going that way to be politicaly corect and find ways to be less "nazis"in this world. German leader Merkel is good wxample inviting people from Africa and muslim world to come to Germany and live rhere. There is no limit in number of people to come. Some european leaders are considering to give them right to vote too. So there is no fear to be more threat. Similar was with Obama considering to make all mexican illegals ti be legal. Borders are not controled much cuz there is politics behind it and will result to be less "nazis" in this world.

I would like to believe that. I really would. But I think the phenomena you're observing is just polarization and a change in the form of white supremacy.

Angela Merkel and other strong, pro-immigration politicians are softcore leftists. The leftist hate groups and violent extreme left groups are on the rise. Antifa is one small but important example. The right is rising as well, they're just taking a different form in the institutionalized Alt-Right. Like I said in the article, they're simply trading hoods for suits.

This polarization is what is making the world dangerous. While you don't see many outright Nazis in this world, they're present only slightly below the surface.

Anonymous should read the Koran. The Muslim racism and bigotry isn't an Alt Right propaganda tool. It's fact!

You're not going to find the solution to racism in any book, including and some may say especially the Bible, Koran, or Torah.

Islam isn't a race. Stop pretending like it is.

^ nitpicking at semantics.

Your whole argument is about white supremacy, a racist movement, and you spend a substantial part of it on Islam.

It's not semantics, it's half your ridiculous argument.

The Koran is the problem. Muslims are specifically instructed to massacre innocent infidels. This is indesputable fact!

That's called bullshit rhetoric they teach you in White Supremacy Grade School. It's an easy ploy, because the Koran does contain hateful rhetoric. But white supremacist morons tend to leave out that the Bible contains MULTITUDES of violent verses or those left open to violent interpretations, stories of massacres of entire cities and villages, and race wars as well.

Tread carefully.

Islam is not a race. This has nothing to do with White Supremacy.

Why don't you compare Mohammed with Jesus for us right here? After all, they are the patron saints of their religions. Surely, you can show us just how similar these two religions are this way quite easily.

Let's start here:

Jesus killed _____ people.
Mohammed killed _____ people.

Jesus had sex with ______ people under age 16.
Mohammed had sex with _______ people under age 16.

That ought to be an easy starting point.

I will consider any answer not including these data points trolling.

Islam isn't a racist, it's a religion. I agree. You can regard it as whatever you want, but I'm not answering those questions. I said, very directly, that every single religion condoned or directly advocated violence. Whether it's Jesus or Mohammed. Doesn't matter.

BUT. White nationalism is still a problem, and it affects the Muslim minority distinctly. The points you're bringing up are simply nitpicking at semantics. Try again.

Yep, trolling, I expected it.

You rant about white supremacy, throw Islam in for SJW virtue signalling points, then act as if pointing out Islam isn't a race is "semantic".

LOL.

@odinthelibrarian I just wanted to inform you that @croat seems to suffer from some kind of mental disorder. He commented on my post the same BS while stating he had "read the Koran" but couldn't give me one verse that supported his claim! (which was unrelated to my post fyi) While I offered him many verses disproving him!

It would appear all he can do is repeat his (disproven) rhetoric over and over again while generalizing all Muslims as one! (sad really)

Just wanted to inform you so you can make an educated decision on continuing to respond to him.

Nice post btw and you got a new follower :) Cheers

Yeah seems like he got hit hard by the Alt-Right propaganda train... poor guy.

Thank ya friend, followed back!

It's fact! The Koran is full of killing instructs!

Croat i think you are not 100 right. I was watching one of muslim priests who was telling that there are some so called underground priests who interpreteur koran by own and teach people in different ways. Since many wars in muslim countries those unerground priest have gained some control and teach koran their way.

Most ignore the violent intructs found in the Koran. But the most devout Muslims follow it to the letter, and massacre all non belivers.

And there is this, in Sydney, Australia, where I live!

You seem to be so fond of a strawman you call "White supremacy". Could you please show one (yes, one single) example of it?

So this is interesting, as you're refuting fighting the KKK's online presence not being equal to fighting white supremacy. The article stated the KKK and other white supremacist groups.

Are you insinuating the KKK is not a white supremacist group? Or did you just learn about the strawman fallacy and wanted to give it a go?