Internal document from far-right militia Oath Keepers, with details on 25,000 members, shows Facebook was the most common way of discovering the group
Fight disinformation. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter. — How does one come to join a militia? Tweets: @willoremus , @alibreland , @willoremus , @willoremus , @willoremus , @alibreland , @alibreland , @paulmasonnews , @dfrlab , @timothypmurphy , @motherjones , @elizrael , and @jaredlholt Tweets: Will Oremus / @willoremus : Another interesting tidbit. Per @alibreland, Mother Jones itself was cited by 33 Oath Keepers as part of their reason for joining it. Does this imply that left outlets reporting aggressively on right extremism may play at least a small role in spreading it? https://twitter.com/... Ali Breland / @alibreland : new: a leaked oath keeper membership list shows how members say they found out about the militia before joining it. i analyzed the 18,000 entries in it. the most cited entrypoint? facebook https://www.motherjones.com/ ... Will Oremus / @willoremus : no doubt cable news drives polarization & extremism, too. you can't fully separate traditional media from social media these days bc they feed on each other. but to me this suggests the studies that find “facebook doesn't cause polarization” etc. are missing something important. Will Oremus / @willoremus : this list is incomplete and imperfect, and is taken purely from the reporting in @alibreland's great piece. still, i think it's telling that the top 3 here are essentially social media, at a time when it's trendy in some circles to insist cable news is the “real” problem. Will Oremus / @willoremus : how oath keepers decided to join the right-wing paramilitary group, according to oath keepers: - facebook (cited by ~1,000) - infowars (900) - youtube (800) - fox / fox news (500) - glenn beck (300) - bill o'reilly (300) - gun shows (180) - survivalist preppers podcast (130) https://twitter.com/... Ali Breland / @alibreland : youtube was also among the most cited. obviously social media alone wasn't the sole catalyst. you have to be into militias to see one and want to join it, but it's interesting. infowars, despite having a fraction of the reach, was the next most cited entrypoint Ali Breland / @alibreland : anyway, the whole list is interesting. lots of officers recruiting each other. gun shows were a big recruitment hub. there's some gems in there too like this one: https://twitter.com/... Paul Mason / @paulmasonnews : You don't say! https://www.motherjones.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... @dfrlab : “Far-right movements saw social media... as a potentially liberating and unmitigated resource for them to bypass traditional ways of getting publicity for themselves or reaching people who might want to join their movements,” @jaredlholt via @MotherJones: https://www.motherjones.com/ ... Tim Murphy / @timothypmurphy : good good good https://www.motherjones.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... @motherjones : A leaked Oath Keeper membership list shows how members say they found out about the militia before joining it. We analyzed the 18,000 entries in it. The most cited entry point? Facebook. https://www.motherjones.com/ ... Elizabeth Tsurkov / @elizrael : The real Hell Site isn't the one we're on right now. https://twitter.com/... Jared Holt / @jaredlholt : As I noted in this piece, the animosity we see towards social media platforms from extremist groups and movements is actually somewhat recent. For years, far-right actors saw the platforms as keys to their growth (until moderation efforts against them started occurring). https://twitter.com/...