Not long after a man shot to death at least 10 people on Saturday, May 14, in what local officials called a “pure evil,” “racially motivated hate crime,” influencers hustled to spread false narratives online that ignored the overwhelming evidence showing this attack was an act of white supremacist violence. As white supremacist violence has emerged as a predominant threat to national security and a recurrent topic in the news, the far right has increasingly leaned on disinformation campaigns to deny or distort that reality. Extremists and collaborators often use the tactic of suggesting liberals, leftists or the federal government staged acts of far-right terrorism. One recent example is usingTwitter’s trending topics to float the lie that antifa caused the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Polls showed that many Republicans ultimately believe such lies, proving the effort successful.
In the wake of the Buffalo, New York, mass shooting, veteran disinformation posters on Twitter such as male supremacist Mike Cernovich and Malaysia-based RT (formerly Russia Today) contributor Ian Miles Cheong led a campaign to suggest that the terrorist harbored a left-wing ideology, nudging their followers away from the alleged killer’s extreme far-right, self-described “fascist” ideology. Benny Johnson, an internet performer for the youth-focused right-wing group Turning Point USA, also called the alleged killer a “radical leftist.” Numerous other, smaller accounts also helped distract from the subject of white supremacy by claiming left-wing ideals motivated him to kill. Cernovich, who pushed the #Pizzagate and #StoptheSteal campaigns, is primarily known for creating and amplifying politically charged disinformation on Twitter. “Today’s terrorist attack will be politicized and lied about,” he posted to Twitter on the evening of May 14. “The man was under demonic influence. Completely incoherent ‘ideology.’ Hybrid of Nazism with Green New Deal leanings. He called himself a left-wing ‘green nationalist.’” Prior to the Buffalo grocery store attack, the man in custody appears to have distributed a sprawling document online laying out his grievances and his justifications for the shooting. In it, he embraces fascist and white supremacist ideologies and makes clear they drove him to kill. (The alleged killer pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in court.) The views he allegedly espoused do not preclude concern for the environment. Both the white power and nativist movements in the U.S. sometimes espouse conservationist views, typically to blame immigration for environmental decay. Additionally, the alleged killer made no mention of the Green New Deal policy that Cernovich referenced, and it is not even initially clear whether he does indeed consider himself a “green nationalist”. Hatewatch determined that the section of the propaganda document in which the author refers to himself as a “green nationalist” was plagiarized: The alleged killer appeared to copy it word-for-word from a similar propaganda document authored by the Christchurch killer, a white supremacist terrorist who murdered 51 worshippers in a New Zealand mosque in 2019. Cernovich returned to the issue a day later to claim that “regime propagandists” radicalize shooters, echoing a phrase that far-right figures sometimes use to describe the media. He defended Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has drawn criticism for pushing white supremacist talking points that bear similarities to those made in propaganda authored by terrorists. “Terrorists are indeed being radicalized,” Cernovich published to Twitter on Sunday, May 15. “Not by Fox News or Tucker. But by the regime propagandists.” In the propaganda document the suspect allegedly published, he linked to Breitbart, a low-standard, anti-immigrant publication. Cernovich has built a collaborative relationship with Breitbart. He regularly contributes to Breitbart platforms, and he appeared on a Breitbart-owned podcast less than a week before the Buffalo attack, claiming that leftists are “genociding Christians.” (The alleged killer did not reference Cernovich’s Breitbart content.) Cernovich allegedly hosted a gathering that included prominent white supremacists outside the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland and has recommended to his followers that “alt-right” people give money to white nationalists.
via splcenter: Disinfo Covers for White Supremacy After Buffalo Attack