Influx of far-right posters

[Slightyamusedandsilly]

Why has the site suddenly had an influx of far-right posters? Almost overnight.

Is this a concerted campaign by the black shirts from Dover, Reform or Tommy ten names to infiltrate women's SM?

Yes that was so annoying! It's irritating when you are posting in good faith (even to someone with opposing views) and they turn into what was clearly a bot!

What a waste of time. Facebook now feels like AI talking to AI, I don't want MN to go the same way!

Shame the posts were deleted TBH because it was clearly a bot. Wonder why they were deleted?

Similar happened during the Southport riots, too. Far right agitators posting who then vanished.

@BeckyAMumsnet

"These are topics that genuine users want to discuss and it isn’t especially helpful in our experience to treat right wing and far right as interchangeable terms, as we have seen on many threads over the weekend".

With respect, I think it is pretty clear that we are not talking about the "ordinary" right wing and I do think we can all tell the difference between right wing and far right!

I live in what's historically one of the poorest areas in Europe. How is Donald Trump responsible for that? Am I right-wing for even questioning this bizarre rhetoric?

It's not right-wing to have concerns about immigration, the delusion that's the case is very recent and part of the omnicause nonsense.

I also wonder where the outrage was over masked rioters for Gaza rampaging through the streets every week. I've been caught up in the middle of a mob running around like wild animals, invading shops that might have some link to Jews, damaging them and forcing them to shut. It didn't even make it into the local paper.

A pp mentioned the horrendous reaction to a protester at the Reform conference. I think any public political event is a fair place to hold a protest and Farage showed how awful he is in his total inability to deal with them. I'm used to seeing politicians with the ability to protesters, even Cameron offered to speak to one privately and May managed it as well, the only one like Farage was Corbyn. However, I wonder where the headline writers were when I stood in a group of women's rights campaigners being threatened with physical violence by men wearing Labour lanyards from the conference 5 minutes' walk away. Or when Labour staff and members attacked a women's meeting held during the Labour conference and tried to smash windows and kick doors in to get to the women inside.

I hate all protests tbh and think they should be restricted to specific areas but I have to say this manufactured and coordinated outrage about one that doesn't subscribe to a certain outmoded viewpoint enforced from the top down is incredibly hypocritical and for all the accusations of Russian bots, I don't think that side is entirely organic either.

Plenty of times, foreign state-sponsored troll farms have been exposed pumping out and magnifying divisive, far right propaganda to destabilise their enemy nations. Not all of the posters will be bots and trolls, of course, some will be normal people groomed into blaming the scapegoat, others will agree with the rhetoric, some will just be the sort who like to have a bit of a debate.

I think part of the problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the far right actually is. When ignorant posters engage in nonsense such as “last time it was Jews, now it’s brown people/Muslim”, which is a form of Holocaust minimisation, this detracts from the true horrors of Nazism and where it leads. Moreover, ignoring legitimate concerns about immigration and whitewashing associated effects - while labelling posters is feeding the problem. It’s almost a reverse snobbery; look how enlightened we are!! How could anyone possibly disagree? Must be bots!

Couldn’t agree more

More about the "devout Christian guy":

Who is 'Danny Tommo'? Tommy Robinson associate at centre of Portsmouth and Dover migrant protests
Daniel Thomas was jailed in 2016 after an attempted kidnapping, but claims he has now turned around his life through religion
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/danny-tommo-tommy-robinson-dover-portsmouth-migrants-b1296000.html

From 2016, two years in prison for breaking into a man's house with knives and attempting to kidnap him, because Tommo wrongly believed the man had stolen £10,000 worth of drugs from him.

Arrested again in 2019 for his actions during a pro-Trump demonstration outside Buckingham Palace.

Also 2019 he was a key figure in UKIP and organised a "Brexit Betrayal" march (not 100% sure what that is. I suspect it's "We don't know what we want. But we're angry we haven't got it.")

Like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, he has been jailed for attempting to disrupt rape trials. (The tactic is to disrupt the trial in ways that cause a mis-trial to be declared. Then complain that justice hasn't been served.)

Previous charges (though possibly not convictions) for a fake passport, committing mortgage fraud, and assault.

He seems to have described his new group, Patriot Platform as "the English Defence League - just without the alcohol, drugs, shouting, protesting and flag waving".

Oh and he claims he converted to Christianity after leaving prison and sometimes posts bible quotes on his social media to prove it.

Similar happened during the Southport riots, too. Far right agitators posting who then vanished

I was accused of being and agitator and deleted although my posts were later restored. Want to know why? I went to the vigil for the victims and posted on a thread the day after that I was shocked that a knifeman was arrested across the street from us. I was hounded by the liberals, told I'd been at the riot (we went for a long walk after the vigil and saw smoke in the sky walking over Marine Way bridge on the way back to the station, didn't even know one was going on) and called all the liars going before being emailed that my posts had been deleted because I was spreading misinformation. I'd found out about that knifeman from the Liverpool Echo whoch covered the incident. But because a certain group didn't like it they had to pretend anyone talking about it was a far-right enemy who had to be silenced. Really affected my trust in the self-identifying Good Side™️ you know?

Of course legitimate concerns about immigration does not equal far right. We all want the small boat crossings to end, I would think.

But, for example, pushing the great replacement theory most definitely is far right. And there was a fair bit of that last night.

Groomed. Can some people even hear themselves? Maybe, just maybe, your viewpoint is wrong.

Yup. And it's not as if they have had a lot to post about really. The days of anything Trump being remotely defensible are long gone.

What I have noticed is a couple of posters who are nominally to the classic conservative side, are being swept up into the far right on some things.

So a criminal and a thug posing as a reformed good Christian man then. I’ve seen various bits on social media I mark them as inappropriate because I’m sick of seeing this kind of thing amongst my peaceful Peak District landscapes!

Yes, exactly.

Sometimes, like on the thread last night, it's obvious that a someone is posting word-salad junk and is not in good faith.

But it's usually harder to tell.

One of the big wins for trolls is creating an atmosphere of suspicion – so that completely genuine folk like yourself get disbelieved because there's so much deliberate disinformation being sloshed about.

You then, quite rightly, feel aggrieved at this.

It also impacts the people you're trying to talk to: they get less good information because they don't have a way to pick out your post as true among the reems of dross.

Troll sits back and congratulates themselves.

You hit the nail on the head when you say it's affecting trust.

I genuinely don't know how we deal with it. I'm choosing to trust you here today; but in truth how could I know for sure? I can't. I've just taken a punt. Similarly you can't know for sure about me.

I hate that this is our world now.

One thing that would help would be for MNHQ to not allow name changing. Then it would be more obvious when people were just newly landing on the site to stir things up.

But not allowing name changing would have a negative impact on women seeking help here.

It’s because the majority are finally free to say what they’ve been thinking all along, disregarding the vocal woke minority trying to name call and label them.

People are finally standing up and saying we’ve had enough. It’s tough if you don’t like it.

We’re not going anywhere, the situation will escalate precisely because you’ve tried to bury your head in the sand over it all this time.

What are you on about?

It’s because the majority are finally free to say what they’ve been thinking all along

Which is?

MNHQ could put a 24-hour hold on new username posts and threads.

I've rarely changed my username and only ever to protect the privacy of my family and/or students I've taught because I've been here for ages. But I'd gladly give it up to limit those cowards who post unpopular views and NC for it.

Oh, and the ones who have "outing" hobbies.

We’re not going anywhere, the situation will escalate

Who are the 'we'?

What are you talking about?

The majority of people are not far right, racist and xenophobic fools who believe that Farage is a 'patriot' or that it is OK to beat up a woman over the head with a stick at a conference or to block the port of Dover while wearing balaclavas or that Brexit was a good thing for the economy.

Small boats crossings are down, immigration is down. It is just used by far right parties to con the gullible and push their own agenda.

There are the 14 characteristics of fascism to work through and tick or not tick. Most government systems tick off a few, but there are certainly many individuals who tick all, or almost all.

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism, by Lawrence Britt, Spring 2003 (ratical.org)

And I think what you say works both ways. I keep seeing "far left" and "Communism" thrown about, but actually the biggest communist country in the world, the PRC, does not accept any asylum seekers. None. If anyone claims asylum in the PRC they are passed to the UN.

So the actual real communists, already do what the UK right want.

It confuses me.

You seem very concerned about what's going on in the UK echt?

So my post was deleted for speculating that MN might have a fair few bots on it.

What interesting times we're living in!

Most of SM has bots posting. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that MN has it's fair share.