How The Leftist is Weaponized Online

How The Leftist is Weaponized Online

...on Facebook and other platforms

Imagine the existence of a nonprofit organization that protects the world from extremists while converting those extremists into productive citizens. It would operate in harmony with tech platforms and software partners for the good of all society. In theory, it would take the worst, protect society from them, and all the while convert the worst into the best.

Such an organization does exist on a government grant paper, and that organization was approved for $750k. 1

In practice unfortunately, this organization, Life After Hate (LAH) is not nearly as noble as their mission statement would have us believe. First and foremost, their definition of "extremist" is ambiguous; or rather, the definition from the community of organizations that "study" such behavior is used ambiguously.

The counter-violent extremist (CVE) community, which included Life After Hate (LAH) the moment $750,000 of taxes was awarded to them, are the Great Proselytizers of our time. Contrary to the claims made in their state-funded research, one has a higher chance of being struck by lightning in North America than attacked by a far-right extremist group, if we are to take their state-funded definitions of extremism. 2 They are also the origin of the "violent white supremacy" myth, even proving, quite unwittingly that violent white supremacy is a near statistical zero. Regardless, Life After Hate claims that "[t]oday, far-right extremism and white supremacy are the greatest domestic terror threats facing the United States." 3

What is the purpose?

The Redirect Method is a suite of software programs hosted, funded, or defended by at least 41 organizations. It operates by:

  1. tracking users across host platforms,
  2. profiling them based on their searches and data history,
  3. categorizing them into special "cohorts", and finally
  4. tailoring the ad feeds and search results of those users.

On Facebook, users are redirected depending on the (1) profile of a user that Facebook keeps of them and (2) what that user is actively typing in Facebook's search function. Redirected users are indoctrinated with what appears to be left-state indoctrination. This technique appears on several platforms, but on Facebook, redirected users find themselves looking at LAH.

Redirection on many platforms make use of at-risk audiences. The technique targets youth, the alleged traumatized, schizophrenics, and other mentally ill users to weaponize them, politically. Success means a person takes on the campaigns of the CVE community. Life After Hate campaigns for left-leaning institutional media,4 characterizes discussion and debate as "escalation," and trains their audience to be censors on various platforms. 5

A group that closely works with and advises LAH is the even more radical ConnectFutures. 6 ConnectFutures offers Black Lives Matter propaganda, decolonization, white privilege, and other collective learning courses tailored to young people. 7 This radical group also targets immigrant communities to create conflict between them and the countries they immigrated to, 8 as well as offering left-leaning courses to teachers and community leaders. 9 This group even tailors courses to children as young as 7 years old. 10

All the while, LAH describes their resources and techniques as "support, education and referral services." 11

How is LAH Implemented on Facebook and Instagram?

The Redirect Method 12|13 is indoctrination software developed by a counter-violent extremist (CVE) organization called Moonshot with the aid of other CVEs. 14|15 CVE organizations are also responsible for censorship software. 16

In the case of indoctrination software on Facebook and Instagram:

The Redirect Initiative helps combat violent extremism and dangerous organizations by redirecting hate and violence-related search terms towards resources, education, and outreach groups that can help. This initiative is based on Facebook’s “Get Help” search based modules...evolved to fit Facebook and Instagram. 17
[W]hen people search on Facebook for terms related to white supremacy in the US, results are directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups, and outreach. 17

Moonshot aided Facebook's ad feed and search result manipulation, otherwise known as the Facebook Redirect Program (FRP). In November 2020, Moonshot produced analysis 18 of the FRP and even stated that "Life After Hate was initially approached by Facebook" 18p.6 for the FRP campaign, in which LAH was then funded by the state to nefariously indoctrinate users to become individual censors and activists.

Moonshot further adds that the

purpose of the FRP is to ensure that Facebook users searching for dangerous individuals and organisations on the platform are offered authentic, meaningful and impactful support off-platform. The purpose of the pilot was to test the programme design with a view to informing and improving future deployments. 18 p.2

By "off-platform", Moonshot is referring to Life After Hate and others (EXITAustralia and EXITUSA) that serve as the proselytizers users find in their search or ad results online. By "authentic, meaningful and impactful support", Moonshot refers to the convincing of people that their fellow countrymen who happen to question The State are dangerous and that The State ought to be trusted over individuals. This is coming from a CVE that has routinely fabricated data in reports that lack transparency; from a CVE that boasted of having unprecedented control over America's internet during the 2020 election. 14

Moonshot and Facebook don't release the keywords used to target internet users, but Moonshot states that 191 keywords were used 18 to redirect users from Facebook to Life After Hate, and advises Facebook to use more keywords in the future. 191 is quite a lot, but small compared to Moonshot's database of 30,000 keywords – clearly an ambiguous approach to target "extremists" that Moonshot typically uses to collect data.

Tens of thousands of Facebook users were flagged by the FRP, which by itself is a clear indicator that the Facebook-LAH partnership is focused on indoctrinating at-risk users. After all, similar programs target the youth (ConnectFutures) or the mentally ill (Mental Health America) for nearly identical brainwashing. Of the initial tens of thousands flagged, thousands went on to engage with partner sites, and only 25 individuals chose to begin a "conversation". 18 Let's compare those numbers to the extremist data from the Institute for Economics and Peace. While The Institute still ambiguously defines the term to suite the interests of The State's power, The Institute is a favored citation of the rest of the CVE community, which wildly conflicts with the claims of the CVE community, and LAH.

The Institute collected data for deaths caused by state-defined terrorism across a 27-year period. Far-right terrorism caused an average of 4.5 deaths per year in North America, 19 a region of over 370 million people. Globally, the Americas and Caribbean have the lowest rates of terrorism – yet Moonshot and Facebook focus their resources on these areas. 18

One might wonder, if The State hires non-profits to ambiguously define "extremism" and "terrorism", why end the data fabrication there? Why not further fabricate even more nonsense to justify their desire for information and network control? This is about the security state agencies funding and partnering with Facebook and 3rd parties as a sort of proxy government, where the old state propaganda of 'public interest' is appealed to.

The State hires a non-profit and legally coerces a business to comply with it's information control measures. The State is quite literally using high tech indoctrination protocol to turn the at-risk into political weapons.

Life After Hate is an attempt to take the weakest of us and convince them to censor The State's opposition across all dominant tech platforms.

This ambition is also necessary, now more than ever, to protect online spaces and the global communities that use them. We look forward to the continued evolution of Facebook’s Redirect Programme. 18p.3

- state-funded researchers


Information Control is a Cyclic Filter

As was the case with radio, then broadcast television, and now the internet, government attempts to justify its existence and potential expansion by appealing to whichever political group is popular at the moment, and that group will have a place on the network of the time since The State will use legal monopolies to emphasize the dominant group's language while censoring the dissenting individual's criticisms.

Information control is a cyclic filter.

Anyone that produces statist arguments will be kept on the platform, and possibly even emphasized. Anyone that dissents from the current state propaganda will be censored. As such, if the State is expanding its imposed beneficence programs (which the leftist favors), then during that expansion period, the leftist will be more aligned with The State and less aligned with liberty. During that same period, the rightist will oppose the expansion and be less aligned with The State and more aligned with liberty. Thus, the filter effect is actually selecting a legitimate dichotomy from which to filter people - the dichotomy of power vs liberty. If The State is expanding its imposed chastisement programs, we will have the reverse effect, with the leftist being more libertarian and the rightist being more statist. It does not occur to the leftist nor the rightist that both imposed State actions ought to be rejected, but that is a topic for another essay.


References

[1] Certificate Regarding Lobbying. Tracking Number for Grant: 13144504. Department of Homeland Security. Web (2020)

[2] Institute for Economics and Peace. "Global Terrorism Index 2019 Measuring the Impact of Terrorism." (2019).

[3] Life After Hate. "Life After Hate Fact Sheet".

[4] Life After Hate. "How to Fight Fake News During Covid-19".

[5] Life After Hate. "Life After Hate's Statement on the Capitol Building Attack".

[6] Offield. "Leftist Indoctrination on Facebook". The ARKA Journal.

[7] ConnectFutures. "Race, Privilege, and Justice".

[8] ConnectFutures. "Building Resilience in New Migrant Populations".

[9] ConnectFutures. https://www.connectfutures.org/news-press/

[10] ConnectFutures. "Prevention Against Violence".

[11] Life After Hate. "Life After Hate working with Facebook to help individuals leave behind hate groups."

[12] Offield. "How Far-Leftism is Forced On Us". The ARKA Journal.

[13] Offield. "The Agents in the False Ads". The ARKA Journal.

[14] Offield. "Propaganda and Nationwide Monitoring of Conservatives during the 2020 Election". The ARKA Journal.

[15] Moonshot. "The Redirect Method."

[16] Offield. "Shadowbanned". The ARKA Journal. The ARKA Journal.

[17] Facebook. "CounterSpeech."

[18] Moonshot. "From passive search to active conversation: An evaluation of the Facebook Redirect Programme."

[19] Institute for Economics and Peace. "Global Terrorism Index 2019 Measuring the Impact of Terrorism."