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White dog owners are racists! Or? Column

2020-09-27T17:11:50.704Z


Many US conservatives, including an ex-governor, are furious. A left-wing activist has called on the Internet to take away their dogs from all whites. For real? A little sobering propaganda research.


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Dog life (symbol image)

Photo: Ghetea Florin / EyeEm / Getty Images

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and former Republican presidential nominee, has 1.6 million followers on Twitter.

Last week he angrily distributed a link to a website called unitedwildlifeunion.com.

He thought it was satire at first, said Huckabee, "but then I understood that this guy really thinks it's 'RACIST!'

when white dogs hold ".

"Outrageous" was the Huckabee. Indignation,

outrage

, is known to be the reserve currency of social media today.

"I have guns. Just try to take my dogs away from me."

There were 459 retweets and over 1100 likes for the outburst.

Huckabee's followers added: "Our houses and cars are next ... and it will not end there," wrote a "conservative patriot who loves her country".

Another threatened: "I live in Texas. I have four dogs. I have guns. Just try to take my dogs away from me."

The link was also angrily passed around in various forums.

A commentator on a local radio station owned by Fox News said he thought it was satire at first, but: "No! The guy is real."

No he is not.

The United Wildlife Union website has exactly two other articles, one on the war on animals that Donald Trumps is alleged to be waging (don't ask), and one delighted with seahorses "breaking gender stereotypes."

If you are seriously wondering whether something like this is really real, the first thing to do is scroll to the footer and first see what is there.

In this case: "Powered by Globe Media Holdings."

Christian Stöcker, arrow to the right

Photo: SPIEGEL ONLINE

Born 1973, is a cognitive psychologist and has been a professor at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) since autumn 2016.

There he is responsible for the "Digital Communication" course.

Before that he was head of the Netzwelt department at SPIEGEL ONLINE.

If you click on the associated link, you land on a website full of stock photos and generic company blah blah ("Maximize your growth and rest assured that we will be with you every step of the way").

If you click around a bit, you quickly come across pages with dummy text ("lorem ipsum ...") and a "shop" in which evening dresses and men's suits can be seen, sorted into categories such as "masonry tools" or "spirit levels".

Strange isn't it?

The whole thing is obviously a dummy website template that has not been fully completed, such as the dozen free of charge available from the world market leader "Wordpress".

Debile versions of right-wing enemy images

The Globe Media Holdings homepage reads: "Our main principle is the freedom to follow your inner voice - free from the worry of becoming another victim of the fleeting world of Cancel Culture."

There we have the first self-revealing catchphrase: "Cancel Culture".

Our freedom is threatened!

Namely by fictional activists!

Under "some of our featured brands" you can find links to various other websites at "Globe Media Holdings", which are also based on Wordpress standard formats.

They also have something in common: They should all appear as if they were being run by politically very active feminists and other "social justice warriors" who represent completely absurd positions.

So of dull caricatures of the enemy images of the American right.

"The Future of Progressive North Korea"

Often it is about gaming ("Doom: The beginning of toxic masculinity in video games"), sometimes you end up with a "Buzzfeed" based offer called BeezFud ("Labor Day is capitalist propaganda"), sometimes it is about "news" ("Kim Yo-johg is the future of progressive North Korea").

If you click around a bit, you will always find holes in the offer and even more dummy text.

But you just have to want to know, not just confirm your prejudices.

If you take a look behind the scenes via the common IP address of all these offers (if you know how to do it, it is not difficult), you will find more on the one server on which these offers are all located, that are even less finished.

Including a page for a dog grooming salon and a fictional research institute.

And a single real company (a Texan joinery) that unfortunately doesn't respond to inquiries.

The name server from which all the websites get their names is called "Texas Vanguard".

This is also the name of the Texan branch of a neo-Nazi association called "Vanguard America".

A senator has already fallen for it - and the Washington Post

In addition to all the strange Wordpress sites, the "Plandemic" propaganda video, which has now been blocked by YouTube and Facebook and spreading conspiracy theories about the corona pandemic, can be downloaded from this server.

There is also a page called "Friends of Journalism".

The protagonist of this page, as well as a Facebook page called "Journalism Excellence Worldwide", is called "Dustin Levitt".

In truth, however, it is a right-wing troll named Brandon, apparently originally from Oregon.

Leftists from Boston exposed him and his girlfriend back in 2017.

Back then, the two of them pretended to be "Boston Antifa" online.

So the method was the same even then.

Brandon and his girlfriend already had a great viral success back then: US media from the right-wing postille "Breitbart" to "Fox News" and the "Washington Post" reported very seriously about the suspicion of Russian influence - because a Republican senator fell for a tweet from Brandon and his girlfriend.

The two had specified "Vladivostok" as the location of their "Antifa" account.

That was enough.

Again and again JEW as an acronym

Apparently at least Brandon still hasn't given up his labor-intensive hobby.

Brandon, he once said in what was apparently a serious YouTube video this time, hates "communists" and other leftists.

He doesn't like Jews either.

That is probably why he keeps inventing fictional, very ridiculous pseudo-journalism platforms whose names can always be abbreviated to JEW (Jew).

Various attempts to establish contact via email addresses on the websites and associated Twitter accounts were unsuccessful.

Not surprising.

Such people prefer not to talk to the press.

Brandon and his alleged comrades-in-arms are working hard, albeit a bit sloppily, to create a parallel media universe.

A world in which "woke" leftists behave just as stupidly as rights, racists and anti-feminists like to assume they are.

The dogs know - and the music!

- want to take away video games for gamers and freedom for men.

They probably find it kind of funny, totally ironic!

But it has serious consequences.

As ugly and stupid as you'd like to see the enemy

We are no longer dealing with "fake news" (a term that should be avoided anyway), but with fake discourse: Here, a distorted image of the political opponent is drawn up, which actors on their own political side then consider to be real and spread.

Even people with 1.6 million Twitter followers like Mike Huckabee.

The enemy is portrayed as ugly and stupid as you find them to be, and others believe so.

This creates even more polarization in an already divided society.

This is the new, ugly quality that the internet-ironic alt-right movement has brought to the US public.

An ingredient in Donald Trump's version of America.

Such right-wing trolls don't need Russia's help.

A certain relationship to (post) Soviet propaganda strategies is clearly recognizable: sow doubts wherever you can, make people insecure until they can no longer really believe anything.

Except what fits their worldview.

Mike Huckabee's tweet about the mad left is still online, by the way.

Although several twitterers pointed out the truth to him.

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2020-09-27

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