For years, mainstream media has condemned right wing extremism being promoted on X/Twitter for harming democracy. Apparently, they have no problem promoting it themselves, however.
It’s been a constant drum beat pushed by mainstream media. What to do with right wing extremism and misinformation being spread on social media like X/Twitter. For many, the solution is to lobby politician’s to push for things like online harms legislation in a (misguided) effort to crack down on such content. Others suggest arresting the company leaders and charging them with various criminal offences because of the actions of their users have taken.
One more recent example of mainstream media condemning extremism on X/Twitter can be found on PBS which talked about how many people feel that right wing extremism spread on social media is a threat to democracy:
Half of U.S. adults say they sometimes get their news from social media. However, almost two-thirds of adults say they view social media as a bad thing for democracy. This raises the question of what responsibility social media companies bear for our increasingly divided political climate. Judy Woodruff explores that more for her ongoing series, America at a Crossroads.
These themes are generally repeated throughout other publications. For instance, here’s an article from Rolling Stone Magazine:
X Hate Speech Is So Common That Celebs Like John Cena Follow White Nationalists
The actor and wrestler has the hashtag #RiseAboveHate on his profile, but his feed features toxic influencers
The image you can easily get from all of this is that if all of social media were to disappear tomorrow, that right wing extremism would disappear overnight and that the threats to democracy would also disappear as well. There is an huge underlying problem with all of this, and it’s something I’ve pointed to for years as well. That problem being that we are attaching a societal problem to social media. In other words, we are blaming social media for a problem found in society. As a result, we are misdiagnosing the problem and applying solutions that have no hope in working.
Right wing extremism has existed long before social media. For instance, with the advent of AM radio, right wing extremists have, in the past, taken to talk show radio to spread their messages of hate. Yet, facts like that almost never get mentioned in these debates. Instead, many jump to the conclusion that right wing extremism is entirely the fault of social media and if we do away with social media, the problems will simply go away along with it. Some even go so far as to honestly believe that is social media ceased to exist tomorrow, right wing extremism would never have a chance to spread.
Today, I stumbled across a perfect example of why this is a very foolish thing to believe. For years, many mainstream media players have platformed right wing extremists in an effort to pretend that they are a neutral news source. This while downplaying their actions as if this is just a normal course of doing business. A great example of this in action was the right wing extremist terrorist attack in Canada where extremists employed the use of gun runners to arm themselves with bullet proof armour and weapons while threatening police officers. At the time, business windows were smashed, war memorials were urinated on, infrastructure was hijacked, ambulances were blocked, people were assaulted, and many more were threatened. Yet, mainstream media constantly downplayed all this, calling it a protest and a debate on free speech. This even as members of the media had beer cans thrown at their heads and their lives threatened as well.
The major problem with this is that mainstream media legitimizes these extremist actions. Yet, when almost any other cause manifests in an actual protest (such as Occupy Wallstreet or Black Lives Matter), riot police are called, tear gas is fired, and the crowds are forcibly dispersed. Mainstream media, for their part, generally react to these events by delegitimizing them and calling those actions a threat to every day life despite such actions only taking place for a day or so.
These actions basically promote right wing extremism and it had nothing to do with social media. If, however, you want a more vivid and recent example, well, look no further than USAToday which published an article promoting Project 2025 as something to be praised:
Harris is wrong about Project 2025. Our plan is good for America.
Vice President Kamala Harris in recent months has spent considerable time and energy attacking Project 2025, the conservative movement’s plan to curtail the administrative state and put Washington back into the hands of the American people.
When asked about the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in a recent interview, the vice president even responded by describing our work as a threat to the safety of Americans.
This attempt to equate policy ideas to an assassination attempt rather than honestly debate the issues is dishonest and dangerous. So, before the vice president raises the temperature even higher, let me set the record straight.
Finally, our work isn’t new. The Heritage Foundation has produced conservative policy playbooks every election cycle since Ronald Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984.
Now as then, those policies are focused on empowering American citizens to achieve the American dream, a dream that more and more Americans feel is slipping out of reach.
The article was written by non other than Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation which is a critical element in creating and promoting Project 2025.
The reality is that Project 2025 is a right wing extremist wet dream to turn the US into a far right dictatorship. Among other things, it eliminates the independence of various governmental organizations and turns them into various police forces run by the Executive Office of the President. This in an effort to enforce a far right political ideology on the people and lock up those who dare oppose that. What’s more, it eliminates free speech and targets people who are considered to be producing “pornography” (which can ultimately mean anything). What’s more, it enforces Christian nationalism, pushing people of other faith out of the country and suppressing them as well. You can read about what it calls for on Wikipedia if you happen to have the time, but the short of it is that it’s democracy nightmare fuel.
The problem here is that mainstream media publication, USAToday, is publishing articles promoting this very real threat to democracy and selling it as “good for America”. This raises a host of questions in my mind. Why are people like that able to use major publications to promote their agenda of hate? Why are the owners and editors of that publication allowing for the promotion of such material?
Expanding on this, where’s the outrage of the actions of USAToday to allow such tripe to be published on such a big bully pulpit? Where are the calls to implement legislation that curbs harmful material on major news outlets? Where’s the calls to jail those who run USAToday? Where’s the calls for accountability for large news organizations? After all, if it’s fair to call for such things on social media platforms, then it ought to be fair to make those same calls for mainstream media. I have no problem calling what USAToday allowed to be published disgusting. What they did was disgraceful, quite frankly.
Yet, whenever mainstream media performs actions promoting right wing extremism, those outlets generally get a free pass. Some will probably defend the actions, saying that this is about protecting free speech. If that’s the case, then maybe the same should be said for social media platforms like X/Twitter. Maybe, just maybe, this is truly a case of “It’s only OK when we do it.”
Either way, this should provide a perfect example as to how right wing extremism is spread through means beyond social media. Shutting down social media platforms is not going to solve the issue of right wing extremism. USAToday provided a perfect example of this. Right wing owned publications are going to continue spreading messages of hate just like they have for decades in the past. Blaming communication tools for societal problems is, and always has been, a non starter.
