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Nicolette Barclay November 19, 2017 AP Seminar Independent Research Report The presence of alt-right individuals and their respective ideologies on major social media platforms has proven itself to be extremely dangerous to the American public in recent years. As Trump utilizes Twitter to launch international hate and the true meaning of free speech becomes blurred, the internet has become a perfect breeding ground for digital disease. Donara Barojan, a research associate at Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, contends that this infectious, evil alt-right is impossible to squelch. Francie Diep, a writer for Pacific Standard, recently conducted an interview with Professor of Law and Political Science at University of California-Irvine Richard Hasen; “[f]ree communication over the internet”, as Hansen contends, “has undermined democracy in the U., in part by empowering extremist groups” (Diep). It is not to say that the alt-right would be absent without social media or the Internet, but it is safe to say that they would be far less stronger. That being said, anyone online - from tech- savvy tweens to the empathetic elderly - has the potential to fall into an abyss of hyper- conservative ideals. Some could argue that the activity of the alt-right can be completely ignored, but it is not always that easy to differentiate fake news from legitimate news. Leading up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump and his campaign utilized social media to a greater degree than Clinton and her team did. Trump was welcoming to the alt- right through his social media presence, giving their perspective much more light than ever before -- this being illustrated by Nathaniel Persily, a James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School (Persily). Sakarya University International Relations and Political Sciences
Professor Tuncay Kardaş also focuses on this alt-right ‘empowerment’; Kardaş concludes that Trump is bringing the Republican Party in a more radical direction than ever before with his willing recognition of the congregation. With Trump’s racist-xenophobic and sexist messages screamed to the world, these alt-right ideas grow in power with every retweet and mention on the nightly news (Kardaş). Though the alt-right may feel welcome, major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have been seeking to erase fake news and make it easier to report hate speech (Persily). Facebook is now allowing users to mark news as fake and Twitter has removed over 370 thousand extremist accounts. In light of this, members of the alt-right are slithering over to sites like Seen, Gab, and Voat to share xenophobic, Anti-Semitic, and overall extremist content completely legally (Barojan). Some may argue that their activity can be ignored and they are not in fact dangerous, but there is no true escape of their group and its members. Today, Americans are still left exposed to the broadcasted content of the alt-right -- even with all action trying to be taken against them. One must be more careful than ever to not be drawn into the gory, glorified alt-right lies that are painted across the pages of the Internet -- a network meant to unite the world, not separate it.
Word Count: 500
Works Cited
Barojan, Donara. “Alt-Right and Alt-Social Media.” Medium, DFRLab, 8 Sept. 2017,
IRR - Grade: A
Subject: AP Seminar
AP
