42: Deradicalizing From Digital Hate (w/Caolan Robertson)

Imagine that you’re 25 years old. You grew up Irish, gay, and online. When the Orlando Pulse massacre explodes, you go to YouTube for the news. You watch Milo Yiannopolous and Gavin McInnes fake-kiss in front of the police-taped club and say that the Muslims are coming to kill all gay people. YouTube’s algorithm spins you downward into anti-Islamic content. Before long, you’ve left your marketing job with a mission: to make slick propaganda videos for some of the most despicable alt-right ghouls on the planet. You believe they’ll stand up for you.

How did you get here at such a young age? What does it feel like? If you have a change of heart, if you want to fight back against your old life and its consequences, who will believe you? Should they believe you? How will you help them believe you?

Today Matthew asks Caolan Robertson these difficult questions. After years of being the PR man for people like Tommy Robinson and Laura Southern, Robertson has shaken it off and started to collaborate with other ex-alt-right members on a deradicalization project called Future Freedom.

In the Ticker, Julian reports on the new QAnon variant infecting telegram, Sabmyk. Matthew reviews how Christiane Northrup and a Gen Z priestess in a Greek eco-fascist group flip their positive orientalism on its head to diss the Dalai Lama for getting vaccinated. Derek looks at one of the strangest grifts around: pet psychics.

Show Notes

What Do Dogs Really Think? Pet Psychics Are Standing By

The Sabmyk Network: How a mysterious disinformation network is hijacking QAnon – HOPE not hate

What is Sabmyk? QAnon Followers Targeted By New Messianic Mythology

Also: QAnon was big in Iran

The Dalai Lama Gets A COVID-19 Shot And Urges Others To Get Vaccinated

Aeifaron on Instagram

Sofia Katsaiti aka Sofia Tara on Instagram is very worried about the Dalai Lama’s vaccine

Aeifaron looks like a totally normal eco-fascist group

Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine neutralizes Brazil variant in lab study

Future Freedom project on

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