NBCNews | An anti-government movement that advocates for
a violent uprising targeting liberal political opponents and law
enforcement has moved from the fringes of the internet into the
mainstream and surged on social media in recent months, according to a
group of researchers that tracks hate groups.
The
movement, which says it wants a second Civil War organized around the
term "boogaloo," includes groups on mainstream internet platforms such
as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Reddit, as well as fringe websites
including 4chan, according to a report released Tuesday night
by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), an independent
nonprofit of scientists and engineers that tracks and reports on
misinformation and hate speech across social media.
While
calls for organized and targeted violence in the form of a new Civil
War have previously circulated among some hate groups, the emergence of
the term "boogaloo" appeared to be a new and discrete movement. NCRI
researchers who analyzed more than 100 million social media posts and
comments found that through the use of memes — inside jokes commonly in
the form of images — extremists have pushed anti-government and anti-law
enforcement messages across social media platforms. They have also
organized online communities with tens of thousands of members, some of
whom have assembled at real-world events.
The
report "represents a breakthrough case study in the capacity to
identify cyber swarms and viral insurgencies in nearly real time as they
are developing in plain sight," John Farmer, a former New Jersey
attorney general who is director of the Miller Center for Community
Protection and Resilience at Rutgers University, wrote in the report's
foreword.
