LATimes | In late January, when protesters shut down the vaccine site at Dodger Stadium, his research team tracked a surge in online new world order activity, including posts tagged with #greatreset, #scamdemic and #agenda21, a theory based on a 1990s United Nations resolution that some consider proof of a plot to depopulate the Earth.
The reasons why some Southern Californians have latched onto new world order rhetoric are complex. Finkelstein’s organization found a correlation between places with high incidence of both Black Lives Matter activity and what he terms as pushback against it in the form of anti-mask, anti-lockdown rallies — a mix that fed new world order activity online. Los Angeles County had the greatest abundance of both types of protests, followed by San Diego and Orange counties.
“Where the Black Lives Matter protesters showed up, the quarantine became sort of a counter-cause,” he said. “This idea that ‘we are the ones being victimized.’”
Mia Bloom, professor of Communication at Georgia State University and an expert on QAnon, also pointed out that Southern California is a hotbed of wellness culture, where anti-vaccine sentiment has found a foothold. Last summer, conspiracy theories jumped to Instagram, she said, where women previously more interested in lifestyle content were drawn in, creating an unlikely bridge between liberal and conservative movements.
Levin, Blazakis and others said regardless of why they took hold, new world order theories will likely play a role if the state holds a recall election for Gov. Gavin Newsom this fall. Newsom is already being featured in recall-related memes that portray him as “puppet” of the Chinese Communist Party and complicit in the global takeover. At rallies, he has been portrayed as Hitler and called a tyrant.
Recall supporters have posted on Twitter with hashtags such as #nwo, #trumpsarmy and #Agenda21 among others. Another recall meme posted online showed Newsom with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) with “Nuclear Powered Satan,” written below them. A commenter on an official recall Facebook page called Newsom an “idiot communist,” and a recall founder recently posted about “Beijing Biden.”
A recent analysis of articles by the Network Contagion Research Institute about the California recall for a six-month period from September through March found about 800 articles from just more than 300 sources. Of those sources, 177, or 57%, were classified as disinformation sites or uncategorized. That designation, said researcher Lea Marchl, usually means they cannot be trusted. Similar numbers held true when it came to videos about the recall.
“What’s driving the recall is not merely an honest difference on policy but something that is framed in a deeper and more dark matter,” Levin said. “I’m concerned that people with legitimate, fact-based reasons for wanting to recall the governor are now mixed into those whose currency also is aggression and conspiracy and that is a problem because each feed on each other.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment