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ryoder

Trolling the extreme right wing

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This is a WaPo article reprinted by Stars & Stripes.

Apparently, this one guy has been trolling the right wing for years, and even getting them to show up armed to confront AntiFa at non-existent events.

Fake flag burning at Gettysburg was only the latest hoax by a Pennsylvania man:

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/fake-flag-burning-at-gettysburg-was-only-the-latest-hoax-by-a-pennsylvania-man-1.637904

The original paywalled WaPo source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/07/17/gettysburg-antifa-flag-burning-troll/

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"I've found myself very annoyed with the rise of right-wing populism," he said. "So I thought I'd do my own thing to push back against them."

Except all he did was add fuel to the fire. None of the people he targeted were ever going to be concerned with the legitimacy of threats, just the fact that these things were online gets them added to the pile of nebulous examples they can use when rage-posting.

Honestly by the end of the article all I thought of this guy was "oh yay, another fuckwit desperate for attention online"...

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6 hours ago, mistercwood said:

Except all he did was add fuel to the fire. None of the people he targeted were ever going to be concerned with the legitimacy of threats, just the fact that these things were online gets them added to the pile of nebulous examples they can use when rage-posting.

Exactly. All that anyone on the extreme right is going to remember is that antifa planned a flag burning in Gettysburg and some good ol' boys with guns stopped them. Hoax, what hoax?

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14 hours ago, mistercwood said:

"I've found myself very annoyed with the rise of right-wing populism," he said. "So I thought I'd do my own thing to push back against them."

Except all he did was add fuel to the fire. None of the people he targeted were ever going to be concerned with the legitimacy of threats, just the fact that these things were online gets them added to the pile of nebulous examples they can use when rage-posting.

Honestly by the end of the article all I thought of this guy was "oh yay, another fuckwit desperate for attention online"...

That's about what I understood it to be as well.

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Yep -- this was the article I was thinking of when I read Ron's posts about a planned Antifa event in his area.  There are more of these kinds of incendiary posts elsewhere ("antifa" is not an organized group -- it's just an idea).  The intent was to make these right-wing nutters look like the gullible simpletons they are by them believing the posts and showing up to counter whatever they think is going to happen.  The real problem is that though those folks did show up to do just that, they aren't made to feel silly for falling for the hoax. The false postings/rally cries are still cited as if the plans for the event were real.  It only adds fuel to that fire if the trolls continue this behavior, because it gives the nutters more "evidence" that these rallies are real.

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