CURATING THE FUTURE: THE SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES OF ONLINE HATE GROUPS By Julia Rose DeCook A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Media and Information Studies — Doctor of Philosophy 2019 ABSTRACT CURATING THE FUTURE: THE SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES OF ONLINE HATE GROUPS By Julia Rose DeCook The rise of populist fascism and hate violence across the world has raised alarm bells about the nature of the Internet in the radicalization process. Although there have been attempts in recent years to halt the spread of extremist discourse online, these groups remain and continue to grow. The purpose of this dissertation project was to examine online extremist groups’ responses to infrastructural failure, which was defined as an event such as deplatforming and other modes of censorship, to understand how these groups manage to persist over time. Examining the responses of three groups to these failures, r/TheRedPill; r/Incels and Incels.me; and r/AznIdentity; who are affiliated with the larger “Manosphere” (a loosely connected online network of men’s rights activists, Incels, Pick Up Artists, etc. connected to the alt right), what was revealed is that these groups’ practices not only build their communities and spread their discourse, but sustains them. Previous research on hate groups tends to focus on the role of Internet platforms in amplifying hate speech; the discourses the groups create; or on political strategies enacted by the groups. I argued in this dissertation project that this does not get at the heart of why these groups manage to survive despite attempts to thwart them, and that studying the material structures they are on as well as their social practices are necessary to develop better strategies to combat violent far-right extremism. Using an update to the grounded theory approach known as situational analysis, I observed and followed the groups for two years (January 2017 to 2019) and collected data in the form of text posts, images, and their networks. To inform the project, I relied on a theoretical framework guided by platform and infrastructure studies, communication, anthropology, and social movement studies. Ultimately, I argue that what these groups create through these sustainability practices results in a symbolic infrastructure . Unlike material infrastructures (like large scale electrical grids) or knowledge infrastructures, symbolic infrastructure is made up of not just the material artifacts that these groups create, but is primarily premised on the shared practices of these groups that produce and reproduce their discourse, their identity, and their networks. Specifically, symbolic infrastructure is built up of three subpractices: archiving; fortification; and identity maintenance and network building. These practices, and their resulting product, are made possible by the material structures of the Internet and allows for the preservation and circulation of the group’s epistemic/discursive forms. Symbolic infrastructure, due to its nature, is easily transported from platform to platform even after the groups are faced with infrastructural failure or threatened by it. Although it was famously said by Susan Leigh Star that infrastructures only become visible upon breakdown, the case studies in this dissertation demonstrate that the mere threat of breakage is enough for the nature and role of infrastructure to be revealed. Each of the groups case studies navigate and maneuver around the constraints of the platform and digital infrastructure they find themselves reliant on, but also manage to innovatively exploit its affordances. What this dissertation revealed is that the strategy of deplatforming has significant limits because of the nature of the Internet, and that the work of combating extremist thought is not only relegated to the digital realm but must be extended beyond it. Copyright by JULIA ROSE DeCOOK 2019 For my family - I could not have accomplished this without your love and support. I love you all so much. Thank you. 제 가족들에게 - 여러분의 사랑과 지원 없이 이 학위를 받을 수 없었을 겁니다 . 너무나 사랑하고 감사합니다 . Grandma, you never had the choice to go to school. I dedicate this dissertation and my doctorate to you. 할머니 , 할머니에겐 학교를 갈 수 있는 선택권이 없었습니다 . 제 논문과 박사학위를 할머니에게 바칩니다 . v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “ … Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of another.” - Yuri Kochiyama, Passing it On, 2004 To my family and friends – you have all fundamentally shaped who I am and have been who I cried to, laughed with, and are all why I am able to live a life filled with joy and love. I could not have gotten through this without you. Thank you for constantly reminding me of the potential of who I was, who I am, and who I can become. I love you all. To my advisor, Kjerstin – I can’t express in words how grateful I am to you for taking me on and for being supportive, kind, and encouraging in my darkest moments. Thank you. You have taught me not only how to be an academic but also a human being. To my committee – Beth, Chantal, and Casey – and my mentors: you have all fundamentally shaped me as a scholar and person, and your kindness and intelligence are what I aim to emanate in the future. Thank you. To my community – it is an honor just to be Asian, and an honor to be an mixed race Korean woman. Without my community, without my heritage, I am nothing. I am eternally grateful to our organizations, culture, and elders. We really are our ancestors’ wildest dreams come true. To those who have been injured or lost their lives because of racial and gendered violence – I also dedicate this dissertation to all of you and those who are mourning your loss. I know that it will not replace the lives that have been cut tragically short, but it is my hope that this project helps to stop future violence and pain. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF FIGURES x CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1 The Possibilities of Failure 6 Infrastructural Imaginaries 9 Dissertation Map 13 CHAPTER 2: Background and Methods 16 [Online] Extremist Social Movements 17 When Infrastructure Breaks 22 Affordances for Radicalization 27 Networked Publics and Cultural/Epistemic Production 30 Discourse and Preservation 32 Shaping And Maintaining Online Social Worlds 36 Portable Infrastructure 37 Methods 39 Digital Ethnography 40 Data Analysis 43 Situational Analysis 43 CHAPTER 3: Case Study 1 – World Builders: r/TheRedPill 48 Quarantine 49 The Red Pill Universe 51 r/TheRedPill Discourse and Ideology 54 The Ban Wave Cometh: The Beginning of the Imminent End 56 Contingency Plans: Doomsday Preparation on r/TheRedPill 63 “Why Don’t We Just Leave Reddit On Our Own?” 68 “Incels Gets Banned: What Does That Mean For TRP?” 82 “A Civil War Is Coming.” 91 “We Are Not Organized And That Is Our Strength.” 98 Arming the Defenses 101 CHAPTER 4: Case Study 2 – Lost Civilizations: r/Incels & Incels.me 103 Banned: November 2017 104 The “Incelosphere” 107 The 2017 Ban Wave 110 September 2017 117 October 2017 121 Paradise Lost: Incels.Me 126 “Elliot Rodger’s Legacy Lives On” 134 vii “Incels Are Finally Being Taken Seriously.” 138 Incels.Me is Dead 150 “The Fire Rises.” 155 The Incel Institution 163 Diffused Extremism 166 CHAPTER 5: Case Study 3 – Refugees: MRAsians and r/AznIdentity 168 The Asian Masculinity Ecosystem 171 “Get Twitter Now.” 174 Ban Wave 2017 And Networked Harassment 186 MRAsians 197 The Politics of Digital Space 209 CHAPTER 6: Discussion and Conclusion 212 Anticipating Failure 218 Migration Across the Digital Frontier 221 Symbolic Infrastructure 224 Identity Maintenance and Network Building 227 Fortification 230 Archiving 232 Strategies of Subversion 233 Failure as a Nexus for Action 236 Follow the Leader? 239 Portable Discourse and Culture 241 “Culture Wars” and the Fight for Reality 243 Centralized Hubs of Extremism 245 Reproducing Structures 247 Final Thoughts 252 APPENDICES 255 APPENDIX A: Glossary 256 APPENDIX B: Relational Maps 257 APPENDIX C: Discourse Maps 259 BIBLIOGRAPHY 262 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Case Studies, Sites, and Data of Data Collection Start 41 Table 2. Description of Maps, from page xxiv from Clarke, Friese, and Washburn, 2017 44 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. r/TheRedPill’s landing page after the quarantine 4 Figure 2. r/TheRedPill is Quarantined 49 Figure 3. r/TheRedPill’s universe on reddit 52 Figure 4. r/TheRedPill’s off-reddit universe 54 Figure 5. Response to a reddit announcement post about banning communities containing sexually suggestive content featuring minors/perceived minors 56 Figure 6. Valuable posts should be archived 59 Figure 7. A post from 2013 noting the shadow banning of accounts associated with Men’s Rights and TheRedPill 60 Figure 8. You are not a part of reddit 61 Figure 9. Alt-accounts 62 Figure 10. The landing page of Puerarchy.com 64 Figure 11. An email emergency alert system in the event of a forum shut down 66 Figure 12. When we get banned from the Internet 67 Figure 13. Forums.red 68 Figure 14. “Why don’t we just leave reddit on our own?” 69 Figure 15. The Purge 70 Figure 16. A post from October 2016 about Donald Trump on r/TheRedPill 71 Figure 17. A post about the Vice article that increased attention of the subreddit in 2017 72 Figure 18. A mod post responding to Yiannopoulos’ Twitter ban by moderator redpillschool 73 Figure 19. You can kill a man but you can’t kill an idea 74 x Figure 20. “Don’t talk about Fight Club.” 78 Figure 21. User Bloodycurative speaking about their doxing experience 79 Figure 22.