@mhoye Unpopular opinion:

Identity verification isn't so unattractive in 2026 — social media is destroying democracies via anonymous armies of bot people steered by aggressive foreign actors like Putin and Musk.

The libertarian model that the Internet was built on is failing societies.

@txtx @mhoye

Honestly most of the worst people on the internet are unashamed to go by their actual names and faces.

This is obviously true on Facebook and LinkedIn, but if you ever go to fascist Telegram groups, a lot of them are full of people with real names, and profile pics of them with sunglasses and baseball caps sitting in their cars. They aren't ashamed of who they are or what they do, and they aren't afraid of consequences.

@passenger @mhoye Those worst people are mostly bots or fake. Rarely are they using their real names. ICE wear masks.

The ones who go public: they should be in court facing anti hate laws. But instead they're protected because they don't even live in my country. X and Facebook need to be banned where I am to fix this.

@txtx @mhoye

I speak as a somewhat experienced antifascist who started doing infiltrations around 2013-2014, in the start of what was later called the alt-Right; and who has done more than his share of street actions.

There's a myth that these sorts of accounts are mostly bots, and I really don't think that's true. Like yes, some of them are impostors, that is certainly the case. But if you look at the polls, Reform is at 28.6% in the UK and RN is at 35% in France. That means a quarter of Brits and a third of French hold fascist views, and so if you see a quarter to a third of social media accounts being openly fascist, that's about what you'd expect. That's just who Europeans are.

In my infiltration work, one thing I notice is that the hyperonline gommos tend to have anime avatars and stuff like that, but the more scary people, those with jobs and houses and families and blood-and-soil politics, those tend to be the same person online as they are in real life. In antifascist communities we are deeply security-conscious, but these people really tend not to be. If you wear a mask around them they'll get suspicious and, in my experience, will lecture you about how covid is fake. Their security doesn't come from anonymity but from tight social conformity and from knowing that the cops agree with them.

They are the people who try to propel Jordan Bardella and Nigel Farage into office, will queue up to work at Frontex, and who have scary domestic violence records. They are not bots, they are worse than that.

@passenger @mhoye The UK/Brexit are perfect examples of foreign dictators influencing citizens via social media disinformation campaigns, anonymous & bot accounts etc.

This is not something I want to see further replicated anywhere in the EU.

Being an 'anti-facist' on X is a contradiction. It's like hating on Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.

@txtx @mhoye

Where they go, we go. If you want to know what Mickey Mouse is up to, rather than just hate him and want to avoid him, Disneyland is the place to be.

(I don't monitor twitter though, it's just a garbage hellsite, and most of the real fash are elsewhere. British hard fash mostly use Telegram, soft fash mostly use Whatsapp, and it's worth monitoring both.)

@passenger I seriously question if following around fascists/racists has done any good for society in the last decade or so.

On the contrary it seems like a bad addiction, and it's only getting worse because we're just injecting more of it into our daily lives. Why do we need to listen to them? Are we their lackeys?

@mhoye

@txtx @mhoye

We listen to them so we know what they're up to and can oppose it.

To give an example the media knows about: in early 2023 there was a group of fascists who intended on storming a Drag Queen Story Hour in South London. When the fascists arrived they found that we were there ahead of time and we had big sticks.

Bonk.

If we weren't in their chats monitoring their planning, how would we have been able to bonk?

@passenger So you had criminals using their real names on social media to publicly organize violent criminal activities?

Do you have a source for this?

@txtx

Yes. The cops often monitor these chats so they can turn up and protect the fascists in question. Sometimes they don't and then we have fun.

An example is UKIP's planned attack on mosques in Birmingham this very weekend. You are welcome to come to Birmingham to oppose them if you want. There will probably be a lot of cops there to keep the fascists safe.

It's important to understand that violent fascist thuggery gets organised regularly in the UK by people with their real names and real faces, under the full knowledge of the police, and said police do nothing. At worst they might briefly hold a few high-profile people, but it's not serious: is Danny Tommo behind bars? Is Tommy Robinson, or Mark Collett, or Nick Tenconi?

If the concept of the rule of law has been abandoned by the state, you should probably consider your fallback option. Because mine was to get a mask and hoodie.

@passenger This just solidifies my opinion that I absolutely do not want to replicate UK politics in the EU. Everything about it sounds like a failure, from using social media to organize crime to having stick fights with thugs.

I demand more from my government.

@txtx

Be careful, a lot of EU states are basically the same. Some (Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Italy, Hungary) have already gone further and let the fascists into power. Others (France, Hungary) have banned organised antifascist groups.

You have chosen not to tell me where you live. That's fine! Privacy is everyone's right. Your country of residence may not have openly embraced fascism yet. But it creeps in, and by the time it reveals itself it's already too late. You should consider what, apart from voting, you're going to do.

@passenger And the rise of far right parties can be directly attributed to the rise in anonymous bot armies paid and organized by foreign dictators.

I say: tackle the problem at the core.

@txtx

If you're determined to proceed via electoral channels, then a good starting point might be to refuse to vote for any party which restricts antifascist organising or uses the power of the law against antifascists. France's banning of Jeune Garde, for example, is unacceptable.

You could also press for the cessation of EU policies which fascists love, for example Frontex or the support of Israel's ongoing campaign of genocide.

As ever, it is tempting to see the enemy as an external threat, but this misses the point. Vladimir Putin is not the main threat to Finland, for example. Riika Purra is the main threat to Finland, and she doesn't have to hide her face for safety.