Interesting article here -
https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/11830/10544
‘On 16 February 2021, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) contributed a six-page submission to the parliamentary Inquiry into Extremist Movements and Radicalism in Australia. The submission notes that
‘The COVID-19 pandemic has been used by Islamic and right-wing extremists, and issue-motivated groups to promote their views. They are seeking to exploit social and economic dislocation; and their extremist ideology has been spreading more quickly and widely as Australians spend more time online engaging with like-minded individuals.’
The authors continue to argue that the pandemic is seen by many extremists as a sign of the collapse of democracy and the beginning of a long-awaited acceleration into societal collapse. A further submission by the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies observes a highly motivated trend of merging ‘more conventional hateful rhetoric with conspiracy theories’, capitalising on social and psychological drivers such as the need for a sense of control and community. Online, neo-Nazis and fascists have taken to adapting their approach to fit in with a growing community of more general conspiracy theorists, where they can then plant the seeds of their ideology. As cohorts such as QAnon adherents and COVID-19 conspiracists are pushed from mainstream platforms to places such as Telegram, they are straying into the natural environment of the extreme right-wing (Miller, 2021).
The overlap between fascists and neo-Nazis, and the world of conspiracy theories, is hardly new. However, this phenomenon in its current form, supercharged by the Internet and the current social climate, warrants specific focus and academic research on it is relatively nascent. This article examines five Australian Telegram channels, identifies fascist and neo-Nazi attempts at influencing the channel discourse, and discusses these findings in terms of themes, tactics, and rhetorical appeals. The neo-Nazi and fascist accounts identified use a desire for alternative information sources to direct users to extremist content, portray society as corrupt and deviant, indulge and fuel COVID-19 speculation and paranoia, and attempt to forge a common cause with conspiracists through examples of ostensible state repression.’
