Talking about which, did those "conspiracy theories" (the alt-right killing a cop using fire-extinguisher in the capitol, or Trump being a KGB agent), falls in the category of "misinformation", or is the left somehow excluded from that list ?

Why is this downvoted? Both of the theories this post references were taken up by mainstream sources and both were totally fabrications. The claim about Brian Sicknick was vcompletely fabricated. If you downvoters are unaware, the story about someone dying on Jan 6th via fire extinguisher was a complete lie; the guy actually died of a stroke at home the next day for completely unrelated reasons and was unharmed at the riot.

And people like Maddow claimed for months if not years that Trump was a Russian agent, and we now know for a fact that this was never the case and the rumors were started by the FBI under direction of Obama (this was at the same time the Obama administration declined to charge Clinton, mind you) based on intel they knew was false, and because of the investigation launched based on justification from the same known-false evidence

God I'm so tired of explaining this, but seriously, the biggest conspiracy theories of the last decade were promulgated on the pages of "trustworthy" traditional media, and all you have to do is look into the news stories after they leave the headlines to find out how things turned out when time passed and reality finally came to light

>> we now know for a fact that this was never the case and the rumors were started by the FBI under direction of Obama

Source?

It's downvoted because the issue at hand here is NOT "parity" between left and right conspiracy theories.

The issue at hand is that there's a problem with resurgent "alt-right" (or whatever you want to call them) extremist groups that have demonstrated a potential for violence as well as infiltration into trusted organizations like the police. They have taken up new aesthetics, symbologies and memes. It's important for people to recognize these new appearances and what they actually signify.

Violence has been coming from both alt-right and alt-left groups. There is a valid case for countering violent extremism in general, but focusing solely on one side of it is quite unproductive.

Nope. Dont Even try.

The "hard-right" is normally bored teenage boys that are trolling for laughs and don't actually believe any of this stuff.

There is a meme online currently that says "My political opinions are based on who I am trolling".

As for Pepe being a far-right meme. It never has been one. That was misinformation to stir up a moral panic and push for censorship.

The Pepe has also been used by Hong Kong protesters, (IIRC) the yellow vest protesters in france and loads of other pro-democracy freedom groups outside of the west.

e.g.

https://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer5/2019/10/03/9521875/95218...

> The "hard-right" is normally bored teenage boys that are trolling for laughs and don't actually believe any of this stuff.

You should tell the actual hard right parties like RN, AfD, UKIP and co. that

> The "hard-right" is normally bored teenage boys that are trolling for laughs and don't actually believe any of this stuff.

Sure, for a while, until they find themselves in the middle of a crowd of short haired guys holding tiki torches, marching through town and shouting <you-know-what>.

"pepe the frog" showing up in weird contexts is part of "the joke". It's funny to them when people misinterpret pepe as something completely different.

> As for Pepe being a far-right meme. It never has been one.

It wasn't originally, but you're kidding yourself if you think that it hasn't become one

> As for Pepe being a far-right meme. It never has been one.

Feels Good Man is exactly about this. ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394182/ )

It's all just trolling, all just for the lulz, until you it's not any more. This is how radicalisation works. It starts as a joke, but it does not stay a joke.