While "fake news" has generated considerable attention in America in recent months, less has been written about the "alternative facts" universe that is reshaping media across the Atlantic. Most of the world has acknowledged that skewed and often entirely false reporting played a heavy role helping to get Donald Trump elected as U.S. president. Now, in response to that "success," Europe's alt-right platforms seem to be enjoying an unprecedented rise in popularity with reporting that seems expressly designed to agitate – not inform – an already restless population.
From the U.K. Spreading Outward
Riding a wave of support for populist movements, the biggest groups promoting alt-right news sites in Europe appear to be mostly based in the U.K., where Euroscepticism saw its first concrete victory last year with Brexit. Working off standard social media platforms to promote extreme populist views, Europe's alt-right platforms are using targeted soundbites and memes that are made to offend as they fan the continent's isolationist movement.
According to a report by the U.K. organization Hope Not Hate, Europe's alt-right “is a threat that has been at the heart of the global fake news phenomenon and one that can engage and mobilize far greater numbers of people across Europe and north America.”
While alt-right outlets have already faced significant resistance from the public, their rhetoric is steadily making its way into mainstream discourse. A good example is the now infamous German "Refugee Crime" map, which painted the country as a hotspot of sexual assault and attacks by immigrants. Though the map's claims were largely refuted (immigrant attack reports were based on witness accounts that the suspects were either "dark-skinned" or "looked southern"), its outreach was vast and quick, giving the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party further ammunition to challenge the leading Christian Democratic Union in upcoming elections.
Breitbart, one of the most popular alt-right websites in the U.S., has also begun to expand its news network into Germany and France, riding largely on a wave of similarly agitating reports. According to Robert Mudge, planning editor for the German TV and radio broadcaster Deutche Welle: "Breitbart News is tapping into a sentiment felt very keenly that the mainstream media is out of touch with the problems of ordinary Germans and do not reflect their aspirations and anxieties – hence the term “Lügenpresse” (lying press) – and are seen as part of a larger conspiracy along with the mainstream political parties."
Staying true to its mission statement to become "The Huffington Post for the right," Breitbart in Europe is painting an anti-Islam, anti-immigration picture of the future European Union that flies in the face of any attempts to establish and maintain laws against discrimination and hate speech. The site's points of view are further compounded by news sources like Alt-Right.com, which tried desperately to spinGeert Wilders' crushing defeat in last week's Dutch elections in a xenophobic light.
This is, of course, is in tandem with the rise in popularity here of Alex Jones' website Infowars, which resorts to overly dramatic international headlines that serve to worsen an already charged and complex diplomatic environment.
And yet, not every alt-right news source works on populist fake news platforms, using clickbait headlines to sitr their followers into a frenzy. Some of them, rather, are using more insidious language and a subtler approach intended to last out the long war for Europe's hearts and minds.
Gatestone: When Non-partisan Approaches Get Hijacked
Established in 2008, the Gatestone Institute presented itself as a non-partisan think tank whose mission was to report on issues that traditional news outlets were unwilling to touch. These included taking controversial stands on human rights violations, energy independence and reports on global economic trends, without the usual restrictions placed on for-profit reporting websites.
Then, in 2016, Gatestone took a sharp turn to the right in line with the sentiments that propelled Brexit and Trump to victory. This year, following Trump's now infamous "last night in Sweden" remark, Gatestone went further by publishing a series of anti-Islamic articles. While the articles didn't follow the easy-to-tweet, cherry-picked format of their alt-right counterparts, the intent and target audience were obvious: they sought frustrated, directionless voters eager to support a candidate who will scare their government into dramatically shifting direction.
While Gatestone may seem more grounded in reality and better researched than the usual downpour of alt-right media that foregoes any pretense of actual reporting, the group has already helped to arm other sites with content and misinformation that could have more harmful effects in the long run. With tensions between the EU and Turkey rising, and Europe fast approaching a monumental round of elections later this year, the race is on to establish a political platform that can dominate the conversation.
In many ways, the continent shows signs of heading back to the bad old days of isolationism, xenophobia and scapegoating. Then again, that was the prediction Dutch newscasters made about Geert Wilders, and we all saw what happened there.
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