Existing anti-lockdown Facebook groups and Telegram channels have doubled or even tripled in size,and a multitude of new groups and channels have sprung up. Tens of thousands of social media users have been sucked into conspiracy theories,in some cases for the first time.
As we’ve seen in many countries around the world,the stresses and traumas of lockdown are often accompanied by a boom in conspiracy theories. As such,it seems almost inevitable that it is Melbourne,where the pain of the pandemic and successive,prolonged lockdowns has been felt more deeply than anywhere else in the country,which is now the locus of these movements in Australia.
Implicit and explicit calls for violence,particularly against politicians,are becoming increasingly common. This rhetoric is bleeding off the screen and into the real world,as the streets of Melbourne and Sydney have become the scenes of intense and in some cases violent protests.
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Many in the media have begun hunting for links between these protesters and the far right. They speculate,often without presenting any hard evidence,that a shadowy far-right influence was responsible for causing the protests,or alternatively is using the protests as a recruiting ground. The presence of known individuals with links to the far right at protests has been highlighted as proof of their influence over the movement,despite these being just a handful of attendees among protests of thousands.
To be clear,there is a far-right element involved in the anti-lockdown movement. While this element is very much a minority,its role is nonetheless concerning and should be watched carefully. However,the disproportionate focus on the potential threats of far-right extremism often seems to overlook the elephant which is already in the room,stomping around and trumpeting loudly and knocking things over:conspiracy extremism.
The tenor of the discussion in many (although not all) of the anti-lockdown Telegram channels is every bit as heated,and often as violent,as many far-right channels. The steady drumbeat ofthreats against politicians,public figures,health officials and journalists has normalised the use of violent language and imagery,in much the same way as such language and imagery is normalised in far-right social media communities. That violent language and imagery is increasingly making its way into the protests on the ground. For example,the speaker who referenced,on microphone,hanging Victorian Premier Dan Andrews as a “joke” or the protester who brought along a mock gallows to the November 13 protest in Melbourne.