Extremists on Telegram pose as fight clubs, raising alarms in US – BNN Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — White supremacist groups are stepping up efforts to recruit new members through the social media app Telegram, where they have amplified racist conspiracies while posing as male-only fight clubs.

Communications from so-called activist clubs have surged on Telegram over the past month as the U.S. election neared, according to civil rights groups and researchers who have studied extremism for years. Some clubs with large followings shared each other’s messages in a sign of coordination between cells that had previously presented themselves as independent.

US lawmakers, congressional staffers and the State and Homeland Security departments have received more than 20 briefings in recent weeks from counterterrorism experts tracking active clubs, according to a person involved in the discussions who requested anonymity to describe the closed-door meetings. Some of the briefings before Election Day focused on potential political violence from active far-right clubs if Vice President Kamala Harris won the election.

The network of active clubs in the US and Canada is made up of men who say in online forums that they are working to stop the elimination of the white race, a popular topic of online conspiracies. The groups, which often have thousands of followers in Telegram communities, have called on members to practice mixed martial arts and post flyers in public places.

“Moderation is an ever-evolving challenge for every platform,” Telegram spokesperson Devon Spurgeon said in a statement. “Telegram supports the peaceful expression of ideas, however calls to violence are explicitly prohibited by its terms of service and are always removed by moderators.”

The focus on active clubs coincides with an increase in extremist activity in the US since the election of Donald Trump. The phrase “your body, my choice,” a rebuke against women’s reproductive rights, has increased 4,600 percent since Election Day, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit human rights organization.

A small group of avowed neo-Nazis marched through Columbus, Ohio on November 16 wearing red masks and carrying swastika flags, an event that drew widespread condemnation from state officials. Demonstrators in Michigan earlier this month waved Nazi flags outside a theater production of The Diary of Anne Frank. There is no indication that Active Club members played a role in either incident.

“They’re using this mass moment to insert themselves into this dialogue,” said Morgan Moon, a researcher at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “They’re getting more subscribers, and these groups are becoming more encouraged to take on real-world activities.”

The Active Clubs posts put a renewed focus on Telegram, a text messaging app that says it has 950 million monthly active users. In August, the site served as a staging ground for extremists accused of fomenting anti-immigration riots in Britain, while domestic terrorists accused of using it to plan shootings at US power plants.

Eighty-eight percent of Telegram posts from the Great Lakes Active Club, which has about 1,700 members, were originally shared on other Active Clubs’ channels, according to Open Measures, which tracks online extremism. Fifty-eight percent of an active Toronto club’s posts were cross-posted from elsewhere, Open Measures found.

Another activist club claimed credit for a Nov. 16 demonstration outside the University of Michigan football stadium, where they used a megaphone and “White Lives Matter” signs to get their message across.

Rather than supporting specific political candidates, Active Clubs advocate violence to disrupt democratic systems, according to domestic terrorism academics. Podcasts, YouTube videos and branded clothing also help active clubs promote themselves, and since Trump’s victory, Telegram communities have urged participants to work harder to recruit more followers, the researchers said.

There were 46 active clubs in the US in August 2023, the most recent numbers available, according to the Counter Extremism Project. As of April 2023, the Accelerationism Research Consortium, which tracks hate groups, found 30 clubs active in 17 states.

Posts on dozens of Active Club channels espouse conspiracy theories and repost videos from the Patriot Front, a white nationalist group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Members traveled to Windsor, Ontario where we connected with the Windsor branch of our community. We were joined by members of the Great Lakes Active Club and the Michigan Patriot Front chapter,” said a widely shared post on Telegram. “We went on a hike, did some decent sparring, then went for food and drink. There was much laughter and many plans for the future were discussed.”

The Patriot Front was formed after the 2017 “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Idaho police in 2022 arrested 31 members of the Patriot Front, many wearing masks and disguising their identities, outside a Pride parade on charges of conspiracy to riot.

While the active clubs claim to be simply white male martial arts groups, researchers say the groups disguise themselves as sports clubs to avoid the attention of law enforcement. The Active Club network was founded by Robert Rundo, who pleaded guilty in September to one count of conspiracy to violate federal anti-riot law, according to the US Department of Justice.

Active clubs function as a softer public face of a white power movement where more radical members spill over into more militant groups, said Oliver Goodman, a project manager at Moonshot, a research firm that tracks violent misogyny.

As new recruits join, they enter a white supremacist ecosystem that inundates members with violent material, said Kathleen Belew, an associate professor at Northwestern University who studies white supremacist violence. Images on popular Telegram channels show participants holding flags with hate symbols.

The spread of the same posts across multiple Active Club Telegram communities signals that the groups are not functioning as independent units, the researchers said. A more centralized community could lead to larger fight club events, larger street demonstrations and more aggressive propaganda campaigns, according to experts who track domestic hate groups.

“This is a new strategy for organizing far-right violence while avoiding law enforcement interference,” said Alexander Ritzmann, senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project. “They’re trying to build a shadow militia network that can be activated to protect and fight for a political party or leader that they think deserves their protection.”