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𝗝.𝗠. π—•π—˜π—₯π—šπ—˜π—₯ #readoptimal Profile picture
𝗝.𝗠. π—•π—˜π—₯π—šπ—˜π—₯ #readoptimal
@intelwire
β–Ί OPTIMAL: A novel https://t.co/XfRM3Y75cE #ad β–Ί EXTREMISM @mitpress https://t.co/mk57mTPjxL Ideology, dystopia, social media Senior research fellow @CTECMIIS
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Aug 26, 2022 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 1 min read
Jan 10, 2021 β€’ 13 tweets β€’ 2 min read
Lots of discussion On Here about CT policies and their relevance/appropriateness to the attack on the Capitol. One thing that's going to start looming larger if things get worse before they get better is material support. Material support in foreign CT policy is currently constructed very broadly, in ways that are not going to sit well when turned to domestic groups and persons.
Jan 9, 2021 β€’ 13 tweets β€’ 2 min read
I think this is debatable, and we won't know the answer for a while. There are two possible trajectories here. 1/x Trajectory 1: The attack becomes a signal event like Ruby Ridge or Waco, and extremists use it as a rallying point going forward. They will certainly try to do this, but there are some key differences.
Jan 8, 2021 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 2 min read
This was first seen with ISIS, but in that case, the target audience of people susceptible to radicalization was much smaller, and the net benefit of deplatforming clearer. Doesn't mean we shouldn't enforce platform standards, but we need to be clear-eyed about trade-offs. This piece by @lizzypearson for @VOX_Pol was one of the first I recall to address these dynamics voxpol.eu/wilayat-twitte…
Oct 10, 2020 β€’ 12 tweets β€’ 3 min read
Sigh. I'd been hoping to stay out of this, but OK.

The answer is "it's complicated."

Buckle up for a (hopefully) short thread. Three things are true:

1) McVeigh was fixated on a notorious piece of WS propaganda

2) McVeigh associated with/admired a number of white supremacists

3) McVeigh isn't documented to have talked to his friends about WS as a driving factor in his life or the OKC bombing
Oct 9, 2020 β€’ 9 tweets β€’ 3 min read
In my latest for @TheAtlantic, I write about how the perfect storm of uncertainty created by the deadly combination of COVID-19, social media and Donald Trump fuels extremism and warps reality itself theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… A short thread:

Social psychology research has shown for some time that feelings of uncertainty -- whether personal, social, political or economic -- make people more susceptible to extremism amazon.com/Extremism-Psyc…
Jul 20, 2020 β€’ 22 tweets β€’ 7 min read
Is dystopian fiction good for society? Time for a THREAD! The proximate cause of this thread is the following article by @peterwsinger @august_cole whose #burninbook you should check out, if you haven't already. slate.com/technology/202…
Jun 7, 2020 β€’ 10 tweets β€’ 2 min read
I was asked recently if I wanted to write something about extremist activity around the nationwide protests. I found this uncharacteristically difficult, and this is a short thread about why. If you follow me, you probably also follow some of my colleagues who have been tracking this activity, so you know it's real and you know it's dangerous. Some of us should be tracking it and talking about it.
Sep 30, 2019 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 1 min read
Hard to even imagine what effect it will have on national security when the president's Cabinet and personal envoys are wandering the globe literally demanding that foreign countries penetrate our intelligence services. But her emails.
Feb 26, 2019 β€’ 6 tweets β€’ 2 min read
A short thread: Back in 2011, after Anders Breivik's terror attacks in Norway, it was clear immediately that things were going to be different. The ambitious nature of the attack really redefined what lone actor terrorists could aspire to accomplish. Additionally, he left a 1500-page explanation of what he had done and why, which everyone devoured searching for answers.
Dec 21, 2018 β€’ 20 tweets β€’ 2 min read
This seems like a perfect time to watch Nic Cage in what immediately looks to be another in the long line of laughably bad Netflix dystopias. Well, this definitely ain't subtle.
Dec 20, 2018 β€’ 17 tweets β€’ 8 min read
The dreaded YEAR-IN-REVIEW thread commences. Much of my focus in 2018, and going forward, has been on extremist ideologies. In January, I contributed an essay to the @AspenJSP publication, Pluralism in Peril. assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/upload…
Dec 19, 2018 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 1 min read
This is ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The paper is particularly interesting when read with Hogg's Uncertainty Identity Theory -- which I discuss in 'Extremism' amzn.to/2MhXwgQ -- and Kruglanski's cognitive closure thesis. Extremist beliefs tend to help people resolve uncertainty.
Dec 7, 2018 β€’ 5 tweets β€’ 2 min read
For those of you who were following the discussion of this earlier in the week, a robust defense of the inclusions of the Las Vegas mass shooting in the GTD, from @START_UMD @eem1101 The explanation for why the attack was included in the database makes sense based on consistency of practice for the database. Whether that means the attack was, in fact, terrorism, is still debatable.
Nov 19, 2018 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 1 min read
This is interesting, but the document says "categorize" not "classify" or "designate." There is not, to my knowledge, any sort of formal government domestic extremist designation. It is probably more accurate to say the FBI "describes" them as an extremist group. Also worth noting this is not an FBI document; it's a sheriff's office description of something they were told by the FBI.
Nov 17, 2018 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 1 min read
How did I not know about Futuresport, the made-for-TV knockoff of Rollerball, until now, and wtf kind of accent is Wesley Snipes trying to pull off here? THEY PLAY THE GAME ON HOVERBOARDS
Nov 2, 2018 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 2 min read
A lot of interesting material in this post from @ajaltamimi, which is an internal discussion of (relative) "extremism" in IS. One interesting point that I've talked about in passing but increasingly think is worth a closer look:

aymennjawad.org/21757/an-inter… One question I've been asked in terms of my definition of extremism is what happens to the definition if the out-group is eliminated. The answer is that the extremist movement starts carving new out-groups from the available in-groups.
Oct 29, 2018 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 2 min read
New from me for @TheAtlantic, Donald Trump is the glue that holds together a fractured American far right, with disastrous consequences as we saw last week. And it's far from over. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Today's article includes the results of cluster analysis of data from the Alt-Right Twitter Census, which identified factions within the movement voxpol.eu/download/vox-p… @VOX_Pol
Oct 24, 2018 β€’ 31 tweets β€’ 7 min read
OK, we're fully into a news cycle, so time to re-up the @onthemedia guidelines, which I myself have been guilty of not following. We've got five reported IEDs so far, some awaiting confirmation, all awaiting more information. Reported suspicious or confirmed IED packages so far:

1. Soros
2. Clinton home
3. Obama
4. White House
5. CNN

4. only being reported by CNN, as far as I can tell and not confirmed in WH statement just issued.

5. May be an abundance of caution screening, not clear.
Oct 15, 2018 β€’ 14 tweets β€’ 4 min read
As I mentioned last week, I wanted to put some new/old material out as a way to say thanks to everyone who has supported 'Extremism' so far. The following thread is a major document dump. amzn.to/2MhXwgQ Some background: As many of you know, I got started working on terrorism and related fields by doing OSINT from FOIA documents and court records. Over the years. I have acquired thousands of documents, even as my list of to-do projects has been growing like kudzu.
Oct 15, 2018 β€’ 9 tweets β€’ 3 min read
For @VOX_Pol, my latest research is out today, examining at the online networks of the alt-right. A quick thread about the top-line findings ensues.

voxpol.eu/new-research-r… For me, the most important conclusion found from examining the content of nearly 30,000 alt-right Twitter accounts is that the alt-right is better understood as an extremist political bloc than as an ideological movement.