METAPOLITICS AND AESTHETICS
L
ong before Twitter, 8chan and the alt right, the far right was online. Like many marginal ideologies and subcultures, far-right and fascist activists were early adopters of new means of communication, and recognised the potential the internet had for circumventing media gatekeepers. As far back as 1985, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released the ‘Computerized Networks of Hate’ report,19 detailing the emergence of the ‘Aryan Nation Liberty Net’ and the innocuous-sounding ‘Info International’. Most such early efforts were reflections of existing IRL networks. Similarly, Stormfront was founded to support David Duke’s 1990 campaign for US Senate, before being re-established in 1996 as a forum for white nationalists to communicate and socialise20 (although its autonomy from existing networks remained limited, and so too did its visibility). However, with the increasing permeability of platforms, the viral logic of outrage and offence spread from the
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