A ProPublica and FRONTLINE investigation finds that Telegram, the no-holds-barred social media platform which has about one billion users each month, has become the main nexus of far-right Accelerationist crime. “Telegram is heavily favored by right-wing extremists, including QAnon followers, Proud Boys, militia members, and white supremacist groups like Patriot Front and the Active Clubs,” James Bandler of ProPublica and A.C. Thompson of ProPublica and FRONTLINE, and Karina Meier of FRONTLINE, recently reported.
Late last month, Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov, was arrested in Paris on charges related to alleged criminal activity “on the giant messaging and social media platform. … French authorities detained the Russian-born billionaire after his plane touched down at an airport a few miles north of Paris.”
According to ProPublica, “French prosecutors issued preliminary charges against Durov last Wednesday related to alleged criminal activity on his platform. The allegations include organized fraud, drug trafficking and possession of pornographic images of minors, as well as refusal to cooperate with authorities, according to a press release by the Paris public prosecutor.”
“Telegram plays a key role in the perpetuation of militant accelerationism,” Michael Loadenthal, a research professor at the University of Cincinnati and director of the Prosecution Project, which tracks felony cases involving political violence in the U.S., told ProPublica and Frntline. “The company, he said, ‘has shown that deplatforming violent and hateful content is not its priority.’”
What is the Accelerationist movement?
Accelerationists “aim to speed the collapse of modern civilization and create a white ethno-state from the ashes of today’s democracies,” ProPublica pointed out(https://www.propublica.org/article/telegram-pavel-durov-arrest-domestic-terrorism-extremism?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature).
Last year, in the wake of attacks on substations in Baltimore and the state of Washington, I wrote a piece looking a into the Accelerationists movement titled “Accelerationists Target Country’s Infrastructure to Advance White Nationalist Revolution” (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/9/2157110/-Accelorationists-Target-Country-s-Infrastructure-to-Advance-White-Nationalist-Revolution).
In 2022, the federal government issued a bulletin warning of threats by extremist groups to ‘create civil disorder and inspire further violence.’ In part, the DHS memo reads: ‘We have not previously observed calls for substation attacks in response to immigration-related concerns, and these recent discussions may stem from widespread media coverage of recent attacks against other substations across the United States, particularly in Moore County, North Carolina.’
Utility Dive’s Robert Walton reported (https://www.utilitydive.com/news/fbi-thwarts-neo-nazi-plot-to-attack-baltimore-gas-electric-substations/642147/) that “Two suspects have been charged in federal court with planning a firearms attack on five Baltimore Gas and Electric substations in a plot to ‘completely destroy’ the city, according to the FBI. BGE says it is working closely with the FBI and reassured customers [that] ‘there are no currently known threats to any of our facilities.’”
These attacks appear to be linked to ‘accelerationism,’ a white supremacist domestic terrorist strategy aimed at ‘hasten[ing] the collapse of society as we know it,’ the Anti-Defamation League noted in an April 2019 blog post headlined “White Supremacists Embrace ‘Accelerationism.’ According to the ADL, ‘The term is widely used by those on the fringes of the movement, who employ it openly and enthusiastically on mainstream platforms, as well as in the shadows of private, encrypted chat rooms’ (https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/white-supremacists-embrace-accelerationism).
‘For years now, among the white nationalist vanguardist-wing circulated the idea of ‘accelerationism’ -- far-rightists targeting the country’s infrastructure as part of an imposing plan for white nationalist revolution and an authoritarian reset of society,’ Devin Burghart, Director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, told me in an email.
‘The subset of online white nationalists promoting this race war fantasy generally refers to it as the ‘Siege’ or ‘Siege Culture’ mindset. The label comes from the title of the book Siege, an anthology of essays by old school neo-Nazi and Charles Manson follower, James Mason.
‘In his book, Mason encourages ‘friction’ and ‘chaos,’ urging readers toward violence and acts of terror. Committing acts of friction and chaos in small cells are meant to facilitate complete societal collapse. In the aftermath, heavily armed far-right groups would be able to impose their vision for society onto a vulnerable and desperate population.’
IREHR’s Burghart said that “Groups like the Atomwaffen Division and The Base are examples of this sort of white nationalist accelerationism. Both groups have had members arrested for plotting to attack infrastructure targets in the past couple of years.
“Last year, a 14-page manual circulated in accelerationist Telegram channels that encouraged committed white nationalists to ‘strike a blow against the system,’ not by (Hunter-style) racist murders but by targeting things ‘that do the most damage to the system and spark revolution and chaos,” Burghart pointed out. “The manual refers to the power grid as ‘the main thing that keeps the anti-White system going’ and calls power substations ‘sitting ducks, worthy prey’ that is ‘largely unprotected and often in remote locations,’ allowing for multiple attacks.”
ProPublica and Frontline noted that Telegram has played a role “in a string of recent alleged far-right acts of sabotage and murder, and how the company’s inaction allowed extremists to plan and even advertise their crimes. Researchers have long warned that Telegram routinely allows extremists to share propaganda aimed at inciting violence, noting that the Islamic State group and al-Qaida were able to use the service for years with little interference.”
Earlier this year, in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Durov pledged that Telegram would continue to ignore requests for information from government agencies that aren’t “in line with our values of freedom of speech and protecting people’s private correspondence,”
