Deplatformed: Is everyone on far-right sites a fed?
Deplatformed is a weekly column that looks into the nether reaches of the internet—outside the big few that everyone already covers—to tell you the political discourse online. It runs on Thursdays in the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter. If you want to get this column a day before we publish it, subscribe to web_crawlr, where you’ll get the daily scoop of internet culture delivered straight to your inbox.
If you spend enough time on far-right sites, you’ll come across one phrase more than any other collection of words, outpacing exclamations of “MAGA,” “Trump,” and “Fuck Joe Biden.”
It’s “okay fed.”
Whereas on X, the assumption is that if someone is doing something that annoys you, they’re a bot or a Russian troll, on right-wing sites anyone proposing an idea counter to what you want is automatically assumed to be a federal agency masquerading as a poster.
It’s getting so bad now that people on these sites can’t organize the overthrow of the government, or push for kidnapping a congressman, or stockpile a bunch of guns and ask people to join their sovereign farmstead without being accused of being a honeypot designed to entrap Trump supporters.
While a feature of all sites in the far-right universe, nowhere is it more prevalent than on patriots.win, the right-wing successor to Reddit’s pro-Trump forum.
The only problem… no one can tell what constitutes a fed.
Does calling for violence make you a fed? Does suggesting those calling for violence are feds make you a fed?
It’s G-Men all the way down.
In a recent post about something entirely unrelated, a user helpfully summed up the discourse.
“For new peeps wondering about the constant non-sequitors … feds like to run their weaponized Asch conformity and smear ops here. Like how they photobombed the Canadian trucker protest with a Nazi flag … No one’s actually buying it, which is why they can’t get more than a Biden-sized crowd IRL without masks on.”
No one, they say, is buying that Trump supporters actually support Nazism (despite evidence—trolling or not—that they do). But they’re all buying that the site is flooded with feds.
Just about every post on the site devolves into the same accusations.
In a post about New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg releasing the immigrants who allegedly attacked an NYPD officer, one user wrote, “Looks to me like democrats are saying that people can attack government servants in blue cities and get away with it… let's go.”
The call to action was immediately flagged.
“Fed, fed, fed, fed....” wrote one.
Another post suggested that the best way to troll left-wing subreddits would be for Trump fans to post pictures of their genitals.
“#DicksOutForDonald,” they called the campaign.
“OK Fed. You first,” came a swift response
And nowhere is the discussion more prevalent than whenever Patriot Front comes up. The neo-Nazi, white nationalist organization is constantly beset by accusations from the right that it is a FBI operation, designed to reflect poorly on conservatives.
And in a post about the dudes of Patriot Front being feds—the comments accused anyone of defending the organization of being a fed.
“Nobody defends Patriot Front except a FED!” wrote one.
“Lots feds today,” said another.
But another flagged that calling everyone a fed was… likely an operation by the feds.
“You know the FBI talks about how they discourage real political action from right wingers by calling everyone feds right? That has been part of their action plan for a while.”
As one meme on the site put it, "Everyone who does more activism than me is a fed."
The theory goes that by raising concerns over any potential person working with the FBI, the far-right will be paralyzed, afraid to undertake any actual action for fear of being instantly caught.
The logic is not entirely without reason. In the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the Proud Boys were revealed to have FBI informants in their ranks, and the infamous plan to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) was riddled with accusations of entrapment by federal agents.
While the actual extent is likely exaggerated, the concerns on the site are real.
“Precisely,” said a poster. “This place is getting opped.”
In fact, moderators on the site appear aggressive in deleting comments that are fed-coded. A search on the site for “ok fed” leads to numerous instances of “Comment removed by community moderators.”
Came one response to a long-gone comment, “You feds really need to change your script. It really isn't working,”
Or… is it?
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.
The post Deplatformed: Is everyone on far-right sites a fed? appeared first on The Daily Dot.