But I call the meeting to order. So due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders in dash 25 dash 20 and in dash 2920, which suspend certain requirements of the Brown Act and order of the health and the order of the health officer of the County of Sonoma to shelter in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19. The Santa Rosa Tourism Business Improvement Area Board Committee will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using Zoom webinar. Committee members and staff are participating from remote locations and or practicing appropriate social distancing. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during item three public comment or during our public hearing items will be able to do so by utilizing the raise hand feature and pressing star nine on their phones. They can be given the ability to address the committee that way. All right. Madam Secretary, if you can please take roll. Absolutely. Member Rumble. Member Anderson. Member Rinteria. Oh, thank you. I see that you raised your hand. Member Riverao. Present. Thank you. The record reflected all members are present. All right. So we'll move on to item two, which is public comments. Do we have any comments from the public either written or sent via email or are there any members of the public online? We do have a number of the public online but there are no hands raised at this time nor do we have any voicemails or emails for this meeting. All right. So since there aren't any comments we'll go ahead and move on to item number three which is event support applications. And under 3.1 we have the item listed as synthetic ice brink holiday markets and tree lighting event support application. I don't know if anybody, everybody had a chance to review that application. We'll go ahead and open it up for discussion. This is the winter lights and skate nights from November 19th through January 9th. It's gonna be this time a synthetic ice cream brink actually for the first time which seems a pretty exciting deal held at or placed at Old Corja Square. It's a new event and the total cost of the event is approximately $100,000. The amount of the request is $15,000 and it's to again fund and set up the rink and the event area within Corja Square. So it seems like a very exciting event. The chamber is raising a total of $80,000 locally from businesses and from in-kind support given by volunteers and such and other groups. And then I also see something related to overnights. So over the course of the event, there's an anticipated 100 rooms that will be taken by local tourists and families, people from out of town and perhaps even local folks. So yes. Anyway, we'll open it up for discussion and then make a motion. I get just really quick question about balance. How much money do we have? I should remember at this point or track it on my own but just so everybody knows. Yeah, we have plenty left. We have 13,000 and only one more meeting that would be taking place in November. And then thank you, Brent. Two comments from me. The first is I wanna be careful because this is technically a chamber event about how much I engage in the conversation and sort of technically if I can even vote, I just wanna be careful about that. And also I just wanna acknowledge that this is not the typical event that we would see. It's not the monster truck event. It's not a one morning or one day kind of an event or a race, something like that. It's not the cheese festival. Get all of that. I do think that this falls in line with other comments that I've made throughout my tenure at the chamber that it is an event that builds sort of the brand of potentially builds the brand of Santa Rosa as a destination. If you think about ice skating rinks and in other towns that sort of bring people to that town, sort of promotes tourism in a very direct way, I would say. So while not necessarily the typical event that we would fund, I do think that this has a positive benefit to the overall tourism and attractiveness of Santa Rosa. And I'm biased, I understand. Well, thank you for your comments, Peter. I'm also excited to see something like this, especially because over the years, of course, we've done a lot of work to bring people, folks downtown, including folks from out of town. So I think this definitely falls within that category. It is extended over a period of time from November 19th through the January 9th and people are just so desperate to again, get back into normality. I think this would be a prime event that sort of does that as long as people continue to wear their face coverings and such. So I mean, I'm excited to see it and I mean, I guess I could be somewhat biased too, but we helped form that community benefit district for, I mean, this is one of the primary reasons is just to bring activity to downtown. So, Todd, can you? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stuff on you there, Roque. I agree with both of you guys. I think it's a great event. I think it will bring people downtown. I think it presents a good image for the city. My concern is one, $15,000 is a lot of money. And I'm not convinced that it's gonna bring that many people from out of town for overnight stays, which is what this funding is for. I think we should give it some money. I do think it's a great event and I think it's great for our image and for getting people downtown and stuff. I think it's great for all that. But I don't necessarily think people are gonna come from far away and spend the weekend or spend the night. Some will I would imagine, which is why I think we should give it some support. But I don't, I mean, $15,000, I don't think we're gonna get that many room nights out of it. This is my thought. Yeah, and Todd, we don't even have the 15 to give, right? So, that's sort of why I wanted a level set on what balance we had. So, we only have 13, so it's gotta be 13 or less for the funding amount. So, yeah, we gotta do what's reasonable and again, I, well, just let the conversation go. Yeah, Donna, do you have anything to add? Can Donna hear us? Yes, she can hear us and she has raised her hand. Let me just see for previous comments. I don't see Donna raising her hand now. Let me just see if I can send her a message. I do just as we're waiting for Donna's financial comment or input. Do you want to just put on the table something that I know that I've spoken with Raphael and certainly Brad before similar comment that I've made in the past of wanting to at least have the conversation more broadly about how directly we tie funding. I'm not seeing any response from Donna. You know, you're frozen and we cannot hear you. I don't have any additional comments to add. All right, am I back? Can you go back and say what you were saying? Yeah, sorry. No, no, it's fine. I'm sorry that I froze. Just wanted to reiterate the point that I know that I've made in the past and Raphael, you and I have had the conversation along with Brad and I about how directly we tie or absolutely we tie funding support to a one for one room night. Not suggesting that we have that full on conversation here in this moment, but it's one of those topics that I keep on coming back to. Appreciate that, thank you. Well, while we're waiting to, I named any luck with Donna. I don't see any additional comments or any comments coming in from member Venturia. Well, we'll need to make a motion to, I would make a motion to support in the amount of 5,000. Just to be super careful, I'd ask that Raphael, either you or Donna, make the second and maybe I should abstain from the vote. Again, just since it's an event tied to the chamber, I just don't wanna call any question, on this committee's decision making. I think that's. Before you second, can I ask a question? Usually, I mean, we have 13,000, so we have more money. We only have one more meeting left in November. I don't see many coming up, so I don't know if Todd, if you're thinking like 5,002 for general funding to be spent, we always require it to be spent in the city of Santa Rosa, which I don't think will be a problem. So I think usually in a contractor going up to Cloverdale and then some money also going to market outside Sonoma Marin Lake Napa. So there can be some money given for marketing outside the area. Do you suggest when we do more than five with any additional going to marketing or the five being used for marketing outside of the area? I think it can be a combo on this one because this is a larger expense and it is a long time and we have created, it hasn't gone live yet because it's too early, but a specialty box, it's gonna be a premier point of our website for the whole winter lights because it is a month long promoting the area. So I think it's definitely worthwhile. That's why I think some money to help because it is a big cost to do it. So it's some money to help offset the cost, but also just, and I understand Peter, we need to be careful. So I think we also need to have some money set aside specifically for marketing outside the area because that's what we do with almost everyone. And that would be consistent with what we're doing as far as that portion. So yes, more than 5,000 and just bringing on how you split that out. So I can amend it to five for costs and then maybe add an additional 2,500 for marketing outside of the area or 3,000 or something like that. Yeah. So that's better for as far as you guys are concerned. I think that gives us both opportunities and still gives us a little bit left over should we need it for November and then we'll have a good start again come. We'll be in good shape come January. We'll be able to look at a new budget altogether. And I don't think there's many events that are happening before the January meeting. So anything between now and the end of January. That's it. Again, a motion to approve the Winter Lights and Skate Nights $8,000 event support. With three of it designated for marketing outside of the Sonoma County area. Okay. Very well. I'll go ahead and second that motion. And before we vote, do we have any comments from the public? There are no hands raised at this time. All right. So we'll go ahead and approve the motion. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? And then one member, did you say you're Peter? Yeah, I should probably abstain. Could we get a affirmative vote from Donna. Donna. If you can raise your hand as a way, thank you for raising your hand. We'll take that as an affirmative. Okay. All right. So motion approved to provide $8,000 for Winter Lights and Skate Nights with the $3,000 specifically that we spend on marketing. All right. So motion approved. Thank you so much. And that pretty much concludes our meeting. I look forward to seeing you very soon and have a good fall and I'll see you at the Skating Rink. And just as a reminder for everyone, the fourth Thursday would be Thanksgiving. So we always move it up to, we cancel the regularly scheduled meeting and moving it up to the week prior. So the third Thursday. So Eileen, we'll just need to note that as we get closer, canceling the regular meeting and calling a special date. Yeah. Thank you, Fred. And keep in mind that we still have a vacancy. So. Yes. And neither at this point, two of the three full service hotels do not have a GM or DOS. Correct. Okay. Very well, gentlemen. And Donna. See you next time.


You know how it goes. If something is posted on the net, and then this deluge of right hatred comes along, and we imagine that there's a heap of people sitting there, and who is then... Well, it's not a heap of guerrillas, and they're not doing this without targeting. They are very targeted, and Leah and the people from Reconquista Internet, for whom she is speaking tonight, have dealt with this intensely, and they will tell you in detail... Hang on, start the movie, because this is a recorded talk. Welcome to the talk behind the shitstorm, strategies and objectives. Often you write, my name is Leah Richter, and I'm here for Reconquista Internet Report Hatred. Before we get into the content, a few sentences about us, Reconquista Internet, has been working for more reason in the net for two years, and since about one year, we are operating a platform to report criminal relevant hate speech, hasmeld.de, report so we had about 50,000 reports, and brought about 16,000 of them to criminal proceedings, and we can observe a certain dynamic of the exchange on the net, and those that are decision makers don't quite know how to deal with this in a sovereign way, and the people that profit from that the most are the new right who have learned to use those dynamics for their purposes and find followers and spread their thinking, and that's why we said we'd like to deal with the phenomenon and see what is behind it, because we are mostly keeping to the surface, we see the shitstorm, we see the shitstorm, but we don't think about how these things are used in such a systematic way, what strategies are getting employed, and what objectives are being pursued by the new right to spread their politics, and that's what we are trying to talk about today. I will briefly deal with who I actually mean when I say new right network, you could have three talks about this on its own, so I'll keep it short, and then move over to the ideological foundation to the strategy, if you're interested in that, you can read whole books on this of course. The ideological foundation, I have used as an example to see the worldview and see how the strategy is put together, you see the kind of thought leaders and that helps to kind of understand the whole thing better. The strategy that comes from that with certain objectives is going to be the main part, we will see how the new rights intends to implement their objectives in the practical implementation would come to things that we may have seen in practice, other concrete measures that are used to put this strategy, take it to the streets as it were, and I would like to finish with what this means to us as users on the net and how we can deal with that. Now who is the new right network? We are talking about a group that is very well connected and linked that has a classic right wing worldview, they want to portray themselves as intellectual movement that has nothing in common with neo-nazi movements from the 1990s, but in fact it's just the form that's different, the content is the same, we have the same kind of thinking, we have the same worldview, the same aims, they are giving themselves an intellectual coating and like to be presented as hip and not as crude and not as fuggish as the neo-nazis from the 1990s were seen because that as an image doesn't seem to work, they want to cover up this aspect, the fact that they have so much in common and they like to portray themselves as a kind of counter-movement to this 1968 establishment, they like to see themselves as rebels, as a resistance and so on, so that gives you PR points, you can run a good communication strategy on that and they like to see themselves as a large movement and like to be seen that way, but in fact we have a very small group here, experts assume or estimate the number of active people to be about 3000, that is something we should keep in mind that is something we refer to during the talk, of course of the talk the new right does everything it can to cover up this fact or to balance the disadvantages and the weaknesses that come from that and they are quite desperate in trying to do that. Now who belongs to this network, it's a manifold picture here, we have publishers think tanks, we have right wing NGOs that finance small projects, we have a lifestyle magazine and we have the parliamentary wing, the AFD alternative for Deutschland, alternative for Germany which tries to set up certain distance between themselves and the new right network, but they are all very much linked and the AFD plays a very important role for these people because all their efforts in terms of human communication and discourse is supposed to bring the AFD into power, that is the AFD is the designated parliamentary wing, the designated instrument to change the country for those people. So much about the network, as I said you can take hours dealing with that, but we want to get on to the ideological foundations and what is done with that today. Now as an example I brought a few thought leaders along that are supposed to make this clearer and that's interesting because the world view that comes from that influences the scene and strengthens their activities and their strategies and if we know these thought leaders then it's easier for us to understand the activities and what is happening because lots of the activities relate to us and involve us and try to make us to manipulate us into certain actions and when we realize that and understand what's being done then we can decide whether we want to play along. So let's move to the first thought leaders, we'll start with historical people. I've brought along Carl Schmidt, he was a constitutional law expert, he was an active follower of the Nazi regime, he was fascinated by the Mussolini dictatorship in Italy and he was an anti-Semite and the main impulses he brought along which I found important for today was that he saw politics in a friend of full kind of way and so he had an us and them thinking established this kind of thinking and in the next step also he became quite intense describing what kind of society he dreamt of and he dreamt of a homogeneous society, you should be more or less equal within one society and that contained explicitly contained the expulsion and eradication of the other. So the way he described other ethnic groups or people, he was quite blunt and it gets quite clear what the inspiration what inspiration this is for current thinking. Schmidt believed on a struggle for survival between the people and I would say that he was the foundation for the new rights politics and other understanding of politics of the new right. The next person is Armin Mola, born in 1920, he was a published publicizer and writer, he belittled or denied the Holocaust, he supported the republicana new right party in the 1980s, 1990s, so you see the kind of corner that he's coming from and his main impulse is the thinking that the current way the society's word is a left kind left wing kind of thinking so the right is are the rebels a sexy kind of group, the rebels that which they use these days of course in communication and from 1950 he used the term of the conservative revolution and coined that term he wanted to revive the nationalist rights quite soon after the second world war he's seen as the founding father of the new right and he's an active supporter of the Benwist whom we come to later and Kubitschek will be in the slide after this. So along the Benwist he also was a writer, born in 1943, he still is alive and he has an anti egalitarian kind of thinking and he has he really influenced the he took over the cultural hegemony concept from Gramsci and Gramsci and says that political power can be attained by influencing discourse and also Alan de Benwist had thinking that it would be a good thing to communicate political concepts in a covered up way in a disguised way and he formed the term of the new right and he used the term of ethno pluralism as well a term that is an intellectual disguise for the old thinking of aliens out foreigners out it's a ethno pluralism is a term that we meet quite a lot these days he's one of the most important cue of promptors for the right-wing people these days. Reno Camus is an author supported France in France he was convicted for incitement to violence and he coined the conspiracy theory of the great replacement or the white replacement a very widespread theory that you probably have heard about this is played up and down in in in the scene and it's been inserted into discourse and it was used by many attackers for example in Christchurch and El Paso and we'll come to that a bit more as well. The last two that I brought along one for one Götz Kubitschek publisher and writer born in 1970 very much networked in the scene a prominent role he is an advisor to the AFD he gives impulses and his most important impulses I would regard as thinking that meta-politics can be systematically used to attain power provocation can be used as a communication strategy and it's recommended and described how to do it and it's also interesting that he had a kind of precursor to the identitarian movement the conservative subversive action which he founded with activists to gain attention through activism activism and Marty Zellner born in 1989 he is a co-leader of the right extrematitarian movement in Austria and his main impulses are several measures that I brought along this is the MO war and the info war there's an activist approach that he takes to gain attention and playing with media attention he's the young face of the movement the poster boy he gives tactical impulses and he communicates a huge amount blog posts an interview here talks with right wing influences there he has a huge platform in the scene and I was talking about a few central concepts earlier on and four of these I would like to deal with in a bit more detail the first is ethno pluralism short in short this is nothing else but the statement that foreigners should get out from the 1990s but that's not wanted I have said that they wanted to appear as a not having anything to do with this kind of thing that to be more much more cultivated and intellectual than these people from the 90s so you have the same kind of concepts because the thinking is the same the worldview but you need different terms so they try to try on a new term ethno pluralism and impose that on the old concept and hope that people will not notice ethno pluralism is described as or means that that the right wing people say that ethnic groups cannot really live together in peace so everyone please go to their own country and stay there and that in a perfidious way is explained that yes it would be to the best of everyone so they act as if the other people's well-being would be at the heart but it's just about their own group as always and this is driven to the top by saying okay we're not just against migration but one also wants re-migration and that gets us straight back to foreigners out so everyone that is not does not fit the picture should be thrown out and that of course should make clear what kind of thinking this is now the great exchange the great replacement rather is a very relevant conspiracy theory it's kind of based on ethno pluralism because this comes this starts from the premise that people cannot get along ethnic groups cannot get along very well so there must be a problem if one ethnic group comes and joins the other so migration movements are interpreted as an invasion and the other than is the enemy who attacks me and that justifies for me a defense so what's happening here is a reversion of perpetrator and victim and justification for violence that sounds very drastic to come from a linguistic phenomenon and and then come to violence but that is exactly where we come from the word to the deed where stories like this are told massive especially the digital discourse people are told massively if you attack migrants if you attack refugees you're just defending your fatherland right and this these declarations really are happening when people do make attacks against refugees or supposed refugees and when the people ask how I did why did you do this many of these people reply I just wanted to defend my fatherland because these people want to do this and that's here so this is a highly dangerous highly toxic narrative that really leads to violence and it is massively played into the discourse it is spread widely and people are not stopping after a certain right-wing attacks terrorist attacks that we have seen that is a very important aspect of this narrative the other two concepts deal with power and communication more cultural hegemony I've talked about it that is a concept of a left-wing thinker Antonio Gramsci that was taken over by the new right and this says that if I want to attain power and redesign society I first have to influence people's minds I have to experience attitudes of the people get them over to my side before I can then create political facts from that and the means of choice is the discourse so social debate what we are talking about what is what is right what is not what should we do next and so on and that is what is happening and currently it's mostly the digital discourse because that is where the systematic weaknesses of the scene can be covered up as we said that the fact that there is small minority the strategy is called metapolitics and we'll come to that how exactly that is supposed to work the conservative revolution is actually was created as a different term that it is used than the way it is used today it's used in the way that people say well come on we are in a very evil left-wing establishment surroundings so we are the rebels and we are the resistance and that's how they sell themselves and both these terms in the word in the double term conservative revolution are problematic and the one thing is that people are selling themselves as the great rebels as because they want to gain sympathy from the audience and the conservative part of it is a disguise because if the right people sell themselves as conservatives they do that because they can link up with people that if they were open and say how intensive that thinking is and show as enemies of humanity as anti-democrats as ready to be violent then people will run away they will not find followers thankfully so they sell themselves as conservative as worried as critical as people that can still think on their own you know these kinds of terms and that is why we should not accept such kind of self-definition as a right-wing person is not just conservative these people are trying to put on a sheep's clothing to find a platform that they would normally be excluded from so that was a very fast-paced journey I do not intend to be have given a complete overview in terms of the people or in terms of what these people have said it's about an exemplary insight into the foundations of thinking of these this scene what that who do they refer to what kind of thinking do they identify with and if you sort this into three columns that you can get we have the foundations in terms of the content in terms of the message it's the us against them it's the homogeneous society that is sought which fits ethno pluralism very well and on that built on that the great replacement conspiracy theory which is an instruction set to justify violence as I said now strategic thinking includes communicative approach approaches cultural hegemony conserved revolution the way I define myself as a right-wing movement provocation as a communication strategy to balance out one's own weaknesses and the kind of gradual insidious way of communicating one's political contents and when we come to implementation you get terms such as info war and email war haven't explained those yet we'll come to that these are the measures where these things manifest themselves meta politics is a kind of summary and the activist approach to gain attention in the media now the question is what does the network do with these foundations we've seen the quotes that the thought leaders are seen as the foundation for activist approaches so what do these people actually want to achieve and how do they want to get there and that's quite interesting because the aim sounds very crude because they really want overthrow they want revolution you can perhaps not really imagine that but the fantasy is for the end of the state as it is at the moment the end of democratic institutions in any case the free and democratic foundation of our society they wish for the end of that and in any case the expulsion of all non-german people the closure of borders the end of opinion pluralism everything that's a disturbance because someone is different and has a different opinion should be eliminated and then that's because they want to don't want to or can't deal with that violent fantasies are being spread far and wide you may have heard about networks where very explicitly people are fantasizing about mass murder the people that are practicing shooting and all that and and all these fantasies are very very far very widespread and the whole scene should repeat hopes that the AFD the alter the TV for the ocean alternative for journey for Germany should become successful and get into government and and reshape the country in the way that the right-wing scene imagines the country to be as crass as this sounds the scene does formulate this in such a crass way a quote from Götz Kubiszczyk who says very explicitly our aim is not to get involved in discourse but to end a consensus not to have a place in the salon but to end the party now that should end that should tell us that should tell us what they where they want to get where this people to get and and how they will develop if we just let them get on with it now that is an actual objective the end of the state as it is and the creation of a right-wing state and now let's see how they intend to get there the topic is well we're we're still talking about a light minority and that makes it hard to get a kind of connection so they have to find out how they can actually attain power and and and the internet comes into play here and that's why I'm talking about a digital tactic because the internet offers more ways of of gaining influence than there than there used to be before and how exactly this looks we will look at the term of metapolitics I've used it a couple of times already the idea is this we have a minority that wants to attain power but they are not being listened to they're not interested and they have an extreme opinion the kind of anti-human opinion so that's make that makes it difficult for them so this minority has the option of influencing social discourse and has to be implement certain tricks for that employ certain tricks and if they manage that then a right-wing discourse dominance is achieved that's their thinking so if the discourse is permeated by writing narratives and ideas then there's a normalization and a lack of taboo and that removes certain thresholds for people to deal with these kinds of thinking and approach it and if these thresholds if these barriers are removed then perhaps people will vote for the appropriate party that then of course is attain attainment of power and so when that is reached is the idea then they could become come into government and really change the country in the sense of a right extreme objective that is the kind of thinking and that gets it from the communicative behavior of a minority in the digital discourse to a political change in the whole country that is what they try and why they are playing metapolitics up and down and and use this as their central strategy I know how does this look we now get to things that you may have seen we now leave the underwater kind of level and come to the tip of the iceberg as it were where these things become visible what can be seen it's quite easy to see with three uh issues the first weakness is that the right-wing network is a minority and they haven't don't get a lot of attention for that reason they want to compensate for that and they use controlled provocation to compensate for that on the right we have a few examples that you may know these are examples that the new right have communicated themselves or where contents have been readily taken over and and and spread further so what is done in controlled provocation you use the current dynamics of the media age and supply exactly what the media will be interested in what the public will be interested in because it provokes fear and and outrage and that will is something we will deal with on social media so how can you just transgress borders and publish polarizing content that is just a few steps beyond what is acceptable so everyone will talk about it and those that publish it will gain a lot of reach no matter whether it's negative or not if you see this you see it and potentially a new follower or supporter will be gained it will at least increase the perception the prominence of the person so if i do this first aim is media attention and the second is where we come in as users because if i see what happens on twitter very very often for example with the javier nadu video people said oh this is so terrible i'm going to comment on that and i'll show all my followers how terrible this is so you retweet something and comment and your whole bubble is then supplied with that content again and that is something that these people aim for that is what controlled provocation wants to achieve because they know that these kinds of reactions will come and that will get them more attention so that is the second level so what happens if this attention has been gained content that no one would otherwise have looked at uh faces contents organizations ideas concepts narratives are spread and reach people that would never have seen them in the first place and the self image will then be taken over and accepted without critical thinking and what comes from that is that people can deal with this or think about it and maybe become followers or even donors the thinking is spread of course so that is what's happening on the outside and on the inside these actions if they if they are successful they strengthen support within the scene and strengthen their own thinking so it's us against them so us will then become stronger in that way and and get closer together there's often a dog whistling so messages that the normal society find ambiguous but that the own group clearly understands as right wing extreme an example here is the quote that the nazi regime was just a bird shit in german history it's very easy to say this and then later deny i don't know you misunderstood me completely and of course the right wing scene understood completely perfectly well what how this was meant so the support has been reached and at the moment i've posted this or said this i've gained the attention then of course against society i am in danger of losing image so i have to backpedal and that gets us to the third level of gaining attention of course that gets me into a position where i can say well if you invite me into this talk show for another hour i will readily explain how i meant this from my own framework and why i'm actually the good one so again i'm i will reach another platform so three levels of attention through one popular provocation that's why this is used in a systematic way and why it also works because we are until now playing along nicely and it will be good if that could change the next level the next weakness is that the groups are radical and that is a problem for their growth and we've already heard that the right wing scene tries to cover up the intensity of their thinking because they know that they will not gain any connection that way if they come out openly with their Nazi thinking that would very be very hard to to grow but they do want to grow they are not as so many they to to to actually achieve much so they cover up their thinking so their their problems of growth are trying they try to compensate by using emo war and we'll see what that actually is emo war means that there is a competition through emotion not through facts if you reach people from the on the emotional level then someone who tries to under to to convince these people by facts will have a very hard time to to work against the emotion and that is quite easily seen in the way how general the arguments are there are not many facts and there's a lot of outrage involved a lot of wrath and that's the level that we are talking about these contents are supposed to remove emotional barriers and find and create identification figures and account culture sometimes is created we're talking about examples of cooking shows with right-wing symbols in them supposedly cute instagram photos people play with animals and in a way that is hardly noticeable these children are wearing the right-wing symbols or we have certain wrappers so we come to the counterculture here the counterculture is relevant because they try to for all aspects of our cultural world that that we know they deal with they try to create another offer and say this is our right-wing offer wouldn't that be interesting to you relevant to what what has been known already and of course they create a certain cultural space that is set up in a way that everyone in the scene can without any problems remain in a sphere that is right-wing dominated and and has less contact with the outside world and has less danger of being questioned and perhaps questioning themselves that is the perfidious aspect of it and that in social media is very easy to do we've seen examples you've seen some instagram and youtube i've you see some instagram and youtube pictures and this invitation to empathy is the worst enemy a quote so right-wing influences are a good example as already known the influencer module this this focuses on people that appear as they could be my friends that look like they come from real life that are approachable that may communicate with direct messages so they communicate a certain closeness and try to get me build a bond with them and on that basis political contents are being communicated because if i have if i'm already thinking that this is a great person that i will listen when these people talk about politics even if the concepts become weirder and weirder and so that emotional barrier is not easily dissolved and that is a challenge interesting also is how important this influencer model is regarded the co-leader of the identitarian movement of steve patrick lenard said metapolitics is consists of building up new influences and convince established influencers to ultimately move the social climate towards one's own ideas so there's a lot of expectation connected to this strategy to slowly with low thresholds spread right-wing thinking and and to insert it into pop culture basically and finally the right-wing of course has the problem that the social that society has a different opinion we still are dealing with a radical minority so there's a problem of that that is a problem then to influence a society that is decidedly of a different opinion and the next topic then would be the info war and you've seen a very good talk about this before the talk let's play info war so i'm not going to go into detail here but just for completeness i was i wanted to insert include this so then you write sees itself as being in info war about the dominance in the digital discourse so they are using hate speech and fake news alternative sources for that and there are whole networks that are dealing with this from a political motivation we have an example from the reconquista germanica server that officially has dissolved itself once the german interiors you could service was on their toes but there are other networks and also you could question whether these people really have stopped their activities or or maybe they have just massively gone into the afd and into supporting that party so they are inserting their ideas massively into the digital discourse they are using memes videos they are using non-serious news sources fake news basically and these find a fertile ground where the new right movement is working on portray the serious press as the lying press to undermine the authority in discourse because if i as a network do things that are really anti-humanist and if i if i then act in that way then press reports will be a problem so i will attack the press now and what is created in that way is a vacuum in people's minds let's say come on maybe there are no objective facts anymore nothing that we can believe in if you can't believe these who can you believe in so the message is you don't have to believe these people but believe me with my blog i'll explain the world to you it happens to be right wing or you dissolve the belief in in an actual truth and you can then kind of communicate more or less everything that's what's behind this and that's why this is becoming so widespread and and then hate speech of course is a direct influence of the discourse because many people if you use sock puppet accounts and and and really floods the comments and then you displace other people from the discourse and those that remain are those that are using hate speech to put it very simply so we are dealing with a movement that with a development where moderate people are withdrawing and and the aggressive people are taking over and and and political opinions and views can be normalized in that way and barriers are removed and others may then get involved and and the sort of hardening of people that is transported that way normalizes this kind of thinking and kind of prepares the ground to perhaps implement that normalization in the voting booth as well so the illusion of an of a majority opinion is then created that perhaps silent readers will find attractive in some way because if i think that everyone around me has a certain opinion then that will influence me in my own opinion as well we know that 77 percent of hate speech as registered by the interior ministry comes from the right so this is being instrumentalized and although we have more right extreme violent attacks and terrorist attacks we've had them at least now it should be clear that this is at least accepted or perhaps even desired so we'll come to the conclusion what does that mean to us we've talked about five weaknesses or less of the right wing network we know that is it is a loud minority that tries to look larger than it actually is we know that the thinking is the same as old nazis and neo nazis had it's just repackaged because they know that the old ways didn't quite work so well and the manipulation of this cause is the central strategy to attain concrete political power and shaping power it's not just talk it's not just a discourse on the internet this plays a very large role it's also important to see that the afd is seen as as a playing an active role as the parliamentary wing of the scene that should create facts in society and reshape society according to rights wing ideas and very important to us the digital strategy of the new right will only work if we all play along and that is the important point because all these measures that i've introduced that i've talked about they really depend on us all playing the role that they are wanting us to play and that of course gets us into a very comfortable position to just get out of the game that they want us to play along with because at that point the game is over now a few suggestions for that we shouldn't ignore hate speech we should report digital hate speech and digital crimes and we should support the victims if we have provocation we should take care not to fall into the trap this is a learning process it's a manifold thing but we should really everyone of us individually should strive for that we should look at schizoms critically and and check them for plausibility um see um there was a video um i'll skip that german example we should recognize uh anti-human content and this debunk it and oppose it and we should have knowledge about manipulation technologies and and share it this is a central point because the interesting thing about manipulation is if we notice that someone tries to manipulate us to do something normally automatically we will fall into a kind of resistance so we see that if someone tries to stubbornly sell us something then normally we want the opposite and we would not have this person have their way we can use that if we inform people that we are getting manipulated that people are trying to manipulate us and which direction this is supposed to take that we are supposed to become part of a right-wing thinking and a violent thinking then let's tell the people that and get out of that game and that's what i would wish for and for that i would say like to say thanks and i'm interested in your questions hello okay i'll go into the pad and wait for your sign okay okay i'll start lia please yep no problem hello that was a very that was a very tough talk to listen to at points um of course we know all this but if you see all this concisely and summarize and all that then it kind of that is something it really it it gives you the rights and first question lia you do hear me yes is this all a specifically german strategy or can you can this be found in other countries or is it even internationally agreed upon well in short it's not specifically german it is you can assume that mainly in the u.s sphere this was started when the troll culture that was normally originally not political linked up with uh the old right gamer gate was a very important point there so that's when they started in the right wing spectrum when they started to notice that the mechanisms of the digital discourse could be used and instrumentalized for their own purposes so this was not decidedly not a german phenomenon uh there's a lot of connection internationally and uh people are using role models from other countries next question behind me i have the interpreter with a lot of delays sorry andrei what's the connection between the new right and the fd would you compare that with the organization of the identitarian movement for the ira i think the comparison with the ira is a very strong comparison that was an explicit terror organization maybe that is a bit too strong of a contrast the afd does seem to take care to keep the disguise on and keep it strong we know that their right wing movement the so-called wing is under observation from the secret services and they're changing the language and they know that they're treading the boundaries here and i wouldn't compare the afd with the ira they do try hard to uh use democratic means to to attain power to shape things but what then is supposed to come from that is not so democratic anymore next question isn't provocation this means instrument of the left yes you can say that you could say that the new right explicitly looked at uh what other uh successful groups did that did and then they are using these groups that they've seen as left and using what they've seen as successful the identitarian movement what they do for example is clearly inspired by green peas for example taking over the concept of cultural hegemonia that was from a left thinker so the concept and the strategy from the left is used and enriched with one's own thinking so language is reversed the talk of the establishment being the left now for example uh the left wing fascism fascism that is talked about so they are using what is seen as successful and turning it around and they're seeing it as a huge challenge to to deal with that okay um okay someone deleted the questions in the pad all at once i can remember one is jan bimmermann of topic is jan bimmermann still connected and engaged with you we are dependent uh i didn't say this reconquista internet the organization for which i am here was founded in a tv program by jan bimmermann that's why this question is asked quite a lot we are independent by now we are in contact but he is not responsible for anything that we do i have there been media psychological studies and which ones to found the term of the emo war in the scientific way i am not aware of any such studies we've took we took up the term because the co-leader of the identitarian movement martin zerner is is using this term and and describing it his activities in that way i haven't i'm not aware of any studies um i believe that this is coming on gradually society slowly is noticing that there is a problem and then the studies come along as well so maybe that there will be a scientific base later on and i was picking up on this because the right is talking about it in the same term using the same term and so that leads to the next question sorry how not at all how is it kind of democratic and digital discourse possible with the right that's an interesting question um we had a book a few years ago speaking with the rights and there was a lot of debates and there was a lot of debate in this pan as well i would say that there are there's a graduation and the of intensity of this worldview there are people that i won't reach if they have a certain closed worldview and i would have to invest such a lot of energy with such a low probability of actually reaching them so i wouldn't recommend that but we're not talking about a black and white spectrum here there is a category of worried citizens in between people that maybe are leaning towards a certain sympathy for these views or that may be caught on with some of these strategies that we talked about so these are people where i would say it would be worth to engage in conversation with with them and there is a spectrum and in the gray areas i would say yes of course get into get in touch i wouldn't recommend everyone just to withdraw in their own bubble we've seen a few years ago that people said well if someone says this and that on facebook i'll delete them and just go away but then these people are still moving on in their own bubble and there are further exchanges taking place and i cannot offer my my alternatives and that may get them to think so i would distinguish between depending on who i am dealing with and do i expect them to still listen to me and it's just the establishment of a conversation the fulfillment of a tactic maybe so that's not always easy to to understand yeah and we'll slowly come to the end because we'll need some time to switch so but a very interesting question and i've given my own opinion as well and how have we come to the fact that we and i believe that we have a consensus that afd and and others are scum that should be deployed although what mainly joins us is that we do something with computers and that's interesting and it's just in germany and austria i think where the it bubble is so much left wing it's not the case in the netherlands or in in the us lea but i don't know if you can answer that question so well i think the question is why this talk will be hard becomes part of this program here and uh i cannot say that just by giving the talk i know that everyone is agreeing with me but i think it fits the program very well because in the wider sense this is an it topic and because political topics certain it things social media in the wider sense and our use of it are being used to create certain political facts and i have to add to that that in the vienna ccc there is a declaration of non-compatibility between left between right wing views and membership in the vienna ccc that's quite an achievement i would say and as far as i can see the ccc in was founded the german ccc was founded in the rooms of the left wing political lefting paper target site on tats daily paper um last question because it's five minutes before 10 already have you been able to research um how the case of the umwelzau video was organized that was a video a very strong song is a theoretical video on climate change that was far criticized and yes and that was an occasion for us to really look at what how is this this uproar organized and um there were two different different teams of data analysts that came to the same conclusion one from the spiegel newspaper and the other uh don't let me guess i it would you can try and research it so two two teams looked at it and it reached very few people at first and then certain accounts in the right wing areas spread this and there are hints that actually people paid for more reach on these this uproar against a kind of crude video on environmentalism and this was then magnified and i did mention this in my talk we would wish for such phenomena if if they are being used to enforce certain change of opinion for example change the behavior of of public broadcasting then we cannot assume anymore that there is a huge wave of of uproar uh so i have done something wrong and i have to backpedal that kind of thinking that happened in in the public broadcaster that that was affected by the shitstorm um of course it's uh very easy to to get shocked and then jump into some action and that is the wrong thing because if we then notice that this was not an authentic depiction of outrage or authentic reflection of outrage and if a public broadcaster then kind of falls onto its knees and and uh caves into a right-wing media phenomenon on the shitstorm then these people of course will be triumphant and say oh fantastic this huge public broadcaster has caved in um and there have been protests and and threats for murder and all that so that is completely out of proportion and i would really plead that we should be careful and these the speed at which we interpret shitstorms and derive actions from that is sometimes wrong we should not that should not have been decisive on on on that public broadcaster's actions and we should learn from that okay with that i have to finish unfortunately we have two minutes left to the next talk so thank you i have a virtual a huge virtual pause we you were great and you've had a lot of positive feedback in the pad so thanks