Megan Squire

screenshot showing text from GSG website "If we don't act now, we risk losing the chance to honor and carry forward what he stood for."

The urgency inherent in every scammer playbook even makes an appearance.

Screenshot of a Charlie Kirk fundraiser on GiveSendGo. Goal is in Malaysian currency.

Screenshot of source code of page showing fundraiser recipient has listed their name as Mike Smith and their location as Singapore, Indiana and a 6-digit zip code

There are mercifully few overlaps between my current remit to study scams/fraud and my prior work studying extremism. Leave it to GiveSendGo to fill that gap, enabling one "Mike Smith" to solicit for a Kirk fundraiser from bustling "Singapore, IN" - a metro so busy it needs a 6 digit zip code

Bad Gateway: How Deplatforming Affects Extremist Websites — Read-Me.Org -All Free By Megan Squire Deplatforming websites—removing infrastructure services they need to operate, such as website hosting—can reduce the spread and reach of extremism and hate online, but when does depla...

Oh, I see the NYT has a feature on Nick Fuentes today?

A few years ago, Fuentes was basically irrelevant outside of a very narrow audience. Then Musk let him back on Twitter, Rumble verified him, and other media influencers (like Alex Jones) amplified him.

From @megansquire.bsky.social:

Obituary information for John C. "Chris" Zander View John C. "Chris" Zander's obituary, contribute to their memorial, see their funeral service details, and more.

Here’s the obit www.giffinfuneralhome.com/obituaries/J...

praise our AI overlords

I tried to claim ownership of the panel and change the subheading and am told that maybe they will, maybe they won't.

Google's AI-generated info panel 🙃 I guess I've been called worse, but not by such a powerful entity

US House bans WhatsApp on staff devices over security concerns The U.S. House of Representatives has banned the installation and use of WhatsApp on government-issued devices belonging to congressional staff, citing concerns over how the app encrypts and secures d...

"The CAO listed ... Wickr ... as acceptable substitutes for WhatsApp, recommending that staff pick one of these instead." If you ever suspected the government has time travel tech, here is the proof you've been waiting for. (Wickr was discontinued in 2023) www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/securit...

GPAHE Research Analyst The research analyst plays an important role in our efforts to combat far-right, transnational extremism that undermines democracies, developing and producing impactful content and other in-depth publ...

Job Opportunity: GPAHE is seeking a Research Analyst to help monitor far-right extremism worldwide. This fully remote role involves in-depth research, writing, and data work on global hate movements.

Applicants outside the U.S. are encouraged to apply.

Apply here:

Extremists Are Cashing in on a Youth-Targeted Gaming Website White supremacists and other extremists have raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars through a youth-targeted, video livestreaming service called DLive, according to a researcher of online, far-righ...

More on the platform and this whole sordid episode here: www.splcenter.org/resources/ha...

This is the guy whose Dlive platform was used by hundreds of extremists in the 2020-2021 timeframe to fundraise and plan in the run-up to J6.

Based on @megansquire.bsky.social's research, looked at the spread of the killer's video last year, and discovered that the year-on-year spread of the video is exponentially greater, & in ways that completely escape domestic oversight, policing, & policy in NZ. sanjanah.wordpress.com/2024/06/27/t...

Spam in the firehose, part II A closer look at a growing astroturf network on Bluesky

More detail in this blog post:
conspirator0.substack.com/p/spam-in-th...

Panorama - Telegram and the Russian Billionaire Reporter Bronagh Munro investigates how the Telegram app, owned by Russian billionaire Pavel Durov, can be used to spread harmful and dangerous content.

@megansquire.bsky.social's heroic work analyzing online hate group data is a must-follow for anyone interested in social media, hate speech, online organization, and data analytics. I'll put this BBC One podcast in queue now, wherein Megan discusses her Telegram work. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

There's also a nice interactive graph so you can play with the data. splc-git.github.io/telegram-cha...

Digital Threat Report: Telegram’s Toxic Recommendations Perpetuate Extremism

We have a new Digital Threat Report out today - it covers Telegram's recommendations feature called "similar channels" and exactly how it works. www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/20...

One is from WI:

"Exposed author data matches that of Taylor “TJ” Sellnow of Wisconsin. “Cardinal Pritchard” writes articles calling LGBTQ+ Pride Month parade attendees “pedos” and deriding transgender people as a mutilation cult."

the babylon bee left online supposedly “sensitive information” about its writers who want to remain anonymous, and is now upset at the SPLC for finding it

The Not the Bee website’s publicly viewable source code exposes contact information for several dozen authors, including the real names of many of the most prolific pseudonymous content creators. The source code, visible to anyone with a web browser and not requiring an account on the site to view, also revealed email addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, social media accounts, subscription and payment information, and more. Dan Dillon, brother of Seth Dillon, took credit for programming the Not the Bee website and told users that “your name/location/email will never be shared if you don’t want it to be.” Dan Dillon’s exposed author data shows his email address, IP address, date of birth, phone number and billing information. These data points match those of other authors in the system, including “David Doppelganger” (11 articles) and “Thinkr” (5 articles). Thinkr is a technology company also associated with Seth Dillon’s Volentric.

The SPLC discovered that a sister site for the anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant "humor" publication The Babylon Bee has been accidentally leaking a bunch of info about its anonymous authors. A number of real names are revealed in this report. www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/20...

The most shocking info from this is neither the Babylon Bee nor it's authors answered the request for comment with one of the three jokes they know.

Fantastic work from the SPLC.

Inside the Beehive An SPLC Data Lab investigation of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant content on The Babylon Bee and its sister site, Not the Bee, has uncovered multiple controversial businesses formerly run by owner Seth...

Babylon Bee Authors Exposed: An SPLC investigation into the Babylon Bee and its sister sites has unmasked the names of 14 pseudonymous authors responsible for anti-LGTBQ+, racist, and anti-immigrant articles on the Bee sites, as well as several scam businesses formerly run by Bee owner, Seth Dillon.

The result is we discovered Dillon apparently used to run two paper mills, selling papers to college kids. Also, the website leaked the identities of 14 of his writers, who hid behind pseudonyms to mock and denigrate immigrants and LGBTQ folks.

Inside the Beehive An SPLC Data Lab investigation of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant content on The Babylon Bee and its sister site, Not the Bee, has uncovered multiple controversial businesses formerly run by owner Seth...

Here's a little story my colleague Creede Newton and I wrote about some shenanigans going on at The Babylon Bee and sister site "Not the Bee" - Seth Dillon has a shady past and a poorly programmed website www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/20...

Heritage Foundation staffer RSVP’d to white nationalist’s wedding A contributor to The Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025 governance plan intended to attend a white nationalist’s wedding, according to publicly accessible information the Data Lab review...

Here’s a little ditty we wrote about what our new Project 2025 overlords have been getting up to

www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/20...

Anti-Trans Doctor Misrepresents Credentials to Court Quentin Van Meter, a prominent anti-trans activist, appears to have repeatedly misrepresented his credentials in court while providing expert testimony about research on gender-affirming health care

NEW: The bigoted right often enlists anti-trans activist Quentin Van Meter as an expert on trans healthcare.

In court docs, Van Meter appears to have misrepresented his credentials, claiming active faculty status to schools that no longer staff him:

www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/20...

My 3Q crypto and finance report - $23m in money funneled from Vanguard, Fidelity, other "donor advised funds" to hate & extremist groups, $76k in BTC from a megadonor to an unlikely Cville-era recipient, and a Nazi clown rakes it in while in federal custody. Enjoy!
www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/20...

Congrats! Who is the lucky winner of your expertise?

we have another SPLC-er on this platform now. please welcome @megansquire.bsky.social

Interestingly, the donor sent three waves of Ethereum which had been through a mixing service. That mixer has now been sanctioned by feds for its use in money laundering.