Alt-right's fake news mem don't translate well in French

>The digital call to arms came shortly after the first round of the French presidential election.

>On an online message board frequented by extremists in the United States, an anonymous user last month urged others to bombard social media sites in France in support of Marine Le Pen, the far-right French candidate, by using memes, hashtags and other digital tricks that they successfully employed during last year’s American presidential election. Within days, the online thread — and similar discussions across the internet — was flooded with hundreds of users in the United States offering to help the digital campaign.

>But the American tactics have not translated overseas.

>Despite such efforts, the far right in the United States and elsewhere has so far failed to reach much of the French electorate ahead of the country’s vote this weekend, according to a review of social media activity done for The New York Times. The analysis, which was based on a review of millions of Twitter messages related to the election since last summer, showed that more than one-third of posts linked to certain political hashtags originated from the United States, although few went viral in France.

>“There’s a big cultural gap that these groups have to jump over to expand their message,” said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank, who has studied the far right’s recent efforts in France. “The language and iconography of the alt-right is pretty specific. Most of it just isn’t going to translate well.”

>The French presidential election is the latest front in the digital assault by the American far right or alt-right, a diverse and loosely connected group of internet-based radicals who have garnered attention by using memes — online satirical photographs with often biting captions — and other tactics to further their views worldwide.
...

>The activists, a combination of white supremacists, anti-Semitic campaigners and other far-right types, were closely linked to the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, although the extent of their influence remains unclear.

>Their efforts have fallen flat in France, with memes often written in English and extremist photos and images that do not resonate with the French electorate. American-style fake news and other digital misinformation have also failed to gain traction in France, where its own domestic issues and ways of campaigning still dominate.

>The muted response in France could portend a similar response by voters in Britain and Germany when they head to the polls later this year in their own national elections.

>“There has been an effort to spread fake news, but not to the same extent as what we saw in the U.S. campaign,” said Tommaso Venturini, a researcher at the médialab of Sciences Po Paris. “So far, it’s hard to see any evidence of the impact of fake news on the potential outcome.”

>While international activists have found it difficult to break into the French political discourse, local campaigners, often from the country’s own far right, have had more success.
...

>Ms. Le Pen’s social media team has fought a guerrilla-style war to spread its message online, including a dedicated group that shares videos and photos online that attack her political foes. A loose network of Facebook and Twitter users has similarly backed her campaign while disparaging Emmanuel Macron, Ms. Le Pen’s opponent and the front-runner to be France’s next president. Many of these social media messages have been shared by the supporters of more traditional politicians, including those of François Fillon, a right-wing candidate who finished third in last month’s first-round election.

>While muted, American-style fake news has also made an appearance.

>Ahead of last month’s vote, for instance, a fake news site masquerading as Le Soir, a Belgian newspaper, tried to spread rumors that Saudi Arabia was financing Mr. Macron’s campaign. Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a niece of Ms. Le Pen, posted the piece on Twitter before quickly removing the link after local media outlets debunked the claim.

>Still, for many in France, such outright fake news stories have been met merely with Gallic shrugs. And the digital tactics of international campaigners have been even less effective.

>In part, that is because alt-right activists from the United States and beyond have copied the movement’s American extremist images and language without tweaking them to entice the French electorate.
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>After the anonymous internet user called on others on 4Chan, an online message board favored by the alt-right, to start a “Total Meme War” to help Ms. Le Pen, he warned against mimicking American-style attacks. Yet international supporters repeatedly used Pepe the Frog, a cartoon tied to anti-Semitism and racism that has become an unofficial mascot of the alt-right movement. Many did so without realizing the amphibian is often used as a slur against French people.

>In the last two weeks, far-right activists have created multiple memes attacking Mr. Macron — complete with captions and hashtags written in English. Ahead of this weekend’s election, some of these images on Facebook and Twitter portrayed Mr. Macron as a 21st century equivalent to Marie Antoinette, the out-of-touch last queen of France, while others linked him with false allegations of an extramarital affair.

>But such moves have barely registered with French-speaking Twitter users, particularly local nationalists who already bristle at English overtaking French as the world’s most popular language. Almost two-thirds of Twitter messages using the hashtag MFGA — or Make France Great Again — have originated from the United States, according to David Chavalarias, a French academic, who created a digital tool to analyze more than 80 million Twitter messages about the French election.
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>“Tweets written in English don’t have much impact,” said Mr. Chavalarias, who conducted the social media analysis for The Times. “But if they are posted with photos, then that can have more of an impact.”

>The online campaigns have also failed to go viral because they have not been picked up by larger media outlets, a fundamental part of the playbook in spreading these messages in the United States.

>American news organizations like Breitbart News, the far-right media outlet that supported Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and whose executive chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, is now a senior White House official, helped to share messages with a wider audience in the United States. But in France, no outlet has similarly embraced the international alt-right during the recent election.

>“These trolls are trying to make a difference globally,” said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at the Mercer University who has studied the rise of the far right online in the United States. “But their inability to do so shows how limited of an impact they are actually having.”

meanwhile on /pol/

>>>/pol/124227512

>>>/pol/124226045

>>137053
>does not translate well into French
translation
> the typical European voter isn't as gullible and myopic

>>137063
So is /pol/ right? /pol/ told me they know the "dark secrets" of real life

>>137079
Even a stopped clock is right sometimes, Anon. It doesn't mean you should always believe it when they say it.

>>137079
No.
Its just a tactic to cover for the public humiliation of the debate

Politics is just as much about manipulation and underhandedneas as in a democracy or a monarchy

>>137091
And /pol/ has to forcefully be part of it, don't they?

I love the implication that only the "far right" are using those dastardly memes

>>137271
True, but this is quite common; if you mix a group of moderates and neo Nazis, people are going to focus on the extremists to be characteristic of the bunch.