The Far Right's Fear of 'Glowies'

[Celerity]

In the aftermath of the January 6 riot, extremists have become obsessed with the federal agents who might lurk among them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/what-glowies-mean-online-spies/617717/



Judging by the actions of those who stormed the Capitol, far-right extremists don’t fear arrest. But they do fear one thing: glowies. During the Trump administration, many far-right groups’ main concern was figuring out how to recruit more people to the cause. But as federal law-enforcement officials continue to round up people suspected of involvement in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, and Joe Biden’s administration promises a crackdown on white-supremacist and anti-government radicals, extremists are on the verge of a crack-up, posting widely and worriedly about spies in their midst—“glowies.” That’s the term far-right groups use to describe people they suspect of being federal law-enforcement agents or informants infiltrating their communication channels, trying to catch them plotting violence, or prodding them into illegal acts. The term is in widespread use among extremists: On January 6, one Telegram user made their channel, which was popular with the far right, private because “nameless faceless glowies are joining.” Two days later, another person suggested that glowies would “float dead cop story, to redirect public attention and sympathy,” referring to the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who was beaten with a fire extinguisher during the riot and later died. One user recommended downloading an alternative platform, ZeroNet, saying, “Glowies cannot take it down.”

Screenshots of these Telegram channels were provided to me by Meghan Conroy, who researches far-right extremism at Moonshot CVE, an organization that aims to counter violent extremism. In addition, I found variations on the “glow” terminology all over 4chan, the imageboard that froths with racist and misogynist messages, and on TheDonald.win, the far-right successor to the pro-Trump subreddit r/The_Donald. All three platforms featured discussions of storming the Capitol in the days leading up to January 6. Extremists have become more wary of real or perceived glowies since January 6. On the January 11, someone on 4chan asked, “What kind of shit should I get for the boogaloo?,” meaning the civil war that the far-right boogaloo bois are preparing for. This, another person responded, seemed like “glow”—the potential sign of an FBI agent. The same thing happened when another user asked about the best place to store guns. On TheDonald.win, someone suggested that the death of Ashli Babbitt, the woman killed during the Capitol riot, was possibly staged or orchestrated by glowies. “Since all you glowies are here looking for ‘Domestic Terrorists,’” another wrote, “Look in the mirror then apologize for Ruby Ridge you sick fucks,” referring to the 1992 siege by U.S. marshals in Idaho that led to the deaths of three people.

“With increased content moderation by platforms and tons of researchers/analysts paying more attention to the right, it appears these folks want to keep the momentum of the sixth going but are afraid to talk about it openly,” Conroy told me via email. Federal law enforcement, of course, has a long history of monitoring extremist groups. FBI informants infiltrated both the far-left Weather Underground and the Ku Klux Klan, among others. The FBI declined to comment on whether its agents or informants are currently monitoring far-right communications channels or posting in them directly. But federal agents don’t have to be actively watching the channels to complicate the extremists’ mission. Being watched makes planning harder. So does constant suspicion. The mere possibility of glowies among the militias might be enough to reduce the threat of extremist violence in the coming months. Far-right forums are rife with racism and misogyny, so perhaps it’s no surprise that glowie derives from the language of hate. The term originated with Terry Davis, a computer programmer who had schizophrenia and harbored paranoid conspiracy theories about the government. In a 2017 YouTube video that has been viewed nearly 1 million times, Davis says: “The CIA niggers glow in the dark; you can see them if you’re driving. You just run them over.” Because the internet can be a terrible place, the term took off, becoming popular on 4chan’s white-nationalist /pol/ board and spreading to other platforms.

Glowie has also sprouted other permutations: Someone who seems suspicious is said to be “glowing.” Seeming too much like an FBI agent—known as an “alphabet” in these forums—is called “glowposting.” For instance, asking a question like “Do you know where I can get schematics for 3-D-printed guns?” might be considered glowposting, because it suggests that the user is attempting to lure his interlocutor toward committing a crime, says Hampton Stall, a senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project and the founder of the MilitiaWatch blog. If someone is suspected of being a federal agent or an informant for the FBI, other group members will “fedjacket” him or her, making the case about why the person is secretly a snitch. To prevent feds from joining, some forums have devised elaborate vetting procedures. For instance, they’ll ask potential members to send a picture of one of their biceps, on the theory that a reverse image search will reveal whether the picture is original. Also, “they’re very bro-ey,” Stall told me. Then there’s “glowing,” which is talking about things that are violent and threatening—and therefore likely to attract the attention of cops. In a chat on the Element messenger app that Conroy is in, people have asked, for example, “How brightly are we allowed to glow here?” Or, as part of a conversation about the apparent desire to execute members of Congress, one user said, “Yeah, I’d say every single congresscritter needs to go.” “That’s my kind of glowing right there,” another user responded.

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[genxlib]

1. For our sake

I hope there are a ton of feds infiltrating those organizations.

But I also think we should play the Putin game. Let's just spread a lot of rumors so that they all distrust each other and turn into a bunch of carnivorous animals eating their own.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

2. Make no mistake, these fascists are not just harmless internet crackpots.

They are violent, deluded, deranged lunatics who will kill innocent people who don't agree with them, or don't look like them, without remorse. They think it's their noble patriotic duty to do so. They are literally America's version of Hitler worshiping Nazis, except that they worship Trump.

The rural western US is crawling with them, just waiting for "their time" to come. I hike every other day in the rural west, and see their entitled trump worshiping gun toting penis pickup truck driving camo clad asses and permanently enraged, cruelty imprinted facial expressions all the time.

Sadly, a cabinet level agency, established to control RW white supremacist domestic terrorists and terrorism, is necessary to keep these unhinged wackos from ever seeing "their time" come.

[Turin_C3PO]

3. If you think the rural West is bad,

you should see West Virginia and Kentucky. When I went there I had never seen so many Trump flags and signs before. I’m glad we have good Democrats in all of our states fighting the good fight.

[Girard442]

5. Hey Rechwingers! It's perfectly safe to conspire to commit felonies...

...on a message board accessible by the public — as long as the board ejects anyone who seems too hinky.