A few weeks ago the executive director of the American Values Coalition, a group dedicated to rejecting "misinformation and extremism," tweeted this:
Knowing what Vice News is, and having covered their "work" before, curiosity got the better of me and I clicked the link. Admittedly, I haven't been back, so I suppose it's possible that the organization has changed its ways in the intervening couple weeks. But nothing I observed that day told me this "extremism desk" at Vice was "among the best in the world at covering extremism in all its forms."
In fact, I couldn't produce a single example of them covering extremism in any form that originated on the political Left. It was, unsurprisingly, a running compilation of right-wing extremism – Proud Boys, Groypers, QAnon, all of them.
To be clear, some of the things I read – and some of the things these groups are publishing, saying, and attempting to accomplish – are nothing short of gross and stomach-turning. I'm not interested in protecting neo-Nazis and white nationalists, and am more than satisfied to see their nutty ideas exposed and collectively condemned.
But I remain flummoxed by the galling lack of interest among these large-scale extremism watchdogs – whether it's Vice, the American Values Coalition, or the mainstream investigative press – to document with equal vigor, or even the slightest sense of urgency, the extremism and misinformation factories on the Left that are unquestionably far more mainstream than these bizarre pockets of right-wing noise.
White supremacist Richard Spencer spouts foolishness but lacks any effective means of conveying his lies to significant numbers of people.
I suppose it's interesting that a militia group called the Three Percenters founded during the Obama years have decided to disband after losing the plot and seeing many of their members participate in the January 6th riot, but how widespread and influential were they?
It's concerning that a group of QAnon conspiracy theorists in Canada believe that some lady named Romana Didulo is actually the country's rightful queen, but how influential and dangerous is that lie?
Each of those stories are covered on Vice's extremism page that the American Values Coalition thinks is doing "good work" to dismantle misinformation. But where's the hand-wringing from these groups over far more widespread, far more believed, far more prominent and powerful misinformation like, say:
- Opponents of vaccine mandates being portrayed as anti-vaccine.
- Kyle Rittenhouse being portrayed as a domestic terrorist.
- Donald Trump's postmaster general being portrayed as stealing mailboxes in an attempt to steal the 2020 election.
- Those who correctly argued naturally immunity offered more protection than COVID vaccines being portrayed as anti-science.
- Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh being portrayed as a rapist.
- Proponents of a Chinese laboratory leak being the origin of COVID being portrayed as racist.
- Trump's 2016 election victory being portrayed as the result of Russian vote hacking.
- Covington High School student Nick Sandmann being portrayed as a smirking bigot.
- Skeptics who said COVID vaccines don't prevent transmission being portrayed as science deniers.
- Millions of dollars-worth of property damage during lawless riots being portrayed as "mostly peaceful."
- Russians being portrayed as offering cash bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers.
- Trump's remarks after Charlottesville being portrayed as the president suggesting neo-Nazis are "good people."
Again, you'll get no beef from me if you work to expose unsubstantiated claims or outright lies being told on the Right simply to inflame passions and achieve political objectives. The end of better positioning for my political tribe does not justify the means of deception.
But it also shouldn't be too much to ask that operations that claim to fight misinformation not wear partisan blinders. If you're willing to use a microscope to uncover daily examples of the Right's misinformation, you cannot expect to be taken seriously when you aren't even willing to use the peripheral vision of your naked eye to observe and note the same on the Left.
If it's noteworthy and important to document what the obscure Three Percenters militia is telling people, it's all the more noteworthy and important to document when a primetime opinion host on MSNBC pulls things like this:
If you and your organization can't agree on that point, then the question will reasonably be asked: is your motivation the dismantling of misinformation or the misappropriation of that cause to benefit an underlying political agenda?
