While I'm not going to stop engaging in schadenfraude about NZ's right-wing populist parties splitting and fracturing any time soon, there's actually a risk this will help contribute to a a greater fake news media environment between now and the next election. A thread

With absolutely dismal election results last year many of the figures on the conspiracist / populist right are pivoting to "alternative media" Billy Te Kahika and Vinny Eastwood are talking about a new media platform- Eastwood already has 50,000 subscribers on YouTube

Sarah Smith from Mothers Who Stand for Freedom is involved with a new website called Planet B Media, which promotes climate change denial, anti-vaccine nonsense, covid-19 misinformation and transphobia. The site has over 6,000 Facebook followers already

Qanon enthusiast Damien de Ment has been talking about turning his YouTube channel into something bigger, and plans to start soliciting donations for it. I've heard rumours Elliot Ikilei, recently departed as New Conservative leader, is planning something media related too

While it seems fairly dormant, theres the Right Minds website and YouTube channel founded by far-right activist and New Conservative Party board member Diewue de Boer. There is also the BFD, the site founded by former Whale Oil writers when the latter went bankrupt

Theres a site called "This Quality" who seem to enjoy writing about me in particular, and currently-only-exist-as-Facebook-pages The Professionalist and The Right Watchmen, plus a small site called YSB. These one I haven't looked into much

Right-learning Mainstream media has shown it will let itself be used to further alt-right talking points, Newstalk ZB played a huge role in mainstreaming the UN Migration Compact conspiracy, and Magic Talk has platformed a man who threatened to destory mosques for example

When there are 5 (or more) right-wing parties we can half a laugh making Life or Brian references and be complacent that not one of them will make it into parliament, but it's not the same when there are 5 to ten hard-right "news" websites

People who follow many or all of these websites will think they are getting information from multiple sources, even though it will likely be the same false information worded in slightly different ways, and will be more likely to believe that false information

Because the people behind these sites often argue with each other, it creates the impression there is actually a diverse range of opinion in this media eco-system, but really it's all within a very narrow part of the political spectrum

By the time of the 2023 election, whatever configuration of populist parties we have, their potential voter base will have been shaped by three years of fake news and conspiracy theory. We may even see a mainstream party dogwhistling to that segment of society

Unless YouTube and Facebook do more to stop their platforms being used to spread misinformation, there could be an even more misinformed electorate in 2023 tha there was in 2020 (remember Advance NZ got 28,000 votes, and the New Cons got 42,000)

I've already noticed these media outfits will use Facebook and YouTube to being people onto their own sites off Facebook, as well as platforms like Bitchute and Parler, not posting anything directly that will get them banned. Social media platforms are not prepared to tackle this