It's absolutely astounding to me the number of folks who have done little to no research or work on Nazi Telegram but somehow feel qualified to say that deplatforming the terror channels is bad because they enjoyed dipping their toes in once & a while to supplement a hot take.

Deplatforming Nazis is good, actually.

If your research isn't strong or deep enough for you to know where the Nazis go next, that's an issue with your competency, not a reason to come down on deplatforming terrorists.

And if you didn't archive (which is *extremely* simple to do on Telegram, btw)... that's also a problem with your research methods, not damning evidence that deplatforming has made fascism impossible to document or track.

We go through this every time we win a major deplatforming campaign.

Folks who have been doing the work and have been embedded in these online terror community sound the alarm, folks who are attracted to the sensationalism arrive and declare themselves experts...

...and then the Johnny-come-latelies and folks with only superficial knowledge complain that their research has been wrecked when the alarm-sounders finally succeed in deplatforming it.

If you think terror Nazi Telegram has been shut down and is inaccessible for your research...

I hate to break it to you, but you're just bad at this research.

Nearly all the old channels are back up, they're just *much* harder to find if you aren't an expert.

They aren't publishing directories anymore, and most of the channels have only a fraction of their former followings (which is good and very much the point of deplatforming-- to repeatedly isolate and quarantine-- it's always whack-a-mole).

Deplatforming works not because the Nazis don't reappear, but because when they *do* inevitably reappear, their audience and exposure is much smaller.

Which makes it that much harder for them to recruit/radicalize at a meaningful scale.

Terrorgram is not an exception to that rule.

The Nazis didn't go away.

They aren't off the radar.

Most channels rebooted.

They're still easily monitorable.

There are just fewer people listening.

A LOT fewer.

Deplatformed Nazis either

1) pop back up somewhere (in which case... we monitor them there), or

2) they give up (in which case, there's nothing to monitor anymore).

There's no top secret online Nazi lair with magical, untraceable antifa infiltration detectors.

And, it bears repeating: if you're a journalist, it is *absurd* to get mad that antifascist activists are deplatforming a Nazi space.

We are under no obligation to preserve Nazi community in amber for your hot takes.

Takedowns are part of the story, not obstructions.

It makes about as much sense as a White House pool reporter or a poli Sci prof getting mad at Biden because his election victory got in the way of the piece they were planning to write about Trump's second term, lol.

Taking down Nazis is good.

Arguing that antifascists should avoid taking down terrorist communities because it makes those communities "harder to study" is absurd.

The folks who make these arguments are not interested in countering fascism.

They are interested in branding themselves as "experts" without actually doing much actual, meaningful work.

Even if it means arguing on behalf of fascists' own interests to do it.