‘120 decibels’ campaign: transnational hijacking of the 'MeToo' narrative
A new study shows zeigt a new form of transnational networking activities by proponents of far-right ideologies.
Curd Knüpfer, Matthias Hoffmann and Vadim Voskresenskii (researchers from Weizenbaum RG-15 'Digitalisation and the Transnational Public Sphere') investigated how the far-right "Identitarian Movement" initiated the transnational, digitally networked "120 decibels" campaign by latching onto the success of "MeToo" movement. The results of this study are published in the journal "Information, Communication and Society".
The name of the campaign is a reference to a pocket alarm that has a volume of 120 decibels and is used to protect women from potential attackers. The campaign stands against sexual assaults but it focuses exclusively on those crimes that were committed by immigrants.
The analysis of this case study is based on the user-generated Twitter posts containing both the hashtags 'MeToo' and '120db' simultaneously. By exploring the geolocation and language characteristics of the collected tweets, the researchers showed how far-right actors sought to spread racist narratives and anti-immigrant sentiment on the transnational level by exploiting the popular hashtag 'MeToo'. The results of the study present a new form of transnational networking activities by proponents of far-right ideologies and highlights new ways in which these actors interact with and try to undermine a progressive agenda.