The Complexity Of Fedposting
A once obvious ploy at honeypotting online has gradually been reclaimed by the very people it was supposed to entrap: here's how it happened.
Before we begin with the bulk of this article, I think we need to remember what the definition of fedposting is, as referenced from Wiktionary:
to make Internet posts calling for violence against federal government or terrorism
With this basic definition in mind, the ramblings of an alt-right lunatic can begin.
Yes, I can make fun of myself.
And another yes, this will be the only time I break formality in this article.
The history of fedposting stretches as far back as the launch of the consumer internet, with blogs and forums alike being the most dominant form of communication in the mid-to-late ’90s and early-to-mid 2000s. Before the World Wide Web, BBS was the leading but much more niche form of online communication, which meant there was little reason for government agencies to consider geeky nerds and hacktivists a legitimate threat to the status quo. Once the greater internet flourished in a Wild West-esque fashion, however, there was an inevitability in mentally unstable netizens or those disillusioned with society using the then-untapped potential of the internet to assemble a group of like-minded individuals to commit crimes or to even overthrow state or federal governments.
With that possibility looming over those in power, there needed to be expanded capabilities to surveil internet activity for any possible sign of criminal plotting and to possibly prevent crimes before they could begin. Hence the tried and true method of mass surveillance… and fedposting as well. Designed to entrap would-be criminals in their tracks, arrests could be made quickly as IP tracking and subpoenas sent to forum operators made what was already a low-risk job even easier for quickly modernizing entities such as the CIA and NSA.
What they hadn’t counted on however was the quickly adaptive nature of netizens, with their quick realization that the anonymous boards quickly appearing in Japan such as Futaba Channel and 2channel, and later on in America through the rise of 4chan, negated the usage of even a pseudonym, bringing about true and unrestricted speech online which remains mostly intact to this very day.
In response, an undetermined amount of task forces were set up purely to fedpost anonymously on these sites and their retrospective boards since it was more difficult to tie tripcodes to any individual user. And as the years went on, the effectiveness and impact of fedposting gradually lessened to the point where the tactic seemed on its way out.
Then Donald Trump came into play.
The 2016 election and all the partisan acts that came with it are still felt to this day, with a shrinking but ever louder half of the American population singing his praises despite the numerous compromises he allowed himself and Jared Kushner to make on practically all his campaign promises in 2015. But with the last somewhat legitimate election ever taking place in America being set in stone, fedposting went from a method of catching criminals through legally dubious (and sometimes illegal) methods to one of many practices that increasingly had an agenda against a certain type of American: the Trumpublican.
As conservatives became emboldened by Trump’s electoral victory and began to discuss topics and align with beliefs that were once forbidden in establishment circles, often at the expense of those who held those beliefs for a longer period, those who lingered in the shadows or simply wanted to indulge in anarchistic fantasies began to make inroads with Trumpublicans who were as disillusioned as they were, or were easy to manipulate. Most of this radicalization occurred on the aforementioned message boards, but some significant cases occurred with either coded language or detailed explanations on centralized platforms such as Twitter and Gab.
On that note, an event and its subsequent handling on alt-tech platforms such as Gab would prove to be so catastrophic that it gave ammunition to those already fed up with the establishment and its demonization of said people, and those who had recently shifted their beliefs: the doxxing of Patriot Front.
Near the end of January, Unicorn Riot had acquired and subsequently released nearly 400 gigabytes of information pertaining to the behind-the-scenes work conducted by Rousseau’s organization. Initially reported outside of UR themselves by Ars Technica, it was soon mass reported by every other mainstream media outlet under the sun.
So how did conservatives and the politicians they worship react to Americans collectivizing and organizing consistently to fight for an ever shrinking amount of freedoms?
Did they condemn the source of the leaks, an openly pro-Antifa organization?
Did they reach out to those affected to offer their support knowing how easy it is to lose your livelihood for the crime of wrongthink?
No, what they did instead was publicize photos and the identities of Patriot Front members because of their deep-rooted belief that an organized movement consisting of young, fit, and White Americans just has to be part of a federal organization, and not naturally founded as a result of dissatisfaction with where America was headed as a country. Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit, Wendell Rogers, and dozens of gloypers across social media continued to perpetuate the false claims of federal involvement in Patriot Front in a poorly thought out campaign to demoralize those sitting on the fence. And needless to say, they were not happy.
How did the internet move to see fedposting less as an entrapment scheme, and moreso a genuine gripe with governments taking advantage of those whose main concern was optics? Simple, they overplayed their hand in response to who they perceived to be a threat (Trump) and in turn managed to turn those already actively avoiding the mainstream media through controlled opposition such as Q and OANN into far-right and even alt-right advocates entirely disillusioned with the state of affairs both domestically and worldwide.
And once you’ve shown your hand, even if unintentionally, you can never undo what you’ve enabled. To all the three-letter agencies, I wish you a very “fuck you” as you try to discern who’s one of your agents and who’s a pissed off citizen detailing how your inevitable downfall will occur.