Democracy Research Institute: ‘nationalistic, anti-liberal content is especially popular among far-right groups in Georgia

The Democracy Research Institute has summarised the results of 11-month long monitoring of far-right groups disclosure on social platforms and online media, which revealed that nationalistic and anti-liberal content is especially popular among them.

Nationalistic content is particularly characteristic for the following Facebook pages: ‘Turkey is an Occupier’, ‘Silenced Georgians’ and ‘Kardhu’, while anti-liberal content is popular among the followers of the pages - ‘Anti-liberal League’, ‘Alt-Club’ and ‘Geo Pepe.’

Media monitoring revealed that social platforms are one of the main tools for far-right groups for spreading their massages and attracting followers.

Three main characteristics of Georgian far-right rhetoric have been revealed during the media monitoring:

• Arising anti-western sentiments among Georgian population and discrediting western institutions
• Supporting Kremlin politics and spreading pro-Russian messages
• Spreading irrational fears and hatred throughout society using fake information

The key findings have been revealed during the monitoring:

• Far-right groups are tightly connected through the action plans or strategy development processes, who are attempting to demonize the US and spread anti-liberal messages
• George Soros is presented as the main instigator of depravity
• Local and international non-governmental organisations are actively demonized
• The most popular targets for far-right aggression are feminists, immigrants, LGBT community, Muslims and liberals

DRI studied and analysed 20,235 posts of 12 far-right group leaders and 15 far-right groups on different Facebook pages, as well as 2,317 articles published by 9 online media platforms.

The monitoring was conducted with the financial support of the Embassy of the Netherlands in the framework of the project Understanding and Combating Far-right Extremism and Ultra nationalism in Georgia.