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Members of a leading far-right and fascist organisation were radicalised via YouTube's 'autoplay' function, taking them from right-wing and libertarian content into a rabbit hole of neo-nazism, a new study has found.

A researcher in the criminology department at City St George's University analysed podcasts, interviews and articles by 40 members of the group Patriotic Alternative describing their "red pill moment" when they became members of the far right.

33 out of the 40 PA activists analysed by the study cited social media as important to their radicalisation, with three quarters citing YouTube as a key instrument in their political journey.

Patriotic Alternative was launched in 2019 by Mark Collett, a former BNP organiser who recommends Mein Kampf to his followers. At the core of the group's ideology is a belief in the concept of a "white genocide" and a "great replacement" of white people committed by Jewish and liberal elites, who they believe undermine the white race by allowing immigrants into European nations.

The study which sifted through 1000 hours of material from PA activists, found that the users eventually drawn to PA began their political journey as consumers of online content from the likes of British right wing YouTuber Sargon of Akkad and were moved on to content from Patriotic Alternative by YouTube's autoplay function.

A PA activist who went under the pseudonym "Hope on the Horizon" described his 'redpill' journey, stating that: "[Y]ou go through all the different Sargon era and Ben Shapiro and all that sort of nonsense, you know, the sort of civ nat rebellion sort of rubbish. And then eventually you come across the people like [PA leaders] Mark Collett, Laura [Melia]. And then you find things like [12-hour-long, neo-Nazi propaganda film] Europa: The Last Battle, that sort of stuff. And then, you know, you've hit the bottom of the rabbit hole, there's nowhere else to go".

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James Owens, a PA activist who was branded "Britain's most racist YouTuber" by The Times, who used the pseudonym "The Ayatollah", noted that the "algorithm is definitely real", crediting it with his radicalisation and recalling that while he had been doing his washing one evening, YouTube fed him the six-hour pro-Hitler propaganda film The Greatest Story Never Told.

Dr Tony Karas, the researcher behind the study, told Byline Times that the members of PA he studied "narrate their [political journey] almost entirely in terms of content they consumed".

"PA sustains their involvement [in the far right]. The fact that they can chat to people in their little Telegram groups and meet up online. But I think the content and the power of the parasocial relationship is really important".

Sargon of Akkad, the pseudonym used by YouTuber and former UKIP candidate for the European parliament Carl Benjamin, was the most frequently cited gateway channel into Patriotic Alternative content, according to Karas.

Patriotic Alternative's recruitment tactics have targeted young internet users in the past. One report from Anglia Ruskin University found that the group had been attempting to recruit young members through video game live streams.

In 2019, Collett made £7,265.93 from his videos on YouTube, with the platform taking a 30% cut of his total earnings.

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