Fox News Re-Uses Alt-Right Media to Target IGD

On Monday, June 19th, far-Right troll and video game blogger Ian Miles Cheong, who has argued that “Pepe the Frog isn’t racist” and also compared himself to Hitler, writing for far-Right publication HeatSt., published an article attacking ItsGoingDown.org entitled, Antifa Website Encourages ‘All Manner of Physical Violence’ Against Trump Supporters and Capitalists.

Two days later, the story was picked up and re-used, in some cases completely verbatim, by Fox News, along with video footage from an author at a white nationalist website, while repeating the same allegation that ItsGoingDown.org, “Promotes all manner of physical violence against Trump supporters,” without showing any direct evidence, links to quotes, or even linking to our website. Not surprisingly, it turns out that both HeatSt. and Fox News are owned by the same multinational corporate conglomerate, News Corp.

Ian Miles Cheong – Fox News smells a scoop!

Who is Ian Miles Cheong, you might ask? Cheong first came into the spotlight during the Gamergate debacle, getting into fights with Alt-Lite trolls like Milo, and then went on to make a name for himself attacking “Social Justice Warriors,” feminists, and in general protest movements while writing at HeatSt. But Cheong also became famous for another reason: his anti-Semitic online comments and association with neo-Nazism, regardless of his Malaysian background.

Ian Miles Cheong in his natural environment.

Although recently Cheong has tried to distance himself from neo-Nazi beliefs, his support for Alt-Right icons like Pepe the Frog as well as his writings show that his is committed to defending not only the Alt-Right, but attacking any grassroots movement against fascism and racism. Like Milo, Cheong as person of color provides great cover for the Alt-Right to normalize and mainstream its views, especially through outlets like Fox News. 

Screenshots of Ian Miles Cheong attacking Jews.

Ironically, although HeatSt. is part of the far-Right which rails against ‘globalism,’ and like Trump attacks “globalist elites,” HeatSt. is in fact owned by none other than the multinational corporate conglomerate Dow Jones & Company, which in turn is owned by another multinational corporation News Corp. Bloomberg describes Dow Jones & Company as distributing, “[B]usiness and financial news and information globally to consumers and organizations worldwide.” If this isn’t globalism – then what is?

Ironically, as it turns out, News Corp also owns none other – than Fox News. 

Quotes from Ian Miles Cheong

And despite the use of ‘quotes’ in the title of the HeatSt. article, the piece actually doesn’t quote from anything that IGD has written – or even republished that has the phrase, ‘All Manner of Physical Violence.’ To be clear, there is no link, no quote, and no screenshot. It is this sort of half-assed and piss-poor journalism, called by some “fake news,” that has made the far-Right, from Alex Jones’s lawyer stating that he is ‘playing a character,’ to Mike Cernovich promoting the idiocy of #Pizzagate, a countrywide laughing stock.

But while we may laugh at these conspiracy theories, the accusations that we want to physically kill every single person in the United States that voted for Donald Trump are very real and very false, but clearly are designed to not only be click-bait, but also act as a green light for violence against our movement.

Ian Miles Cheong on journalistic ethics. We hear Fox New is hiring!

To go even further, on the HeatSt. Facebook, the publication doubled down, going as far as to use this quote along with the shared link to the article: ‘It’s really all manner of physical violence, whether using guns, knives, or molotovs.’

Again, while this gives the reader or viewer on social media the impression that this ‘quote’ is coming from IGD itself, or even – located in the article – this quote is not referenced anywhere in the article or found anywhere in connection to IGD, other than coming directly from HeatSt. In short, HeatSt. created ‘quotes’ in order to get hits.

The quote however does bear a striking resemblance to a video promoted and hosted by The Rebel Media, and created by Alt-Lite troll Jack Posobiec, entitled, Antifa: Unmasked. Recently, The Rebel Media was forced to print a retraction and apology along with the video, after it came out that the ‘film’ plagiarized line by line a similar project created by a member of the Alt-Right, Jason Kessler, who in recent months has worked with other white nationalists to organize Klan like rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia. Recently, Posobiec has further been disgraced, being ‘let go’ from The Rebel Media and even being shunned by the Alt-Right. Guess even neo-Nazis has standards. 

The Rebel Media apologies for the plagiarism of Jack Posobiec, who stole from a member of the Alt-Right to make a ‘film’ about antifascists.

Moreover, in recent weeks the fake Twitter account @OfficialAntifa, which is run by Alt-Right trolls, has produced a series of inflammatory tweets while promoting all sorts of violence. In it’s bio, it links directly to ItsGoingDown.org. Despite being exposed by Buzzfeed as a complete and total fake, Twitter refuses to ban this account and many people, especially those on the Right, take it as complete and total fact.

Why did you delete this tweet @OfficialAntifa? Stand by your leftist promotion of violence against those you oppose you Fascists. pic.twitter.com/JhAHMi3Oy7

— Nat Shupe (@NatShupe) June 17, 2017

Two days after the HeatSt. article was published, Fox News picked up on the story and re-used it almost verbatim for an article and video entitled, Antifa Website Calls for Violence Against Trump Supporters. The Fox News article is almost a line by line direct copy and paste from the HeatSt. article.

Clearly, ‘journalists’ at Fox News read the HeatSt. article, and then simply rewrote bits and pieces of it for their own website and news programming. Thus, the cycle is complete from Alt-Right trolls, to Fox News, to straight into your living room TV set – all owned by the same corporation of course! 

Furthermore, in the video that is posted in the Fox News story, it features protest footage from the Twitter account of Brittany Pettibone, an author at the white nationalist website, AltRight.com, run by Richard Spencer, the founder of the Alt-Right who became infamous after his supporters gave neo-Nazi salutes to shouts of, “Hail Trump!,” only blocks away from the White House. This is the world we live in now, where neo-Nazis and open fascists create media that is then picked up by larger outlets with a reach of tens of millions.

Fox News shows viewers an image of a violent news website, complete with forest scenery.

Like the HeatSt. article, the Fox News piece features as “evidence” that ItsGoingDown.org is inciting violence against Trump supporters, a photo from a poster ItsGoingDown.org republished in April of 2017.

While the poster was not designed or made by ItsGoingDown.org, ironically it is based off of a image created by none other than the US government, and depicts a Nazi stormtrooper in World War II surrendering to a US soldier who is pointing a bayonet. Below that image, a neo-Nazi member of the Alt-Right wearing a “Pepe the Frog” pin, the same pin that was worn and being talked about by Richard Spencer only months before during his viral, “Punch heard around the world,” can be seen doing the same surrender.

In connecting the fight against the Nazis in World War II to the fight currently against neo-Nazis and the Alt-Right, which recently even the Southern Baptist Convention has moved to denounce, the poster image is quite clear. It reads: “WE BEAT EM’ BEFORE…WE’LL BEAT EM AGAIN!” Nowhere in the text does it say anything about “killing all Trump supporters,” or anything that is promoted as ‘quotes’ from IGD in either the HeatSt. or Fox News articles.

The fact that HeatSt. and Fox News, two media outlets run by the same multinational globalist corporations, have to lie through their teeth and make up fake quotes to then sell their snake-oil for ratings and hits – is telling. 

Ian Miles Cheong argued that Pepe the Frog, the symbol of the Alt-Right, was not a racist symbol – HeatSt. later apologized. Total snowflakes.

We urge readers – please, let the irony really sink in. 

The same far-Right troll that argued that “Pepe the Frog isn’t racist,” is the same ‘journalist’ writing for a multinational corporate conglomerate, arguing that a poster against what is clearly a member of the Alt-Right wearing a pin of Pepe the Frog somehow equals violence “against all Trump supporters.” Then, an ever bigger media outlet, owned by the same multinational corporation, picks up and repeats the same bullshit.

Since the HeatSt. and now Fox News article have hit the web, IGD has gotten a small trickle of hate mail, including some threats of violence and murder. While most of these messages are simply that we are “pussies” or that we will be “turned into lampshades,” others are more direct. Of course, this is the desired end result of these articles. To mobilize and justify far-Right violence against social movements building community autonomy and self-defense.

Thus, what is so crystal clear to us at IGD, is that this entire ‘fake news cycle’ shows the interplay between both the grassroots Alt-Right, multinational corporations, and the end result of their rage: attacking and destabilizing genuine grassroots movements.  

But ironically, it is those on the Right which can’t seem to grasp that what they are being presented with is manufactured for them by multinational corporations, while at the same time they cry so loudly that they are fighting against the ‘globalism’ of ‘the elites.’

The Trump administration is a disaster: economically, politically, and environmentally. Trump hasn’t made America great again for anyone but the billionaires and CEOs which staff his cabinet.

While we’ve often found ourselves at opposite sides of the police barricades with Trump supporters, overall we hope that people that were attracted to Trump’s campaign out of a desire to ‘shake up the system’ see that the real people that are ruining the world are not refugees, immigrants, Muslims, the poor, the uninsured, and Black Lives Matter organizers – but the global corporate and political elite. No Syrian refugee fleeing ISIS ever cut my healthcare! 

To state it as clear as day, we don’t want to kill people just because they voted for Donald Trump.

What we have said, is that we need to organize in our communities around everyday issues that affect poor and working-class people, across lines of race, gender, and sexuality; from the trailer parks, to the reservations, to the inner cities, to the rural towns. And at the end of the day, this is what makes us a threat, this is why the rich and powerful fear us, and this is why multinational corporations have to hire Alt-Right trolls to lie about us so goddamn hard.

The far-Right is a joke, promoted by big corporations to divide everyday people. If you’re interested in joining the true rebels, the actual grassroots fighting the elites, well then you’ve come to the right place.

After all, we beat ’em before, and we’ll beat ’em again!