RECIPROCAL DYNAMICS BETWEEN AUSTRALIA’S POLITICAL FRINGES ON TWITTER

The analysis of 404,375 tweets from 151 far-left and 75 far-right accounts reveals that both groups are primarily driven by oppositional narratives, where activity by one fringe inspires counter-mobilisation by the other. While the far right frequently engaged in hateful content targeting minorities and promoted conspiratorial views on COVID-19, the far left focused on social and economic justice, with only a small fraction of content meeting specific definitions of antisemitism. The report concludes that the far left does not pose a security threat equivalent to the far right and suggests that moderating far-right extremism could reduce overall counter-mobilisation.

• Oppositional narratives and discussion about political opponents serve as primary drivers for mobilisation on both the far right and far left, meaning surges in activity by one group likely trigger counter-mobilisation by the other.
• Far-right Twitter activity is characterised by hostile narratives targeting marginalised communities, specifically anti-trans hate speech, and the promotion of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, including vaccine scepticism and anti-mask rhetoric.
• Far-left Twitter activity focuses predominantly on economic and social justice, including workers' rights, institutional racism, and anti-capitalism, with few instances of hostile narratives except for antipathy toward police following the death of George Floyd.
• There is a significant divide in media consumption: far-right users rely heavily on hyper-partisan and radical ideological sources, whereas far-left users engage more frequently with mainstream or centrist media such as ABC News.
• A small proportion of far-left content was identified as antisemitic under the IHRA working definition, specifically where contemporary Israeli policy was compared to Nazi Germany; 17 out of 257 tweets (6%) mentioning Israel contained such comparisons.
• The research concludes that describing the far left as a threat equivalent to the far right is inaccurate, and that policing far-right extremism could potentially reduce left-wing counter-mobilisation.

APA

Simmons, C., Farrell-Molloy, J., Davey, J., & Peucker, M. (2021). RECIPROCAL DYNAMICS BETWEEN AUSTRALIA’S POLITICAL FRINGES ON TWITTER. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Reciprocal-Dynamics-Between-Australias-Political-Fringes-on-Twitter.pdf

Chicago

Simmons, Cécile, Joshua Farrell-Molloy, Jacob Davey, and Mario Peucker. RECIPROCAL DYNAMICS BETWEEN AUSTRALIA’S POLITICAL FRINGES ON TWITTER. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2021. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Reciprocal-Dynamics-Between-Australias-Political-Fringes-on-Twitter.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Simmons |first1=Cécile |last2=Farrell-Molloy |first2=Joshua |last3=Davey |first3=Jacob |last4=Peucker |first4=Mario |title=RECIPROCAL DYNAMICS BETWEEN AUSTRALIA’S POLITICAL FRINGES ON TWITTER |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=October 2021 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Reciprocal-Dynamics-Between-Australias-Political-Fringes-on-Twitter.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{simmons2021reciprocal, author = {Simmons, Cécile and Farrell-Molloy, Joshua and Davey, Jacob and Peucker, Mario}, title = {{RECIPROCAL DYNAMICS BETWEEN AUSTRALIA’S POLITICAL FRINGES ON TWITTER}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2021}, month = oct, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Reciprocal-Dynamics-Between-Australias-Political-Fringes-on-Twitter.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }