The far right is increasingly recruiting via online fitness groups, whose popularity soared during the pandemic, prompting fears that new members are being radicalised to commit acts of violence, new analysis shows.
Researchers have detected a network of online “fascist fitness” chat groups on the messaging app Telegram with a large number directly linked to the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative, Britain’s biggest extreme right group.
European and US fight groups are regularly glorified in these groups, including the white supremacist Rise Above Movement (RAM), notorious for having
four members arrested in 2018 for inciting and participating in violence against anti-racist protesters.
Among the UK groups to laud RAM is the White Stag Athletic Club (WSAC), whose members post images of swastika flags, and celebrated the acquittal last November of Kyle Rittenhouse, who
shot dead two anti-racist protesters in Wisconsin in 2020.
At-home fitness boomed during the pandemic with some digital fitness apps attracting tens of millions of users and online groups proliferating to replace gym closures.
Analysis by anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate says the British far right has positioned physical fitness as part of a “wider political struggle” and helped explain how online groups like WSAC could grow even after Covid restrictions have been lifted.
“The danger of these groups lies, firstly, in their emphasis on transforming activists into soldiers that might be motivated to commit acts of violence. And, secondly, in the community they create, where members start to associate sometimes real, positive change in their lives with fascism,” said the organisation’s annual assessment of the extreme right.
