Emillie, Kaspar Beelen, Ivan and Marc have presented research on the so-called “intellectualisation” of race-related language on YouTube comments and transcripts at the latest 2019 Digital Humanities conference. This research was based on research completed at the Digital Methods Winter School sprint in collaboration with Stephanie Tintel, Daniël Jurg, Laurie Le Bomin, Jonathan Hendrickx, Kristina […]

Sal Hagen of OILab appeared in the Dutch national news on 5 August 2019 to briefly touch on the horrific shootings in the United States, in specific to discuss the imageboard 8chan. Listen to the NPO Radio 1 fragment here (click “18:00 – 18:30” and go to 9:28). Watch the NOS Journaal clip here from […]

Marc Tuters was interviewed for a report by the Dutch news programme Nieuwsuur, talking about fringe Internet platforms. Watch the item here:

Marc Tuters spoke at the event “The Spaces of the European Far-Right” at de De Balie in Amsterdam yesteday. In his talk, Marc discusses 4chan, Kekistan, and populism. Rewatch the event here or in the video below. Marc’s talk starts around 36:42.

In conjunction with the exhibition Truth That Lies, Impakt Festival has organised a panel around the topics of misinformation, alternative facts, fake news and information manipulation where Florian Cramer, Tomislav Medak and Emillie de Keulenaar were present as speakers. Social media sites and search engines are the key ingredients of the change from the manipulative form of propaganda […]

In early December 2018, BAU (Design College of Barcelona) and GREDITS (in collaboration with Artnodes, HANGAR and Barcelona’s Museum of Contemporary Arts) organised their second ‘Interface Politics’ conference, this time focusing on the topic of post-truth. The conference “encourages not only the academic community, but also artists, designers and activists to share their experience and […]

We published a scholarly article in M/C Journal on the origins and dynamics of the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, in which a wildly speculative narrative was constructed about a secret child sex ring led by Democrat officials. This conspiracy, as is argued, was enabled by the affordances of 4chan, that stimulate a “butterfly effect” of bullshit. […]

Marc Tuters of OILab joined a conference panel organised by the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Journalistiek and IMMovator, together with journalist Joris Luyendijk and writer/Internet-sceptic Evgeny Morozov. Tuters touched upon the merging dynamics between Internet memes and post-truth politics, forming vehicles for political propaganda. In doing so, Tuters claims the meme-culture of these online right-wing movements […]

One of the main Dutch public broadcasters, VPRO, featured an article in their magazine with comments from Marc Tuters of OILab. It raises questions on 4chan’s current culture as a cultic milieu, and how to consider the humorous politics of Kekistan, a fake country dedicated to trolling campaigns targeting identity politics. “Wat is de voedingsbodem […]

OILab’s research on thematising memes was featured in an article by De Correspondent, an online platform for investigative journalism. In the Digital Methods Initiative’s 2018 winter school, Sal Hagen from OILab, together with a group of researchers, classified memes from 4chan/pol/ as related to specific themes. The research is written up on the DMI website. […]