Saturday is April Fool’s Day and I suggest we make use of it. I want every Gabber, Alt-Right and conspiracy Theorist dropping round after round of weaponized autism on the enemy via social media. Our team has also been concerned with the ethics surrounding reporting and dissemination of our findings from this study and from our larger study. We are aware of the potential to cause harm in the greater autistic community by highlighting an association between autism and engagement with online hate material, when our best information suggests that autistic people are much more likely to be targets of online aggression than perpetrators (Ashburner et al., 2019; Campbell et al., 2017). We have attempted to mitigate this concern with careful use of language in our reporting, with special attention to suggestions made by our autistic coauthor (JR). you don’t understand I AMweaponized autism. I AMthe memetic autistic nonsense. it’s thanks to autists like me that Trump is your President (if you’re American), it’s autists like me that keep balance within the universe. you’re welcome

For these posters, autism is a readily exploitable resource that can be channelled in pursuit of their agenda, and especially as a means for lashing out at those who are considered “the enemy.” Indeed, Gab posters within our data discuss how autistic people can be deployed to advance the interests of the alt-right. The comments reveal a sometimes implicit, other times explicit assumption that autistic people are ripe for manipulation. Weaponized autism is a wonder to behold to us regular people. You guys are thermonuclear! Thank you for never giving up on anything! Kennedy B, Atari M, Davani AM, Yeh L, Omrani A, Kim Y, Gonzalez E. The Gab Hate Corpus: A collection of 27k posts annotated for hate speech. PsyArXiv. 2018 doi: 10.31234/osf.io/hqjxn. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] DEO. How White Nationalism Courts Internet Nerd Culture. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@DeoTasDevil/how-white-nationalism-courts-internet-nerd-culture-b4ebad07863dForscher PS, Kteily NS. A psychological profile of the alt-right. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2020; 15(1):90–116. doi: 10.1177/1745691619868208. [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]

Pearson, A., Rees, J., & Forster, S. (2022). “This was just how this friendship worked”: Experiences of Interpersonal Victimisation in Autistic Adults. Autism in Adulthood. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2021.0035 [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] While weaponized autism is often discussed in terms of direct political advancement, it is also discussed as a tool for general mischief making and “entertainment.”“Shitposting” and other forms of online pranking that capitalize on diligent detail-oriented research (such as identifying people of interest) are among the LULZ strategies and other tactics discussed earlier, which are employed to simultaneously demonstrate the group’s power and distract from their most nefarious work and intentions. Appleton JV, King L. Journeying from the philosophical contemplation of constructivism to the methodological pragmatics of health services research. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 2002; 40(6):641–648. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2648.2002.02424.x. [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] It was hard for me to accept! Asperger's had been on the table for a long time, but I clung to the other possibility of ADD instead. I don't know why I was so much more afraid of autism than of ADD, but I wouldn't be surprised if 4chan's slurs played a part. The Gab definition of weaponized autism is rooted in an esoteric understanding of autism itself. When Gab posters speak of autistic people, they are not necessarily referring to someone who has been diagnosed as autistic or meets the diagnostic criteria if assessed. Rather, they are applying a stereotype of autism, which is largely of their own making, but has roots in medical and media representations of autism. Their autism archetype is a person with hyper-focus, social awkwardness, ‘savant’ or very narrow intelligence, a specific or specialized talent, and is usually single (probably a virgin) and “NEET” (not in education, employment, or training).

Osborne, L. (2002). Little Professors. American Normal: The Hidden World of Asperger Syndrome, 37–83 Albrecht S, Fielitz M, Thurston N. Introduction. In: Fielitz M, Thurston N, editors. Post-digital cultures of the far right. Online actions and offline consequences in Europe and the US. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag; 2019. pp. 7–22. [ Google Scholar] Let us praise all the fine meme war soldiers on the Right side of history! Your weaponized autism is appreciated and will not be forgotten Hookway N. Entering the blogosphere’: some strategies for using blogs in social research. Qualitative Research. 2008; 8(1):91–113. doi: 10.1177/1468794107085298. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Greene VS. “Deplorable” satire: Alt-right memes, white genocide tweets, and redpilling normies. Studies in American Humor. 2019; 5(1):31–69. doi: 10.5325/studamerhumor.5.1.0031. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]

Calling other [people] “weaponized autists” is a high honor bestowed on those who fight for good here :) Kendall L. Nerd nation: Images of nerds in US popular culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 1999; 2(2):260–283. doi: 10.1177/136787799900200206. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]Jasser, G., McSwiney, J., Pertwee, E., & Zannettou, S. (2021). ‘Welcome to# GabFam’: Far-right virtual community on Gab.New Media & Society,14614448211024546 While the use of extant texts that have been scraped from online discourse can be seen as “non-invasive”, there remain important ethical considerations for this study. Eynon, Fry and Schroeder (Eynon et al., 2017) propose three concepts at the core of research ethics: confidentiality, anonymity, and informed consent. Maintaining confidentiality and anonymity was a straightforward process, as we did not gain access to the “real” identities of Gab users. Additionally, we do not share usernames when reporting on this work. While informed consent is important in human subject research, it is well accepted that certain kinds of research can ethically proceed without informed consent, including observational research in public places and analysis of texts that are “in the public domain” (Willis, 2019). To be a weaponized autist is to be valued. Weaponized autists are held up as heroes within the Gab posts. Many posters express admiration, appreciation, and affection for these “soldiers” for their cause.