A censored message from a right wing extremist Telegram chat raising money for Australian neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell's legal defence

Australian right-wing extremists are making thousands of dollars to support their activities using a smorgasbord of online fundraising tools, according to a new report.

Despite being chased off many of the major platforms, far-right extremists still have access to a network of lightly or unmoderated digital platforms that allow them to make money from the attention they earn online.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Ariel Bogle’s Buying and selling extremism: New funding opportunities in the right-wing extremist online ecosystem examines how a sample of these groups, organised through the Telegram messaging platform, use different online tools to raise money. 

“The fundraising facilitated by these platforms not only has the potential to grow the resources of groups and individuals linked to right‐wing extremism, but it’s also likely to be a means of building the RWE community both within Australia and with overseas groups and a vector for spreading RWE propaganda through the engagement inherent in fundraising efforts,” she wrote. 

What Bogle found is that far-right funding has moved from being structured around groups — i.e. charging membership dues — towards an individual creator model, not unlike that of an Instagram influencer.

Individual right-wing extremists solicit donations or earn money through creating engaging and credible content (“[right-wing content creators] may be supported for ostensibly ‘living’ the ideology they propagate”) from their audiences.

This arrangement, Bogle argues, can also incentivise people to make right-wing extremist content to earn money rather than making content to support their beliefs.

The report documents more than 20 tools used to solicit donations, facilitate transactions, and earn and store money. These range from major platforms like Google and Amazon advertising programs used on far-right websites to niche “alt-tech” platforms which offer alternatives to popular streaming or video platforms. Activities supported by these platforms include livestreamed interviews, selling merchandise featuring right-wing extremist propaganda, or cryptocurrencies that allow money transfers that are difficult or impossible to trace.

The report notes that these platforms are generally opaque, making it difficult to ascertain how much money is changing hands between Australian right-wing extremist creators and their audiences. Small glimpses such as the sharing of cryptocurrency wallets with thousands of dollars or public gifts of up to US$50 to ask a question on a livestream shows that these funding methods can be lucrative.

Many of these platforms have policies ostensibly banning “hate speech” or other policies that would seem to preclude Australia’s right-wing extremists from using them. Bogle suggests their continued use of the platforms is because of limited enforcement, the relatively small size of Australian creators, or because of a lack of attention given to Australia. 

While acknowledging that right-wing extremism is an issue that goes beyond its finances, Bogle makes a variety of recommendations to stymie its online fundraising efforts, including enforcing or considering new reporting counter-terrorism financing obligations, considering prosecuting fundraising efforts under existing laws that prevent criminals from benefiting from their crimes, and requiring more transparency reporting from the platforms. 

“Australian law enforcement, intelligence agencies, policymakers and civil society should explore involves addressing and undermining the financial incentives that can help sustain and grow such movements,” she wrote.