From the Margins to the Feed: Platformed Mainstreaming of the Far Right

Far-right actors increasingly try to present themselves as normal, legitimate players in mainstream politics. Drawing on a study of how German far-right actors – from parties to alternative media and social movements – use hyperlinks on Facebook, this article shows how they adapt to platform rules, share mainstream media content to borrow credibility, and link out to sites that are harder to moderate. It argues that the recent loosening of content moderation, such as Meta ending third-party fact-checking in January 2025, may strengthen these dynamics, and calls for treating social media companies as profit-driven actors with political stakes of their own.

Global Dialogue, 15(2). International Sociological Association