It's Going Down (collective)

It's Going Down is a media collective for anarchist and anti-fascist action in the United States that publishes news and opinion. The collective publishes news and analysis, producing investigative work on neo-Nazi and white supremacist networks as well as reports on social struggles.

It's Going Down
Formation2015 (2015)
TypeMedia collective
Websiteitsgoingdown.org

Contents

It's Going Down publishes both news and opinion. The website launched in 2015 and organizes a wide variety of content, ranging from interviews to best practices manuals for anarchist organizations to doxxing of operators behind fake antifa social media accounts. The website reported that it was averaging 20–30 thousand visitors a day as of mid-2017, with over 2 million total site views in August 2017.[1] This indicates a significant increase from 2015, at which point it received an average of 300 daily page views. The website experienced a major spike in readership following Donald Trump's presidential election in 2016.[2]

It's Going Down has tracked the links between individuals such as Joey Gibson with white supremacist organizations and activists, reported on the monitoring of an anti-child separation group by the FBI, explored the role of anti-activist informants in the United States and exposed alt-right trolls operating fake antifa social media accounts. Their work has been referenced in outlets such as Bellingcat, BuzzFeed News and The Intercept.[3][4][5][6] It has at times been the first to break coverage on events on the far-right.[7] Other times, it has been the only media source outside right-wing media to cover events.[4]

History

In September 2017, Peter Beinart quoted It's Going Down as stating that "[s]uddenly, anarchists and antifa, who have been demonized and sidelined by the wider Left have been hearing from liberals and Leftists, 'you've been right all along.'"[8]

In August 2020, Facebook expanded its "Dangerous Individuals and Organisations policy", removing It's Going Down alongside over 800 QAnon, far-right militia, anti-racist and anti-capitalist groups. It's Going Down and Crimethinc., another left-wing and anarchist publishing platform that dates back to the 1990s, released a joint statement against the bans. This announcement followed a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on "stopping anarchist violence" led by Ted Cruz which mentioned It's Going Down among other media collectives.[9]

Fox News has included coverage on It's Going Down, often critically. In June 2017, Jesse Watters interviewed an individual who claimed to be the leader of "Antifa". The segment started with Watters reading from "An Open Letter To Liberals & Progressives From The Black Bloc", an editorial on the site. Kevin, the interviewee, claimed to have written the article. The interviewee later made clear that the appearance had been a prank and that he had no association with either It's Going Down or any black bloc group. It's Going Down denied that the article had been written by Kevin prior to his admission and the website reported that it received dozens of death threats following the coverage on Watters' World. Donald Trump may have watched the show and Eric Trump shared a clip from it. The website reported similar death threats after Tucker Carlson interviewed Ian Miles Cheong about antifa.[10]

References
  1. Montgomery, Blake (7 September 2017). "Here's A Guide To The Antifa Network That's Trying To Solidify A Nazi-Punching Movement". BuzzFeed News.
  2. Cammeron, Brenna (14 August 2017). "Antifa: Left-wing militants on the rise". BBC News.
  3. Evans, Robert (17 August 2018). "Fascist Activists Have Spent The Last Year Trying to Win Over Police". Bellingcat.
  4. Klippenstein, Ken (11 November 2019). "The U.S. Military Is Monitoring Interfaith Group Opposed to Child Separation, Leaked Document Reveals". The Intercept.
  5. Brown, Alleen; Knefel, John (1 September 2018). "The FBI Tried to Use the #MeToo Moment to Pressure an Environmental Activist Into Becoming an Informant". The Intercept.
  6. Montgomery, Blake (27 September 2017). "Was This Banned Fake Antifa Twitter Account Actually Troll Tweeting From Russia?". BuzzFeed News.
  7. Palma, Bethania (21 February 2020). "Who Is Kaitlin Bennett, And Why Did Her 'Liberty Hangout' Promote Holocaust Denial?". Snopes.
  8. Beinart, Peter (6 September 2017). "The Rise of the Violent Left". The Atlantic. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  9. Lennard, Natasha (20 August 2020). "Facebook's Ban on Far-Left Pages Is an Extension of Trump Propaganda". The Intercept.
  10. Montgomery, Blake (18 July 2017). "A Fake Antifa Member Trolled A Fox News Host, And The President May Have Watched It". BuzzFeed News.
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