Submission
Our crew has noticed increasing infiltration of right wing grifter-streamers into protests, namely Frank Scales and his Cameraman/bodyguard Ian McGinnis. These people generate rage bait content for the right wing media landscape by conducting bad faith “gotcha” interviews and debates to farm and selectively crop clips that get injected into the right wing outrage ecosystem. They use this tactic to generate money for their operations and create propaganda. They are disruptive and destructive and demand a response.
It is not so simple as normal bash the fash tactics sadly- this is actually a strategy built into their program, similar to Christian hate preachers like Aden Rusfeldt or the Westboro Baptist Church that stoke conflict and then use legal warfare and press charges to go after those who oppose them. They do want you to hit them, so they can record content, dox you, sue you, and generate income streams from playing victim. Frank scales is already pressing charges against a woman who confronted him on a bus and is weaponizing police to seek a man who he claims maced him at a protest. We need to adapt to these tactics very strategically.
Our crew has found simple content denial and disruption to be the most effective deterrence. This has been observed to stop them from generating content during several specific incidents. We point to two specific instances that were effective in stopping these grifters from getting a foothold-
In one case, a grifter and his camera man were attempting to generate clips from an anti ICE protest. An operator observed from afar, made sure their identity was fully protected and they weren’t in view of the camera in question, and in a moment when the grifter was physically separated from police by a crowd and distracted by protest marshals physically walling him out, they quickly snatched the phone recording and threw it into the crowd, where it was not recovered. Phones can be smashed if there is time or thrown into storm drains (apologies to the Delaware watershed) or locked solar trash compactors. This immediately denies the material ability to generate content. It is an extremely easy point of vulnerability and can be quickly exploited with a few people acting as diversions. Operators can quickly change clothes and disperse from there with the mission accomplished. Flags and banners can also be used to block cameras and generate confusion and block visibility to ensure these operations go smoothly. Anyone can do this and immediately disappear into a crowd or into the city. Dedicated teams should be set up to ensure this security at every protest.
In another case, operators interjected at every attempted interview or debate to just sound bomb the stream with declarations of the streamer’s support for the Epstein-pedophile class- this is messaging that resonates with their intended audience that should be reinforced. No clips from this day were used in later content because of this disruption. Alerting speakers to the presence of these streamers and having them address the crowd and laying down specific disruptive tactics that deny them their rage bait content also seemed highly effective. We think speakers at rallies should identify the targets as bad faith actors and encourage people not to engage beyond physical interference of their ability to generate content.
Optics matter and these are delicate situations that must be approached with intention and specific tactics to ensure that their effectiveness is rendered inoperable. We cannot be doing solely a brute force approach, we need specific tactics. The simple denial of content generation seems to be the best move going forwards. By all means, bash those fash when feasible, but make sure the cameras are off first. It should be done quickly and quietly without turning into grand confrontations that they salivate for. We have the power to easily and decisively counter these tactics. They will suffer in a silence that we can easily enforce.
Expect counter measures like security details and securing vulnerable devices to persons. Find creative workarounds. Stay adaptable, This is an optics battle that we can win if we make sure to go straight for the eyes.
