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Understanding the Use of the Term "Weaponized Autism" in An Alt-Right Social Media Platform.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Repository DOI


Change log

Authors

Senman, Lili 
Loftin, Rachel 
Picciolini, Christian 
Robison, John 

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The term "weaponized autism" is frequently used on extremist platforms. To better understand this, we conducted a discourse analysis of posts on Gab, an alt-right social media platform. METHODS: We analyzed 711 posts spanning 2018-2019 and filtered for variations on the term "weaponized autism". RESULTS: This term is used mainly by non-autistic Gab users. It refers to exploitation of perceived talents and vulnerabilities of "Weaponized autists", described as all-powerful masters-of-technology who are devoid of social skills. CONCLUSIONS: The term "weaponized autism" is simultaneously glorified and derogatory. For some autistic people, the partial acceptance offered within this community may be preferable to lack of acceptance offered in society, which speaks to improving societal acceptance as a prevention effort.

Description

Keywords

Alt-right, Autism, Discourse analysis, Hate speech, Social media, Humans, Autistic Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Social Media, Social Skills

Journal Title

J Autism Dev Disord

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0162-3257
1573-3432

Volume Title

53

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Government of Canada New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRFE-2019-01579)