Content warning: This essay describes both acts of violence and disturbing threats thereof, and contains obscene language.

On June 8, 2014, two Las Vegas residents went on a shooting spree, killing two police officers, a civilian, and finally themselves. The motivation was likely political: on top of the dead officers they placed the Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” Flag, widely associated with the far-right Tea Party movement, and one shooter reportedly said “the revolution has begun.” (Source.)

The senseless violence was of course condemned by commentators of all political stripes, but there was an interesting take on it by conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones: He believed the shooting was a false flag operation orchestrated by the US government, naming Nevada senator Harry Reid as the likely culprit. (Source.)

This isn’t new for Jones per se; he seems to believe that virtually everything is part of some grand government conspiracy. What made it interesting, though, was the fact that the shooters were reported as fans of Jones, and they apparently believed that the shooting was in line with his and other extremists’ beliefs. Politics USA reports:

“Despite the Alex Jones propaganda machine’s wild claims that this is another false flag, facts show that right wing nut jobs who listen to Jones (along with Fox, Limbaugh and the standard right wing propaganda sources) were responsible for the Las Vegas shooting spree that left two police officers and an innocent bystander dead.”

Take a moment to process that. These people believed largely the same things that Jones did, but when they turned violent in the name of those beliefs, he concluded, apparently instantaneously, that they were not supporters at all, but part of the vast enemy conspiracy.

I think it’s a clear sign that an ideology is harmful if anyone putting the ideology into practice is assumed to be an enemy attempting to destroy the movement from within. I call it the Incredulity Line: rank-and-file members of an extremist movement inch closer and closer to it, and further and further away from reality… until one of them crosses it, at which point they are instantly and retroactively disowned. By “retroactively” I mean that, since preserving the ideology is the most essential component of the extremists’ psychology, the offenders are assumed to be false flags. They must be false flags; the integrity of the movement depends on it. The thought that one could denounce their violent actions without rejecting their claim as followers of one’s ideology is anathema, since it’s seen as an implicit acknowledgement of imperfection within the ideology rather than a simple recognition of the reality that every movement has its bad apples.

If you follow this blog, you know by now where I’m going with this. GamerGate is a perfect example of this idea. In fact, it may be the most definitive example I’ve come across. When Brianna Wu was doxed on 8chan, the other anons’ immediate reaction (beyond reporting the dox, for which I will admit they should be commended) is that someone outside the movement is responsible, possibly Wu herself:

That’s 4 anonymous posts alleging, with no evidence, that Wu doxed herself, and 3 more alleging a false flag without naming Wu as the perpetrator. It is, of course, patently absurd that a woman would give her personal information to an anonymous group of people already known to hate her solely to discredit them; if you honestly think there’s nobody out there who would kill Wu if they had the chance, consider that this was tweeted to Wu within minutes of the above dox:

But let’s leave that absurdity aside for now, and focus on the instant disowning of the doxer. In all likelihood, the doxer was someone like the other commenters on the thread: a young man who hates Wu for what she represents, feminist influence in the game industry. Had that individual posted anything in the thread other than a dox, they probably would have fit in without comment (to the extent that this is possible on a chan board, of course). The only thing that separates them is that they have crossed the incredulity line: by this point GamerGate has publicly disowned harassment and doxing, so “GamerGate doesn’t harass” is an article of faith of the ideology. Thus doxing by a GamerGater is rejected as a priori impossible, and the false flag conclusion is instantaneously drawn, with evidence to support the idea gathered (or created) later. But there’s no other difference between this poster and his compatriots: he just crossed a line they didn’t want to admit existed.

One other aspect of the Incredulity Line that must be noted is that it’s very, very blurry. Everyone in a movement like this has their own idea of where exactly it is. For Alex Jones, killing cops crossed the line; for his fans, it didn’t. For the doxer on 8chan, doxing didn’t cross the line; for the other posters, it did. The reason it’s so malleable is because the different members of a movement have different moral standards. Can doxing be a moral act if the target is assumed to be morally reprehensible? Our doxer would say so; others would not.

It is not an inherently bad thing that members of a movement disagree on morals. The troubling aspect here is the default assumption that anyone with different morals isn’t actually part of the movement. It tends to create a movement that paradoxically cannot agree on its own moral compass and yet castigates its members for moral deviation. By contrast, a healthy movement is one whose members recognize that others within the movement can disagree and still claim membership. It should also be mentioned that this does not preclude a movement from ejecting members that are plainly and obviously destructive to others, as the doxer here was. Rather, one must recognize that just because they are ejected doesn’t mean they were infiltrating with malicious intent.

In short: a healthy movement is one that tolerates dissent within its ranks, within reason; and when a member is too harmful, the movement does not conclude that the member’s motives were inherently insincere.