The digital reality can be deceptive, knows Ofra Klein

Ofra Klein is fascinated by the cat-and-mouse game between social media and the radical right. Platforms employ moderators to remove photos, videos and comments that break the rules. Far-right individuals, in turn, look for ways to bypass those rules. “And those rules sometimes change daily”, Klein says.

Social media do not reflect reality. That is also a theme in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray is portrayed in a painting and then persuaded to live a life devoted to beauty. His portrait ages, but he himself does not. With every wrong he commits, his portrait becomes more wrinkled. While Dorian’s own appearance stays youthful, he feels ashamed of the image of himself. What is seen on the painting does not match reality. “That’s often how it is on social media too”, says Klein. “In that sense, Oscar Wilde was far ahead of his time.”

The book was censored for its references to homosexuality. Implicit references were modified or softened, yet remained recognisable to perceptive readers. Klein sees a similar pattern among extremist groups online. “They too use hidden messages to spread hateful ideas and to avoid being detected by platforms.” She now recognises the homosexual references in The Picture of Dorian Gray that she once missed as a schoolgirl. The writer was convicted for homosexuality and fled to Paris, where he later died. Klein visited his grave and recently travelled to Dublin, Oscar Wilde’s birthplace.

You might think these are busy times for a researcher of the far right. And indeed: Klein receives emails from journalists after events such as the murder of Charlie Kirk in the United States and the violent clashes between far-right demonstrators and police officers in The Hague. She is no longer surprised by such incidents. “There’s just so much happening.”

It was very different ten years ago, when she began her bachelor thesis on populist memes. Back then, people would sometimes tell her that her research was ‘completely irrelevant’. “Later, when I started my PhD research, people said that anyone working on the far right would never find a job, because it was all just a temporary phenomenon.” And look where we are now. “Even in countries where it used to be unthinkable, there’s growing electoral support for the far right”, Klein concludes.

Her work seems more socially relevant than ever, though she remains modest. She calls her PhD position at the European University Institute in Florence ‘luck’, just like the Veni grant she received this year. And she describes her recent nomination by New Scientist for Science Talent of the Year as ‘very kind of my faculty’.

She began her research career out of a personal fascination with the vulgar memes her supermarket colleagues used to share on their Facebook pages. “I couldn’t understand why you’d post an image portraying Mark Rutte and his party members as gay on your timeline”, says Klein. She no longer wonders why people share such content. “It seems to have become normal. So many people do it.”

The field is constantly changing, and Klein finds those movements particularly interesting. What was unacceptable ten years ago can now easily pass. “The rules of social media platforms are constantly changing, sometimes even daily.” Can regulation on social media turn the tide against far-right movements? Klein is pessimistic. “Things have already gone so far, and there always seem to be ways around it – for example, by creating your own platform, as president Trump did with Truth Social.” In that sense, it’s better to write a book than a tweet: a tweet can be deleted, but a book remains permanently.