Towards the end of 2021, a white supremacist Twitter account fired off a flurry of posts about how the introduction of electric cars was a conspiracy to control the public.
“They want you to drive electric cars. Why? Because that gives them more control over driving, one of the last bastions of freedom,” tweeted @patrickbasedmn.
Almost a year later, a strikingly similar article appeared on the Daily Mail Australia website headlined: “Another vehicle of control: There’s a dark side to the rise of electric cars that could rob us of the freedom and pleasure of driving forever.”
The article was written by Sam Duncan. Crikey can reveal that he is also the person behind the @patrickbasedmn account, the handle of which is wordplay that combines the name of the sociopathic central character of American Psycho character Patrick Bateman and an alt-right internet slang term “based”. He joins a number of far-right individuals exposed by Crikey as writing in mainstream publications such as Spectator Australia.
The @patrickbasedmn account regularly tweeted racist, anti-Semitic, anti-immigration and anti-vaccine content to its 32,000 followers. This includes criticising people for their “Naziphobia” and commending countries for expelling Muslims and Jewish residents.
It has collaborated with a group called Anti-White Watch, which was called a “sinister new effort from white nationalists to co-opt the language of social justice”. One of its posts was even featured in an investigation revealing a Fox News producer’s history of liking racist and sexist tweets. The account was deleted last week after Crikey sent a request for comment.
Duncan denies he is responsible for this content. He said that the account — which until October 2020 used the username @samuelrduncan and was linked to his Daily Mail Australia author profile — was taken over by a US-based friend. This person, in Duncan’s telling, subsequently changed the Twitter name and started tweeting content that Duncan does “not endorse or condone”.
Duncan promised to contact the individual who could clear things up. Crikey did not receive any more correspondence and Duncan did not provide any way to contact this individual, nor any proof that he had handed over his account.
There are many links between Duncan and the tweets of @patrickbasedmn made after the supposed account handover that undermine the claim that he is not responsible for the account.
These include:
- A shared email account between @patrickbasedmn and Duncan up until the account was deleted;
- The account’s movements appear to match Duncan’s travels through Europe, the Middle East and South Africa. For example, @patrickbasedmn complained that his hotel “has three Ukrainian flags hanging over the door” in May last year. Duncan left a Google review at the same time for a Spanish hotel that had three Ukrainian flags at the time;
- Duncan also seems to share his taste and viewing pattern of films with @patrickbasedmn. On New Year’s Eve 2022, @patrickbasedmn tweeted that the film Power of the Dog was “awful, do not watch”. A few weeks later, an IMDb profile belonging to Duncan gave the movie one star.
- Duncan shares a strong familiarity with Korean culture with @patrickbasedmn. Duncan used to teach English in Korea, has posted online about having a Korean wife and has reviewed a lot of Korean films. @patrickbasedmn tweeted about Korea, including sharing an anecdote from being there around the same time as Duncan and liking a movie that Duncan gave nine stars, New World;
- @patrickbasedmn’s strong interest in Australian far-right figures and groups despite supposedly living in the US. The account regularly tweeted about Blair Cottrell and National Socialist Network Thomas Sewell.
Duncan did not respond to questions about the myriad similarities between himself and @patrickbasedmn’s tweets.
The transformation of @patrickbasedmn’s conspiratorial tweet thread into a Daily Mail article shows how Duncan’s beliefs appear to have influenced his work on a website read by hundreds of millions of people.
Once one publication in a field of competing British tabloid magazines, the Daily Mail’s digital transformation has solidified it as an influential media behemoth and the world’s most visited English-language news website. Its sensationalist reporting has been accused of fuelling prejudice, including in Australia. Duncan wrote hundreds of articles for Daily Mail between 2017 and 2018. In the subsequent years, he irregularly published a handful of articles, including the 2022 electric car comment piece.
Beyond seemingly workshopping content on his Twitter account before publishing it in the Daily Mail, Duncan’s story selection has fuelled the spread of extreme and hateful views espoused by him privately online. One example is an article he wrote called “PICTURED: Paedophile African refugee who had sex with a 12-year-old girl and got her pregnant was allowed to stay in Australia for SEVEN YEARS — before being deported back to Africa”. It was widely shared by far-right Facebook pages including Drain the Swamp Australia, Respect Australia Rally and the Islamic Resistance Party.
Duncan confirmed he had worked for the Daily Mail but denied his views guided his story selection at the publication. Neither Daily Mail Australia nor its editor Barclay Crawford responded to requests for comment. However, Crawford did view this journalist’s LinkedIn after receiving the message.
Duncan also made an ill-fated foray into politics. He ran as an upper house candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party in the 2019 election and picked up 56 votes.
University of Sydney far-right and populism researcher Dr Kurt Sengul said the far-right has aimed to introduce its extreme ideas into public consciousness by using the media: “We’re seeing typically fringe discourses (e.g. the Great Replacement theory) being repeated in relatively mainstream outlets.”
Sengul said the acceptance of these extreme ideas into mainstream publications such as the Daily Mail has been crucial to the movement’s growing prominence: “We see the media as perhaps the most important driver of the mainstreaming and normalisation of the contemporary far-right.”
Sadly, “Daily Mail reporter secretly ran a popular racist, anti-Semitic Twitter account” is the least surprising headline I’ve read today.
The Daily Mail‘s history is rather worse than suggested by “Once one publication in a field of competing British tabloid magazines…” It has always been distinguished by its hard-right politics, reflecting the views of the Harmsworth family that has owned it for several generations. It cheered for Mussolini when he took power in Italy, applauded the party of the Austrian corporal who took over Germany in the 1930s and did all it could to promote Mosley’s Blackshirts in the UK. It’s never really changed since those days, even if the Mail did tone it down a bit once WWII started. The current chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust is Lord Rothermere, Jonathan Harmsworth, who enjoys the remarkable combined privileges, on top of tjhe influence that his media empire brings, of being in the House of Lords, living in England and yet (like PM Rishi Sunak’s wife) is ‘non-domiciled’ and therefore does not pay UK taxes.
Perhaps a new home for Tucker Carlson?
I have never encountered the details of the ownership and political orientation of these media owners. Thank you for the information. What impresses me most is how much media power is wielded by these quite far right owners, such as Murdoch and Hamsworth. There are some centre left media companies, such as the Guardian. Social media on the internet gives less well heeled owners something of a megaphone, even if with somewhat less audience reach but threats put out by right wingers on social media seems to have more impact on their targets than voices that want to stop only a few right wingers and primarily want to rally a wider public to make its views known. John Stuart Mill thought that forums of public discussion would lead to public affirmation of the truth but unhappily it seems he was wrong. Too many people communicate with others not to discover the truth but to affirm their all too smug role of cheering on their heroes and a movement that wraps them in the comfort of striving to restore past glories. We must find a better way of not only speaking truth to a wide audience but giving our audience reasonable confidence that we are speaking truth, when all forms of media so far are as good at spouting lies as they might be of speaking the truth.
Ian, I’m just responding to your comment on JSMill. I used to think he was quite wrong about some consensus on the truth emerging through public discourse, but on reflection I think we need Mill more than ever now. It seems that ‘public discourse’ has become a battle ground of warring tribes where, if you utter any comment that upsets or offends others, you are liable to be shut down and have slurs like transphobe, fascist, or nazi thrown at you. And often for what one may think is an innocent comment. Example. Below the line on a Guardian article I wrote that I wondered if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might be understood as that country’s attempt to secure its borders against the creeping influence of NATO and thus might be justified because of this, and I added, if the West continues to supply Ukraine with military aid might not Russia be justified in attacking them? The comment was removed as it did not fit their guidelines of acceptable community discussion. When I objected, saying my comment contained no bad language or slurs against other people, I was just raising a point, that too was removed.
Point. We need to be able to talk with/to anyone no matter how bizarre or offensive their views. Otherwise we just retreat to thrown insults and threats. All views need to be out in the open.
It’s a murky ecosystem out there, and another aspect of influence is that the Daily Mail is free and covers much sport, hence, many garners many eyeballs and much support.
Locally, one can see via Twitter how this ‘architecture of influence’ on the right works i.e. former journalists, influencers etc. with many followers, promote imported memes and talking points from a seemingly shared media ecosystem across the Anglosphere and parts of Europe.
One of the key links for alt right and their obsessions (shared quietly by many ageing middle class) is Canadian Rebel News Media, which is of course active locally with a correspondent, confected events and street demonstrations for further media content and sharing; this happens continuously across the board.
How does the “not domiciled” catagory work?
It was a typical tory fudge for the suparich – including a sometime Chairman of the Conservative & Unionist Party, Lord ASHTON also a massive donor who made his money in Belize providing ‘services’ to the marching powder industry – because, like the Russia oligarchs, they employ large numbers to maintain their mansions, VAT (GST) and pay the better type of besilked shysters bigbucks to defend their interests.
This is the ‘trickle down effect’ – what trickles down from a great height onto the punters is somewhat yellowish.
Very interesting – thanks Cam.
I hadn’t realized that the Daily Mail is a mainstream publication. The articles I’ve seen have been so loopy I thought it must an extremist rag.
Commonly known as the Daily Heil, courtesy of Private Eye – which also more or less launched Barry ‘Bazza Mackenzie’ Humphries in the UK.
Or The Daily Fail.
For clarity, it is Private Eye that has the Barry Humphries connection, not the Daily Mail.
Thanks for that but, seriously, anyone who misread my few words to mean otherwise needs to go back to skool.
The Daily Hate.
Great work. It’s incredibly important to unearth links such as this. The Daily Mail has long been a vehicle for hate masquerading as news media. Documenting its story production processes like this undermines its claims to be a credible news organisation.
Daily Mail and Spectator are hilariously loopy and should be included in school curriculum as examples of just how bad media can get.