These images are from a 2015 book written by an American cartoonist

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 10, 2021 at 08:49
2 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

Facebook users have shared three images alongside the claim that they show pages of a handbook used by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to educate agents on how to infiltrate and monitor right-wing forums on the internet. The claim, however, is false. The images show pages from a 2015 book authored by American cartoonist Ben Garrison. "It’s not an FBI textbook," he confirmed to AFP.

The images were shared here on Facebook on July 24, 2021.

Screenshot of the misleading post, captured on July 28, 2021

The Korean-language post reads in part: "This is a section of a HANDBOOK distributed to FBI agents. It provides an education in methods to infiltrate right-wing websites like 4ch as a user. You can see it as a manual used to track right-wing public opinion and ferret out and conduct surveillance on dangerous figures.

"It is a typical example of cyber surveillance used to monitor people deemed as internal enemies based on their political affiliation."

The images show book pages that contain descriptions of popular Internet memes and terminology used on online forums, most notably 4chan.

Identical images were also posted alongside a similar claim on Facebook here, here and here; and on YouTube here.

The claim, however, is false.

A Google reverse image search found the images were posted here on the website Know Your Meme on March 21, 2016. They were captioned: "Rogue Cartoonist, by Ben Garrison".

According to his website Garrison is an "independent political cartoonist based in Northwest Montana," who "began drawing cartoons in 2009 to protest the central banker bailout, bloated government and the slide toward tyranny".

His book titled "Rogue Cartoonist: The Internet Perils of a Citizen-Muckraker" was published on April 1, 2015.

This article from Wired.com states his often controversial work has "made him a darling of the so-called alt-right".

Garrison confirmed to AFP on August 5, 2021 that the images were indeed from his book "Rogue Cartoonist."

"In my book I tried to explain the various memes that appeared on 4chan and elsewhere at that time," he said. "It’s not an FBI textbook and in fact I sold very few copies. I took the book out of print about five years ago."

Some of the handbooks used by the FBI that are available online, such as here, here and here, do not contain any references to online forums.

AFP reached out to the FBI with an inquiry about whether the agency educates its agents on monitoring online forums, but has not received a response.

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