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Understanding the Use of the Term “Weaponized Autism” in An Alt-Right Social Media Platform

Welch, Christie; Senman, Lili; Loftin, Rachel; Picciolini, Christian; Robison, John; Westphal, Alexander; Perry, Barbara; Nguyen, Jenny; Jachyra, Patrick; Stevenson, Suzanne; Aggarwal, Jai; Wijekoon, Sachindri; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Penner, Melanie

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Authors

Christie Welch

Lili Senman

Rachel Loftin

Christian Picciolini

John Robison

Alexander Westphal

Barbara Perry

Jenny Nguyen

Suzanne Stevenson

Jai Aggarwal

Sachindri Wijekoon

Simon Baron-Cohen

Melanie Penner



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.

Citation

Welch, C., Senman, L., Loftin, R., Picciolini, C., Robison, J., Westphal, A., Perry, B., Nguyen, J., Jachyra, P., Stevenson, S., Aggarwal, J., Wijekoon, S., Baron-Cohen, S., & Penner, M. (2023). Understanding the Use of the Term “Weaponized Autism” in An Alt-Right Social Media Platform. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53, 4035–4046. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05701-0

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 24, 2022
Online Publication Date Aug 10, 2022
Publication Date 2023-10
Deposit Date Sep 4, 2022
Publicly Available Date Sep 14, 2022
Journal Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Print ISSN 0162-3257
Electronic ISSN 1573-3432
Publisher Springer
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 53
Pages 4035–4046
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05701-0
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1195846

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.





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