This
article analyses civic monitoring that targets online radical right populist
anti-immigration activism in Finland to discuss whether outsourcing monitoring
to platform users is a feasible means to respond to exclusionary-populist
online communication. For several reasons, the widely discussed – and
potentially harmful – phenomena related to the emancipation of radical right
populist online counterpublics have proved difficult to control. First of all,
using exclusionary and antagonistic rhetoric or spreading disinformation is not
illegal, which makes policing it ineffective. Second, journalistic scrutiny
tends to increase the salience of radical right agendas without significantly
curbing their appeal. Third, social media companies have passed down responsibility
for monitoring extremism on their platforms to users. As an option, it has been
suggested that users could organize to push potentially harmful content to the
margins of online publics. The study reveals that the materiality and
visibility of online anti-immigration action allows it to be monitored by
anti-radical activists to a certain extent, and that online action aimed at
resisting prevalence of online radical right activism ranges from civil
counter-arguing and pursuing of deliberation to anti-racist hate speech and
naming-and-shaming campaigns. There are notable caveats that undermine the
efficacy and viability of civic monitoring as a means of watching over radical
right populist online action. The main problems are related to the connective
and anti-populist nature of the civic monitoring – allowing it to be
counter-surveilled and used as fuel for populist online communication – and
potential danger and harm to the activists involved.