Why it appears like right-wing ICE narratives are dominating social media

[ad_1] Within the hours and days after information and movies unfold of the ICE capturing of Renee Good in Minneapolis final week, a small military of right-wing, pro-Trump creators, journalists, and influencers descended on the town and flooded social media.

They filmed protests; rode together with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Safety; documented — and at instances seemingly instigated — confrontations with protesters; and labored a competing, ICE- and Trump-friendly narrative out of what was taking place in Minneapolis. From the bottom, they churned out content material portray protesters as lawless, demonstrations as riots, and anti-ICE activists as extremists or criminals. Exterior of the state, right-wing influencers and huge social media accounts amplified these movies, posts, and descriptions to succeed in a lot wider audiences.

Proper-wing content material creators, influencers, and journalists have descended on Minneapolis within the wake of the dying of Renee Good by an ICE officer. Social media monitoring reveals that the suitable has quickly tried to flood web platforms with pro-ICE, Trump-friendly protection. Their content material has largely obtained extra views than left-leaning content material. These developments present how efficient right-leaning content material creators have been in muddying on-line discourse. Left-leaning creators and critics are at an obstacle on-line in competing with this flood of content material. To date, this effort seems to have muddied the dialog round Good’s killing and Minneapolis residents’ response to President Donald Trump’s ICE surge — at the very least amongst right-leaning audiences. (Polling this week reveals the movies and capturing have damaged by means of to an overwhelming share of Americans , and majorities of People do not believe the shooting was justified , or assume the ICE agent who shot Good should be criminally charged .)

However social media analytics present that these right-wing influencers have been efficient in flooding the zone — producing giant volumes of content material and drawing viewers.

To log onto social media platforms now could be to not solely see the movies and outrage, but in addition fixed counter-narratives, makes an attempt to justify Good’s killing, and arguments that ICE’s presence in Minneapolis is warranted.

And that reveals a deeper imbalance in American politics and media in 2026: Whereas witness video, mainstream and conventional information, and liberal commentators have formed a part of the controversy over ICE and Trump’s home immigration agenda, these vital voices and activists lack the identical type of distribution machine to push their narrative that these on the suitable have used to some impact.

In that sense, the Minneapolis capturing’s disjointed on-line realities match into a well-recognized drawback for liberals, the American left, and the broader anti-Trump coalition since 2020 — simply as they lacked their very own model of a Joe Rogan or Charlie Kirk to succeed in the lots or compete for hearts and minds, in addition they lack the influencer and social media infrastructure that has been churning out ICE-friendly content material since at the very least the summer of 2025 .

There are a number of the explanation why.

What right-wing content material creators have been capable of do

To know what’s taking place on-line and measure how efficient right-wing creators have been since January 7, the day of Good’s capturing, I turned to information researchers at Magnitude Media, a communications and digital media agency that tracks the unfold of proper, impartial, and left-leaning posts and movies on-line. Their findings complicate what many customers could also be seeing in their very own feeds.

Over <a href="https://dashboards.cluvio.com/dashboards/78dy-0w59-n6ke/shared?filters=%7B%22comparison_topic%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22platform_filter%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22political_lean%22%3A%5B%5D%7D&sharingSecret=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzaGFyaW5nX3Rva2VuIjoiMmI5ODZlZDUtZWJkZS00ODlkLTllODktOWVjNmNjZTMyODE0IiwiZXhwIjoxNzkyMTc5NjA4LCJmaXhlZF9wYXJhbWV0ZXJzIjp7ImV2ZXJncmVlbl90b3BpYyI6WyJJbW1pZ3JhdGlvbi9JQ0UiXX19.DX6nEdSnwDSMIg0m5at5fQWxuwfn85Sb6wyjwGLYIEs&sharingToken=2b986ed5-ebde-489d-9e89-9ec6cce32814&timerange=1767744000~1768435199">the last week , left-leaning, ICE-critical posts have made up the most important share of all posts on immigration or ICE as a subject. They’ve obtained extra engagement from social media customers (about 110 million interactions in comparison with 76 million for right-leaning posts) and have dominated on TikTok, Instagram, and Bluesky.

“Left-leaning pages have obtained 29 million extra engagements than right-leaning pages on posts associated to immigration or ICE in line with our monitoring, and 37 million extra engagements on posts that immediately point out Renee Good, Jonathan Ross, or Minneapolis,” Carly Evans, the director of analytics at Magnitude Media, advised me. “Proper-leaning pages started to shut this hole over the weekend and even led on Friday and Saturday, however as of Monday, left-leaning pages had been nonetheless producing 37 p.c extra engagement on immigration-related posts than right-leaning pages.”

In different phrases, the narrative promoted by the Trump administration and its allies— and strengthened by some algorithms — doesn't totally match actuality.

For those who take a look at developments, you start to grasp why that’s so. This left-leaning domination on-line solely lasted for roughly a day and a half earlier than right-wing content material creation started to ramp up. Magnitude’s monitoring reveals that by January 9, engagements by right-leaning content material started to shut the hole, whereas views of right-leaning content material started to surge previous left-leaning content material (Magnitude defines “engagement” as whole clicks, likes, or shares, whereas “views” are the variety of instances a chunk of content material was seen, and aren't “distinctive views”).

Earlier than Good’s dying, some right-wing creators had been already lively in Minnesota, for instance, by “investigating” instances of alleged fraud in the state that had already attracted media attention earlier than the killing of Good. However many extra have arrived over the last week , interviewing ICE brokers, boosting the Trump administration’s protection of ICE’s ways, and documenting intense moments as the town grapples with the federal authorities’s presence within the area.

The result's a disproportionate quantity of content material produced and shared throughout social media by the largest right-leaning content material creators, even when engagement with their content material isn’t essentially retaining tempo with that quantity.

Vox analyzed the highest 20 manufacturers or usernames driving this dynamic. A handful of right-leaning customers dominate the highest of this chart, and their content material performs nicely: The best of those are Nick Sortor, one of many right-wing influencers on the bottom in Minneapolis; and Eric Daugherty, a Trump-friendly journalist whose accounts often increase Republican or conservative media clips, social media posts, or uncooked video from Minneapolis from influencers like Sortor .

Extra not too long ago, the hole between proper and left has narrowed for each engagement and views of immigration- and ICE-related content material. However the right-wing equipment continues to be totally operational, and extra superior than the way it was working throughout ICE operations in other American cities last year .

Why liberals and the left are at such an obstacle

What the previous few months of viral ICE movies and content material manufacturing reinforces is the uphill battle critics of the administration nonetheless face when making an attempt to match the suitable’s social media presence. You possibly can broadly clarify this in two methods: particular person incentives and structural benefits.

Individually, right-wing content material creators have extra expertise exhibiting up wherever motion is going down or is about to happen. They could have monetary incentives or ideological motivations, they usually have a willingness to take dangers and put themselves in excessive depth conditions — as Sortor , right-wing journalist Cam Higby , and influencer Nick Shirley have carried out and broadcast. With allies within the administration, they is probably not as open to bodily harm or authorized threat as ICE critics, conventional or unbiased journalists, or protesters themselves. As a substitute of being vilified by the vice chairman, the secretary of Homeland Safety and her spokespeople, or by different right-wing influencers, these content material creators get ethical assist and boosts on-line.

However the structural disadvantages are additionally extreme, consultants advised me. These right-wing influencers, creators, and journalists profit from not simply being companions with the administration, however from the administration itself encouraging ICE agents to function as content material producers, or dedicating cash to be spent on partnerships with pro-ICE creators .

Then there’s entry. In Minneapolis, DHS brokers have supplied the identical type of ride-along privileges to pleasant or allied creators that they’ve supplied on the border or in different American cities final 12 months. The identical type of entry has not been prolonged to different reporters in Minneapolis, so unbiased or left-leaning journalists have as an alternative countered with ride-along fashion reporting with neighborhood activists, as Zeteo Information’ Prem Thakker did this week .

Past this, there’s additionally an even bigger, monetary and community asymmetry at work right here: funding for this type of protection and attain on social media and unbiased shops isn’t comparable on the left to what exists on the suitable.

“The precise is simply manner higher funded,” Ryan Broderick, the founding father of Rubbish Media, an unbiased new media firm that focuses on overlaying politics and the web, advised me. He was on the bottom final week after the ICE killing of Good, covering ICE agents, protests , and the right-wing journalists and influencers who descended on the town. “They’re getting cash both on their very own or they’re getting cash from highly effective donors,” Broderick mentioned. “The far-right groyper type of dwell streamers that I used to be following round, they had been there for at the very least per week they usually’re nonetheless there. They've much more sources in that manner.”

Certain sufficient, a take a look at X, YouTube, Threads, or TikTok nonetheless reveals recent, newly up to date content material from the Higbys, Sortors, or Shirleys of the web.

“There’s additionally probably not an incredible place for ‘leftist’ or ‘anti-ICE’ content material creators to really share their footage and generate profits,” Broderick advised me.

He talked about a couple of shops which might be doing on-the-ground protection in a method just like what right-wing content material creators are doing, like Minnesota-based Mercado Media or independent journalist Amanda Moore . However these sorts of creators and journalists are restricted of their scope or attain on social media platforms, he mentioned.

“For those who’re going to movie something, you're placing it on YouTube, you’re placing it on TikTok, you’re placing on X, and people platforms are simply not hospitable to that type of content material,” Broderick mentioned. “We had been capable of go, as a result of we're in a partnership for our podcast with Courier Information they usually have extra sources than we do, however I don’t assume I might have bankrolled this myself. It’s not like we’re going to generate profits off of it the best way {that a} right-wing YouTuber can instantly monetize it.”

Broderick additionally famous that one different drawback is the brazenness and willingness of right-wing social media accounts to take impartial or uncooked video footage from road scenes and edit or reshare it in a manner that “makes individuals look loopy. So even in case you are only a journalist and also you’re sharing what’s taking place on the bottom, your stuff goes to go probably the most viral when it’s weaponized by the suitable.”

Extra broadly, this phenomenon suits right into a broader problem for the left. As was proven by the affect of podcasters in 2024 and Charlie Kirk and conservative youth organizations over the previous few years, the left and liberals in America lack a number of the identical sources and attain that the American proper has. In moments like this, within the aftermath of Good’s killing, the dearth of this type of social media equipment makes it more durable to contest the narratives that Trump and his allies are trying to force on the nation .

So, newsrooms, unbiased creators, and activists have the deck stacked in opposition to them in making an attempt to remain on this story, sustain consideration, and push for accountability. However till the anti-Trump coalition is ready to muster the sources and brokers to compete with the suitable’s personal equipment, political debates and discussions will proceed to be clouded by mess, right-wing slop, and propaganda.

“Nothing on the left that's the similar in dimension on-line as the suitable,” Broderick mentioned. “There’s simply not a manner proper now anymore to create the identical quantity of content material that the suitable wing can create on the similar stage and get the identical eyeballs as a result of this has been a years within the making course of. There are clearly leftist streamers, however even Hasan Piker shouldn't be that large in comparison with anybody of his dimension or notoriety on the suitable. You possibly can’t actually examine.”