Michael Colborne
@colborne.bsky.social
28K followers 250 following 980 posts
@bellingcat.com journalist etc focused on the transnational far right. i give trainings. i take pictures of stickers. Signal: michaelcolborne.01
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
colborne.bsky.social
Pro tip: if you're trying to hide the location of your latest far-right 'fight night' all the blurring and and tight shots won't help you if you host it in a place with bright orange walls (and also lie to the owner about why you're renting the place)

www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/09...
Geolocating an Active Club 'Fight Night' in San Diego
An orange wall helped Bellingcat identify the location of an annual far-right event attended by neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
www.bellingcat.com
colborne.bsky.social
“It seems self-evident that generative video makes the world of representation (if not the world in general) more boring….there is a sense of theoretically infinite video unleashing an infinite boredom, depleting our capacity to see by inundating our eyes with synthetic sights. “
bildoperationen.bsky.social
«Video generators allow people to experience ideas or beliefs as content without their having to invest their imagination into making them real, into ‹really› believing in them and coming to terms with the implications of their beliefs.» @robhorning.bsky.social on Sora Slop Feeds
There are too many waterfalls here
Sora slop feeds
robhorning.substack.com
colborne.bsky.social
“Turek…has been investigated over an image that appeared to show him making a Nazi salute and also over allegations by his ex-girlfriend, who accused him of rape and abuse. Turek denied all the allegations, calling them “absurd.””
politico.eu
Talks on forming a Czech government have been thrown into chaos after a front-runner to get the foreign minister job was engulfed in a scandal over social media comments.
Czech government talks stall over offensive remarks linked to likely next foreign minister
Former MEP’s party threatens to walk away from talks to form a new government.
ow.ly
colborne.bsky.social
just have to remember to say “boatswain” correctly
colborne.bsky.social
tune in to hear me make numerous bad nautical puns. suggestions welcome.
bellingcat.com
This week, Bellingcat's @colborne.bsky.social will tackle the Bellingcat Challenge live. Michael is used to mapping the movements of the transnational far-right; let’s see how he handles mapping the movements of ships...
Help him out on Wednesday, 5pm CEST/11am EDT: www.youtube.com/live/dOQc2sd...
Bellingcat Open Source Challenges - Live!
YouTube video by Bellingcat
www.youtube.com
colborne.bsky.social
yeah I didn’t want to stretch too far from the original, but the point is they said it in Dutch and even I heard it and know how vile it is
colborne.bsky.social
regardless as a very much non-native and non-fluent Dutch speaker, I listened to the video and thought oh wow they just said that out loud with people filming, ok, that’s a choice
colborne.bsky.social
Meanwhile, antisemitic chant at a far-right anti-immigration protest today in Amsterdam: “Hey Franz Timmermans, you dirty filthy cancer Jew, just go and die”

(not getting into semantics of translating kkr, which I’m tempted to more loosely translate as “f*cking” in this context but that’s just me)
maartenhopman.bsky.social
Het is dat ze geen watermeloen-button droegen, anders werd dit misschien wel antisemitisch genoemd.
Reposted by Michael Colborne
davidneiwert.bsky.social
This has always been part of the GOP playbook: Downplay incidents of right-wing violence, and then repurpose them as supposed acts of leftist terrorism for public consumption. They first did this in 2020.
atrupar.com
Bondi: "We've been living through a horrific cycle of political violence in this country ... night after night antifa wrecks havoc on the streets of our cities. In Minnesota, a gunman murdered a state lawmaker and her husband."
Reposted by Michael Colborne
bildoperationen.bsky.social
This is both fascinating & frightening. There is a demand for images that show and confirm what people already know and believe to be true, and AI slop meets that demand—with visual content that emblematically visualizes what the headlines report. One could call it synthetic hypervisualization
1/
paleofuture.bsky.social
That TikTok account has a few fake videos of reporters getting detained. They make these videos because it’s a big story in the news. Real reporters are getting arrested. And so people are making AI videos to get engagement on TikTok.
dontbeonline • 1d ago
Journalist gets detained while doing her job #ForYou, #viral, #foryoupage, #tikto... more
• Contains: Bad Boys (The...
Reposted by Michael Colborne
Reposted by Michael Colborne
dieworkwear.bsky.social
in 2011, the president of antifa hired me to give fashion consultancy to the organization. i recommended everyone wear navy suits with tan shoes, dress sneakers, and golf polos with slim chinos. if you arrested everyone today wearing these things, you'd destroy antifa
colborne.bsky.social
“The term "remigration" appears in the election manifestos of the PVV, FvD, BBB, JA21, and BVNL. Experts warn against the normalization of the term and the far-right ideology behind it. "Remigration represents the mass deportation of asylum seekers and people with a migration background."”
colborne.bsky.social
“One cannot account for [fascism]…without accounting for fascism’s intrinsic ridiculousness. This is what any serious analysis of its contemporary forms should consider….there is no reason not to laugh while analyzing fascist tendencies in our contemporary societies”
www.e-flux.com/journal/76/7...
Reposted by Michael Colborne
reuters.com
'When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,' the Norwegian Nobel Committee said as it announced Maria Corina Machado as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize
colborne.bsky.social
"After [AWD] was listed as a terrorist entity, many former members joined "Active Club Canada," according to the RCMP, which announced the charges against Althorpe in December 2023."
Reposted by Michael Colborne
rtodkelly.bsky.social
"the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"
Reposted by Michael Colborne
bellingcat.com
Satellite analysis by Bellingcat found that wildfires destroyed over a third of Namibia’s most visited wildlife reserve last month, impacting crucial grazing lands for endangered species, including black rhinos and elephants. www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/10...
Wildfires Ravage One of Africa’s Largest Nature Reserves - bellingcat
Satellite analysis of the Etosha wildfires in Namibia has found that more than a third of the nature reserve was burned.
www.bellingcat.com