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

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

They filmed protests; rode together with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Safety; documented — and at occasions 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. Outdoors of the state, right-wing influencers and enormous social media accounts amplified these movies, posts, and descriptions to succeed in a lot wider audiences.

Thus far, 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 least amongst right-leaning audiences. (Polling this week exhibits the movies and taking pictures have damaged by way of to an overwhelming share of People, and majorities of People don’t imagine the taking pictures was justified, or assume the ICE agent who shot Good must be criminally charged.)

However social media analytics present that these right-wing influencers have been efficient in flooding the zone — producing massive 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 additionally 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 talk over ICE and Trump’s home immigration agenda, these essential voices and activists lack the identical type of distribution machine to push their narrative that these on the fitting have used to some impact.

In that sense, the Minneapolis taking pictures’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, additionally they lack the influencer and social media infrastructure that has been churning out ICE-friendly content material since at the least the summer season 2025.

There are a number of 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 taking pictures, 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 the final 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 based on our monitoring, and 37 million extra engagements on posts that instantly point out Renee Good, Jonathan Ross, or Minneapolis,” Carly Evans, the director of analytics at Magnitude Media, instructed 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 % extra engagement on immigration-related posts than right-leaning pages.”

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

In the event you take a look at traits, you start to know 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 exhibits 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 occasions a bit of content material was seen, and are usually not “distinctive views”).

Earlier than Good’s demise, some right-wing creators had been already energetic in Minnesota, for instance, by “investigating” instances of alleged fraud within the state that had already attracted media consideration earlier than the killing of Good. However many extra have arrived over the past week, interviewing ICE brokers, boosting the Trump administration’s protection of ICE’s ways, and documenting intense moments as 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 most important right-leaning content material creators, even when engagement with their content material isn’t essentially preserving 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 properly: The simplest 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 frequently enhance Republican or conservative media clips, social media posts, or uncooked video from Minneapolis from influencers like Sortor.

Extra lately, 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 different American cities final 12 months.

Why liberals and the left are at such an obstacle

What the previous couple of 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 fitting’s social media presence. You’ll be able to broadly clarify this in two methods: particular person incentives and structural benefits.

Individually, right-wing content material creators have extra expertise displaying up wherever motion is happening or is about to happen. They could have monetary incentives or ideological motivations, and so they 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 might not be as open to bodily damage or authorized threat as ICE critics, conventional or impartial 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 instructed me. These right-wing influencers, creators, and journalists profit from not simply being companions with the administration, however from the administration itself encouraging ICE brokers to operate 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 provided the identical type of ride-along privileges to pleasant or allied creators that they’ve provided 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 impartial or left-leaning journalists have as a substitute countered with ride-along fashion reporting with neighborhood activists, as Zeteo Information’ Prem Thakker did this week.

Past this, there’s additionally a much bigger, monetary and community asymmetry at work right here: funding for this type of protection and attain on social media and impartial retailers isn’t comparable on the left to what exists on the fitting.

“The appropriate is simply means higher funded,” Ryan Broderick, the founding father of Rubbish Media, an impartial new media firm that makes a speciality of overlaying politics and the web, instructed me. He was on the bottom final week after the ICE killing of Good, overlaying ICE brokers, protests, and the right-wing journalists and influencers who descended on town. “They’re being profitable both on their very own or they’re being profitable from highly effective donors,” Broderick stated. “The far-right groyper type of stay streamers that I used to be following round, they had been there for at the least per week and so they’re nonetheless there. They’ve much more assets in that means.”

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

“There’s additionally probably not a terrific place for ‘leftist’ or ‘anti-ICE’ content material creators to really share their footage and generate income,” Broderick instructed me.

He talked about a number of retailers which can be doing on-the-ground protection in a mode just like what right-wing content material creators are doing, like Minnesota-based Mercado Media or impartial journalist Amanda Moore. However these sorts of creators and journalists are restricted of their scope or attain on social media platforms, he stated.

“In the event you’re going to movie something, you might be 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 stated. “We had been capable of go, as a result of we’re in a partnership for our podcast with Courier Information and so they have extra assets than we do, however I don’t assume I might have bankrolled this myself. It’s not like we’re going to generate income off of it the way in which {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 avenue scenes and edit or reshare it in a means that “makes folks 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 fitting.”

Extra broadly, this phenomenon matches 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 couple of years, the left and liberals in America lack plenty of the identical assets 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 making an attempt to pressure on the nation.

So, newsrooms, impartial creators, and activists have the deck stacked towards 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 assets and brokers to compete with the fitting’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 fitting,” Broderick stated. “There’s simply not a means proper now anymore to create the identical quantity of content material that the fitting 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 fitting. You’ll be able to’t actually examine.”