December 1, 2023 | VICE

Active Clubs, a growing threat in the US and Canada

ISD’s report ‘Active Clubs: The Growing Threat of ‘White Nationalism 3.0’ across the United States’ was featured in an article from VICE News about the growth behind the network of racist fitness clubs in Canada. The article references our research explaining how the expansion of active cells throughout Canada, in similar fashion to the US, is the result of ‘White Nationalism 3.0’– or a decentralized network that seeks to make white nationalism more palatable to the general public.

Our investigation found that the strategy has been working as the number of Active Clubs and their volume of activity has been increasing since August 2022: 53 channels on Telegram associated with the network, 36 of which were created in the last six months of 2022.

The article notes that the success is largely due to that “anyone can pick up the Active Club brand and form a cell. Then, if that cell is consistent and active enough, it will be accepted and brought in by the network.”

The full report is available on our website.