The term “weaponized autism” is frequently used on extremist platforms. To better understand this, we conducted a discourse analysis of posts on Gab, an alt-right social media platform. This is a study conducted by Holland Bloorview Children's Hospital in Toronto and Christian Picciolini et. al.
-
Christie Welch,
-
Lili Senman,
-
Rachel Loftin,
-
Christian Picciolini,
-
John Robison,
-
Alexander Westphal,
-
Barbara Perry,
-
Jenny Nguyen,
-
Patrick Jachyra,
-
Suzanne Stevenson,
-
Jai Aggarwal,
-
Sachindri Wijekoon,
-
Simon Baron-Cohen &
-
Melanie Penner
Abstract
Background
The term “weaponized autism” is frequently used on extremist platforms. To better understand this, we conducted a discourse analysis of posts on Gab, an alt-right social media platform.
Methods
We analyzed 711 posts spanning 2018–2019 and filtered for variations on the term “weaponized autism”.
Results
This term is used mainly by non-autistic Gab users. It refers to exploitation of perceived talents and vulnerabilities of “Weaponized autists”, described as all-powerful masters-of-technology who are devoid of social skills.
Conclusions
The term “weaponized autism” is simultaneously glorified and derogatory. For some autistic people, the partial acceptance offered within this community may be preferable to lack of acceptance offered in society, which speaks to improving societal acceptance as a prevention effort.