Megan Squire facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Megan Squire
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Squire in 2017
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| Nationality | American |
| Education | College of William & Mary Nova Southeastern University |
| Board member of | Center for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR) |
Megan Squire is a professor who teaches computer science at Elon University. She is a researcher who studies how extreme political ideas spread online. She is also a fellow with the Anti-Defamation League. Her work helps groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center understand online extremism.
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Early Life and Education
Megan Squire grew up in a Christian family near Virginia Beach, Virginia. She went to the College of William & Mary. There, she studied both art history and public policy.
After college, she became interested in computers. She took a job as a secretary at a company that made antivirus software. Later, she earned her PhD from Nova Southeastern University in Florida. Before becoming a professor, she worked at a new company, often called a startup, in North Carolina. Then, she started teaching at Elon University.
Research on Online Extremism
Professor Squire's research looks at how extreme ideas spread on social media. She studies platforms like Telegram and Facebook.
In 2018, she studied Facebook groups that shared anti-Muslim ideas. She collected information from over 1,800 groups. These groups had many different beliefs, including anti-Muslim, white nationalist, and neo-Confederate ideas. She found that people who joined one of these groups often joined others too. This showed that anti-Muslim feelings were a common link between these different groups. Her research has even been used in lawsuits against Facebook.
She also studies how younger extreme groups make money online. She found that leaders like Nick Fuentes use video livestreaming and gaming platforms to earn money. In 2020, her research showed that some leaders of white nationalist movements were making a lot of money. For example, she found that one person was earning about $326 every day from a platform called DLive. This added up to about $119,000 a year. She also found that some users gave very large amounts of money, sometimes $10,000 to $20,000 a month. Her research also showed that some groups were collecting membership fees, even when they said they were not.
Activism and Community Work
Megan Squire started being active in causes when she was 15 years old. She joined her school's environmental club to protest pollution from a farm. While teaching at Elon, she protested the war in Iraq. In 2008, she helped with the campaign for Barack Obama to become US President.
Later, she became involved with the Occupy movement. This movement focused on economic inequality.
Professor Squire has also created an online map. This map shows where fascist and neo-Nazi flyers have been spread on college campuses. By late 2017, she had recorded over 200 such events.
At a protest against racism in Graham, North Carolina, Professor Squire was involved in an incident. She was at a protest outside the courthouse. Two people from a group that supports a Confederate monument were arrested. One was charged with assault, and the other with disorderly conduct. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls this group a hate group.
Awards and Recognition
In 2019, Professor Squire's presentation was recognized as a runner-up for "Best Paper." This was at an international conference about social information.
In 2022, the Anti-Defamation League named her a Belfer Fellow. This honor was for her work in collecting and studying information from social media. She looks at how stopping people from using platforms (called deplatforming) or earning money (called demonetization) affects far-right groups. She is also a Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
