Name: Holly Baumann

Social Justice Group: 2022-2023, Technology: Online Radicalization

Date of Fieldwork: January 20, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

On Friday, January 20th, me and my group had a call with Patrick Riccards, the CEO of the non-profit organisation Life After Hate. Life After Hates mission is to help former extremists find their humanity again, and regain compassion. Patrick is the first person to be CEO of LAH, without being a former extremist, so it was interesting to get his close up perspective.

We asked Patrick a variety of questions, like how he gets through to people who are former extremist, what role social media plays, and what made him want to be apart of LAH, but his answer to one of them stuck out to me. When we asked him if he feels bad for any of these former extremist who are struggling, he bluntly says “no”. He goes on to explain that its hard to feel bad for them when they have done horrific things, and they need to take accountability for that, which is one of the hardest things to do when trying to turn over a new leaf.

Patrick gave us a better understanding on different parts of hate groups, and it was cool to get his perspective.