Introduction
Over the past five years, GNET authors have identified a thriving patchwork of far-right extremist (FRE) online communities based in Southeast Asia. These communities span a broad spectrum, from overt ethno-religious nationalists to obscure online subcultures like Austronesian supremacists. Collectively, they play a central role in disseminating and normalising locally contextualised FRE content across social media, representing a persistent and concerning trend in the region’s digital landscape.
While such efforts at mapping these networks are crucial first steps in understanding the latent threat of FRE in the Global South, particularly in Southeast Asia, they often fall short of explaining how these communities contribute to the cognitive radicalisation of sympathisers. With Western FRE online communities already functioning as “havens of validation and support for extremists”—as demonstrated by numerous far-right extremist attacks in recent years—their capacity to inspire real-world violence is clear. As similar networks begin to manifest in Southeast Asia, their potential to amplify extremist worldviews and translate into real-world violence deserves close attention.
Southeast Asia’s digital landscape is varied and complex, yet it remains, as the Asia Foundation notes, “relatively poorly covered by the global literature on CVE and PVE.” Therefore, to recentre the issue of digital radicalisation in Southeast Asia, this Insight examines a regional movement that has recently emerged as a prominent extreme-right online community: the Philippine Falangist Front (PFF). The analysis draws on data collected through Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) methods, spanning March 2024 to January 2025, and focuses on publicly accessible PFF-affiliated accounts and groups across TikTok (five accounts), Discord (one group), and Facebook (one page).
The Philippine Falangist Front: A Brief Overview
The PFF, also known as Falange Filipinas, is an online community that emerged in 2024. The movement is likely comprised primarily of young Filipino men and operates mainly on TikTok, with a central account and several regional chapter accounts representing areas such as Negros, Calabarzon, Laguna, and Metro Manila. It also maintains a presence on Facebook and an active, though frequently taken-down, Discord server.
The community aligns itself with Falangism—a 20th-century Spanish fascist ideology founded in Spain by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, which emphasises “nationalism, authoritarian control, charismatic authority, order, anti-communism, illiberalism, and Catholic identity.” Across these platforms, PFF members commonly produce content or engage in discussions lamenting the Philippines’ and the world’s descent into a so-called godless society, allegedly corrupted by communism, freemasonry, Islam, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other perceived threats, occasionally with violent undertones.
The Role of Online Communities in Cognitive Radicalisation
Drawing on Arie Kruglanski et al.’s 3N model of radicalisation—which emphasises the interplay of needs, narratives, and networks—the PFF, as an online community, facilitates cognitive radicalisation through four interconnected mechanisms: (1) exploiting individual grievances while presenting a pathway to redemption; (2) introducing a simplified yet compelling ideological framework that legitimises extremist beliefs; (3) cultivating a trusted and insular environment where far-right extremist narratives are reinforced; and (4) validating an individual’s psychological need for significance through symbolic rewards and recognition.
Exploiting Grievances and Offering a Path to Redemption
A recurring theme in PFF’s online propaganda is the portrayal of the Philippines as a nation in crisis. One TikTok recruitment poster depicts the country in flames, urging viewers to join the struggle if they are “[t]ired of political disunity, degeneration, liberalism, corruption, worker exploitation, spiritual corruption, [and] environmental exploitation” (Fig. 1). Similarly, a Facebook post calling for an end to leftist and Muslim rule features a propaganda poster showing the Philippines being overtaken by three menacing red hands representing China, communism, and Islam (Fig. 2).
Figures 1 and 2: Examples of PFF online propaganda.
Through such imagery, PFF propaganda taps into followers’ deep frustrations over the perceived failure of the Philippine state. Poverty, corruption, and ongoing threats—including Maoist insurgencies, Moro separatist movements, and Islamist extremism—contribute to a pervasive sense of national decline and insecurity. These conditions foster feelings of helplessness and marginalisation, pushing individuals to seek alternative pathways to restore meaning and agency in their lives. Unsurprisingly, PFF supporters—whether drawing from personal experience or broader discontent—often cite the Philippines’ instability to justify their alignment with the movement.
Beyond exploiting grievances, the PFF actively promotes opportunities for individuals to reclaim feelings of significance in their lives, appealing to their aspirations for belonging, identity, and recognition. In one TikTok video, a user running the central PFF account invites viewers to join their Discord server with seemingly innocuous questions: “Wanna fight for a cause? Wanna learn Third Positionism for a cause? Want banned books and documents? Want a community for it?” (Fig 3). Through such messaging, the PFF appeals to exclusivity, subversive identity, and the desire for camaraderie, positioning these as steps toward reclaiming significance.
Providing Ideological Narratives to Justify Extremist Beliefs
While ideology serves to diagnose in-group grievances, identify out-group enemies, and justify violence, it is online communities that expose users to these narratives and translate them into locally resonant and accessible forms.
PFF members frequently promote their Discord servers as a safe space for accessing radical materials, including “banned books and documents,” (Fig.3) For instance, the ‘Resistance-Library’ subchannel in their now-banned Discord server features Christian theological works such as Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus and Against the Heresies by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, framed as essential to understanding the so-called “modern errors” of the Catholic Church and society, allegedly corrupted by Freemasons and liberalism. While not as extreme as sharing manifestos by far-right attackers, these texts serve to define the out-group and attribute the loss of significance to external forces.
Figure 3: The PFF’s Discord server is promoted on social media as a gateway to access ideological content in the form of “banned books and documents.”
However, as Kumar Ramakrishna notes, radicalised individuals often adopt a “cut-and-paste” interpretation of ideology rather than a precise understanding. It is therefore unsurprising that such oversimplified interpretations are frequently disseminated and normalised in the form of memes and other easily digestible media. For example, one PFF TikTok meme urges viewers to “KNOW YOUR ENEMIES,” identifying Chinese people, capitalism, and Freemasons as threats. Another TikTok post features a PFF-branded sword crossing out various targets — including Muslims, communists, Jews, Freemasons, and LGBTQ+ individuals—accompanied by the phrase “FIGHT THEM BEFORE THEY KILL YOU” (Fig. 4). These examples demonstrate how extremist ideology is distilled into visual shorthand, tying violence to the pursuit of personal and national redemption.
Figure 4: PFF memes distilling extremist ideology into visual shorthand by identifying enemies and framing violence as a path to personal and national redemption.
Beyond simplifying ideology, the PFF online community also contextualises it in response to local socio-political developments. For example, in a post titled “Welcome to Democracy,” published ahead of the 2025 Philippine general elections, the PFF decried both the Left and Right as trapped in a cycle of decline under democracy, while positioning Falangism as a ‘Third Position’ alternative (Fig. 5).
Figure 5: A post by the PFF titled: Welcome to Democracy.”
Fostering Digital Safe Spaces for Radicalisation
To expand its community, the PFF frequently invites like-minded, sympathetic, or curious users to join its Discord server through targeted propaganda. This server, much like Western FRE platforms, serves as a hub for ideological readings, shitposting, and casual chatter—a digital “safe space” for freely engaging with extreme right ideologies.
However, mere exposure alone does not drive cognitive radicalisation. Radical ideologies often gain traction when promoted by trusted and admired sources. Within PFF, key members like moderators foster in-group trust and identity through community-building activities. One such attempt involves playing online games together on platforms like Roblox, often using voice chat. As Daniel Koehler et al. note, gaming can serve as a tool to foster trust, social bonds, and emotional dependency, making it harder for followers to disengage.
Figures 6 and 7: PFF followers using gaming platforms like Roblox to foster in-group cohesion and normalise extremist narratives, including recreations of the Christchurch attack.
Even more concerning is the use of gaming to normalise extremist narratives. In one instance, a user shared a modified version of Town—a Roblox game that allows players to build and interact with semi-realistic firearms—which included a virtual recreation of the Al-Noor Mosque, a direct reference to the Christchurch shooting (Fig. 7). Such games, laden with specialised references and ideological iconography, serve to reinforce and normalise extremist beliefs among already sympathetic users.
Providing Symbolic Rewards and Validation
As is a common aspect of extremist groups, PFF leverages its followers’ fundamental psychological need for significance by rewarding actions that align with its ideological and organisational goals with respect and admiration. For example, a PFF moderator organised a TikTok competition for “anti-Judeo-Masonic edits,” offering a 300 PHP (5 USD) cash prize. These entries, seemingly intended as propaganda to attract and recruit “some Falange brothers from Latin countries,” received praise such as “great work” and “cool edits”—likely strengthening the submitter’s in-group identity by positioning them as an indispensable follower.
Symbolic recognition also extends to real-world activities. PFF’s “Activism through Action!” campaign, for instance, encouraged followers to print and distribute propaganda stickers and submit videos of themselves pasting them in any city or town (Fig. 8). Notably, the activity was aimed at individuals who either wished to become recognised as an official member (a process more recently formalised through open-recruitment on their website) or simply wanted to be featured in the group’s media stream. Commenting on white nationalist flyering in the US, J.M. Berger et al. argued that flyering has a community-building effect in digital spaces, as individuals can become “identified with and even lauded for their willingness to take offline action.”
Figure 8: PFF call to action.
Similarly, PFF seemingly collaborated with other Philippines-based FRE groups to raise funds and carry out a small-scale outreach programme aimed at supporting the working class (Fig 15). Such collaborative efforts not only strengthen inter- and intra-group relationships, otherwise confined to digital spaces, but also heighten an individual’s sense of significance by engaging in an outreach programme that feels both empowering and transgressive— empowering in its tangible impact, and transgressive in enabling them to occupy roles typically associated with state authority.
Figures 9 and 10: The PFF integrates offline activism, such as flyering and community outreach, to reinforce member identity and project ideological legitimacy.
Conclusion
The PFF, as an online extreme-right community, plays a crucial role in facilitating the cognitive radicalisation of its followers by creating an insulated ideological bubble where like-minded individuals form bonds of camaraderie. Within this trusted environment, the PFF serves as a key intermediary, exploiting psychological insecurities and vulnerabilities while connecting individuals to a compelling, justifying ideology that reinforces extremist beliefs.
While the threat posed by the PFF should not be overstated, it nonetheless offers valuable insight into the evolving strategies of far-right extremist groups in the region. Further research into online radicalisation is essential, particularly with regard to the role of leadership within these networks. Future studies should examine how figures such as moderators shape discourse, build trust, and facilitate radicalisation. Additionally, the PFF’s efforts to forge transnational connections—including attempts to engage with Falangist-aligned groups it refers to as “some Falange brothers from Latin countries” (likely movements in Latin America or Southern Europe)—warrant closer scrutiny to better understand how global far-right networks influence ideological diffusion and behavioural radicalisation.
Saddiq Basha is a Research Analyst at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, based at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).