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A picture taken on April 24, 2017 in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, shows campaign posters of French presidential election candidate for the far-right Front National (FN) party Marine Le Pen and candidate for the En Marche ! movement, Emmanuel Macron.

JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

Frances election rules force candidates to stop campaigning on Friday at midnight and the country enters a period that is supposed to be for quiet reflection before Sundays vote. The only problem is that quiet and reflection are two things that dont quite mix very well with the social media era. On Saturday, news of the hacking attack against centrist Emmanuel Macron spread like wildfire on social media, pushed along in large part by U.S. far-right activists and bots.

An extraordinary number of tweets about Macrons campaign in the day before the vote appear to be coming from automated accounts. One study found that five percent of users accounted for a full 40 percent of the tweets related to the French election. One account tweeted a whopping 1,668 times in 24 hours, faster than one per minute. And it was hardly alone. For several of these accounts, the tweets were coming through in bursts too fast for an individual to keep up with them, suggesting automation rather than a highly active human, researchers wrote.

Twitter appears to be ignoring the problem entirely. When Recode asked Twitter what it was planning to do to combat the bots, the company spokesperson merely said that bots are prohibited.

Bots arent the only ones spreading the news of the hack attack. Members of the extreme American right are also taking the hack as an opportunity to take a last stand in favor of Marine Le Pen.

Approximately half of the Twitter posts about the hack have been written in English and many of them are coming from the United States. Although there is no evidence that far-rigth activists in the U.S. were behind the hack, they have been spreading the leaked documents in some of their favorite gathering spots, including 4chan. Jack Posobiec, a journalist with an obscure far-right website, appears to have been the first to use the #MacronLeaks hashtag, according to the Atlantic Council. Then bots appear to have been used to amplify that message. Less than two hours later, Le Pens most active and aggressive supporters online were spreading news of the leak inside France.

The Atlantic Council'sDigital Forensic Research Lab breaks down its findings:

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American alt-right and Twitter bots are key to spreading French ... - Slate Magazine (blog)

Quartz

Macron email leaks: Alt-right Americans and internet bots are ... Quartz Just before the French go to the polls on Sunday (May 7), hackers have leaked campaign emails belonging to presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron. American Alt-Right and Twitter Bots Are Key to Spreading French Election HackSlate Magazine (blog) all 4 news articles »

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Macron email leaks: Alt-right Americans and internet bots are ... - Quartz

Media Matters for America (blog)

Fake News And The "Alt-Right" Are Pushing Forged Documents To Aid Marine Le Pen In France's Election Media Matters for America (blog) Forged documents originating on 4chan alleging that French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was evading taxes spread online thanks to an ecosystem that includes social media, alt-right outlets, and fake news purveyors. The campaign was ... The US alt-right 'meme war' to sway the French election is failingPRI In French Elections, Alt-Right Messages and Memes Don't TranslateNew York Times 'Alt-Right' Americans Are Pushing Fake Stories To Help Le PenVocativ Mother Jones -Yahoo Tech -The Daily Dot all 3,651 news articles »

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Fake News And The "Alt-Right" Are Pushing Forged Documents To Aid Marine Le Pen In France's Election - Media Matters for America (blog)

Media Matters for America (blog)

Gateway Pundit Threw A Gala For The "Alt-Right" And We Were There Media Matters for America (blog) The night took off with Hoft, who had donned a retro white headband and a pair of reflective sunglasses, welcoming guests to the shindig, giving shoutouts to a roster of speakers from the alt-right including McInnes and Wintrich, and presenting O ...

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Gateway Pundit Threw A Gala For The "Alt-Right" And We Were There - Media Matters for America (blog)

Alt-right trolls and the anti-fascist activists known as the Antifa, who make sport out of punching their alt-right opponentsin the face, are both gearing up for their next battle.Much likethe traveling roadshow of chaos that has often ended with arrests and bloody faceson both sides, this weekendsBattle of New Orleans is expected to be one of thenastier encounters to date. Really nasty.

On Sunday, New Orleans Antifas and other groups are celebrating a peoples victory in getting Confederate monuments removed from public spaces throughout the city with a march from Congo Square to Lee Circle. Naturally, members of the alt-right are planning toshow up in opposition, according to several online message boards and social media accounts belonging to alt-right groups or members.Included in the expected participants is a recently formed faction of the white nationalist movement called the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights (FOAK), which has been described by a civil rights advocacy group as a fight club ready for street violence.

The founder of this band of far-right street-fighters is Kyle Chapman, who was reportedly arrested last month after he and other members of the alt-right clashed with Antifas in Berkeley, California. In previous alt-right/Antifa dustups, like the one in Berkeley, Chapman, dressed in an all-black suit with shin and arm guards, a shield and black baseball helmet, was seen allegedly beating Antifa members with a homemade club. He was later dubbed based stickman and has become part-hero, part-meme for the alt-right.

Now, Chapman is trying to form an army of based stickmen.In a social media post, hedescribed his newly formed band of bruisers as the tactical defensive arm of the Proud Boys, another group of far-right thugs whove also tussled with Antifa in recent months.

Our emphasis will be on street activism, preparation, defense and confrontation, Chapman wrote, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups like Chapmans. We will protect and defend our right-wing brethren when the police and government fail to do so.

Bradley Walker, a member of the Proud Boys of Tennessee, is actively recruiting people to be a part of FOAK, and announced its formation on the groups Facebook page on Thursday.

Were looking for warrior-minded men to step up and hold the shield wall, he wrote in his post. Our job is to hold the frontline against aggressive attackers while the Proud Boys and Proud Boys Girls speak their mind and skirmish large crowds.

The list of requirements is not long, but specific. One of the more significant ones is that men should be on the front line, leaving the women, describedby Walker as shield maidens, to get to work.

we have to hold the line against a large wall of attackers, he wrote. We need power to take the push while you knock them in the head.

Ideally, Walker saysFOAK members, preferably ex-military or law enforcement, are required to have their own shields and helmets and must be able to attend training sessions and camping trips once every six months. Those training sessions include shield tactics and boxing training, as well as drinking beer and piss[ing] into the lake.

In recent months, Antifas and the alt-right have had a stringof violent clashes in cities across the country, includingBerkeley and New York. The formation of more militant, violent factions of the alt-right is in response to several incidents where Antifas have assaulted alt-right activists. The most notable of these incidents involved Richard Spencer, the de-facto leader of the movement who was punched in thejaw. The punch, which was widely covered after a video of the incident went viral, prompted the internet and the New York Times to raise the question of whether its OK to punch a Nazi.

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'Alt-Right' Militants Prepping For 'Battle Of New Orleans' - Vocativ