Internet

In March of 2019, Facebook banned white nationalist and white separatist statements from its platform. White supremacism had been forbidden for some time, but last year’s Christchurch massacre seems to have convinced the social network that a more aggresively anti-racist approach was necessary. This ban is not comprehensive, and there are numerous holes in enforcement. This article is about one such hole: the vibrant community of American racists who “hide their power level” just enough to avoid being banned, while subtly pushing their views on friends and family. These white supremacists are not particularly coy about their tactics. They plot out in the open, on VKontakte (commonly abbreviated as VK), a Facebook-like popular Russian social medial platform that has much looser moderation. Here’s Kevin Beair, Exalted Cyclops for the Keystone States chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, explaining how “public outreach” for the racist cause can be done on Facebook: “…get on facebook and post links on small tv stations to soft-right stuff to pull people in our direction…the cool thing about facebook is you can reach people nationwide… nothing stops you from posting on a small town local tv stations facebook page 3,000 miles away… i think i’m the only one who does this… just don’t get carried away and let yourself get banned by calling blacks monkeys like ive done several times.”
We have been unable to locate Kevin’s current Facebook profile. But his VK activity gives hints as to his life on Facebook. Kevin suggests posting content from several “soft-right” sources in order to push white Facebook users in more extreme directions. One such source is Colin Flaherty, a writer with WorldNetDaily who helped popularize the “Knockout Game”, a myth that groups of teens — generally understood to be black teens — were randomly assaulting American adults. Flaherty’s goal seems to be popularizing stories of black people assaulting white people. His book, White Girl Bleed A Lot, makes the case that black mob violence is a massive and growing threat to American white people. It contains numerous basic factual errors, but the book’s Facebook page is at least modestly popular: On January 20, 2020, Beair wrote on his VK account that he was banned from posting on the Virginia Citizen Defense League Facebook page (The VCDL is the group that organized the gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia on that same day). Beair shared the BitChute video he published, called, “New Confederate.” He asserted that the Second Amendment rights battle in Virginia was racially and ethnically motivated and directly cited George Lincoln Rockwell (GLR) the original founder of the American Nazi Party.

via bellingcat: VKontakte vs. Facebook: From Open White Supremacy To Stealth

Members of fringe groups espousing anti-women rhetoric are migrating from milder online communities and becoming more toxic, data research suggests. A recent study into the so-called “manosphere”—a network of Reddit pages, social network accounts, YouTube channels and message boards—used a machine learning tool from Google to help track the “toxicity” of user comments, and detailed a clear rise in hate speech over time. These niche communities do not just shout into the void, their actions have previously sparked online harassment campaigns and violent outbursts. The scattered collection of male supremacy groups is by no means limited to the involuntary celibate (Incel) community, which shot to the mainstream’s attention in 2018 when a man killed 10 people in Toronto after using the term “Incel Rebellion” on social media.
Broadly, members of the incel community gather anonymously to blame women for their lack of sexual relationships, in some cases advocating for physical and sexual violence as a result. But such groups date back years, and fresh analysis indicates a concerning trend: users are moving from tamer communities in favor of groups with “severe toxicity” ratings. Researchers built a dataset of about 7.5 million posts from seven forums and over 30 million posts from 57 Reddit pages, known as subreddits, that are linked to the manosphere. Forums included Incels.is, The Attraction, SlutHate and Rooshv. Reddit groups included Pick Up Artists (PUA), Men’s Rights Activists (MRA) and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW).

via newsweek: ‘Manosphere’ Communities Are Becoming More Toxic, Showing ‘Nihilistic and Extreme Anti-Women Ideologies,’ Study Shows

Kurz nach dem Skandal in Thüringen, bei welchem CDU und FDP gemeinsam mit den Faschisten der AfD Kemmerich für kurze Zeit zum Ministerpräsidenten wählten, gab es bundesweit und in allen demokratischen Parteien Empörung. Es wurden viele Demonstrationen aus Protest veranstaltet, viele Tausende beteiligten sich daran. Auch in Nürnberg. In Nürnberg organisierte der bereits politisch engagierte 14-jährige Adrian T. einen Protest gegen die Wahl in Thüringen. Sein Engagement war für einige Medien der Anlass zur Berichterstattung. “Die Wahl-Ergebnisse in Thüringen machen den Siebtklässler so wütend, dass er spontan eine Demo organisiert hat”, berichtet der BR (Quelle).
Das reicht für die AfD um ihn zu hassen Wie die Recherchgruppe DieInsider berichtet, haben zahlreiche AfD-Politiker*innen den BR-Beitrag über die Demo in Nürnberg und Adrian T. verbreitet. Auch in den AfD(-nahen)-Gruppen wurde der Beitrag massiv verbreitet. Dass ein Jugendlicher (gegen eine Handlung der FDP wohlgemerkt) einen Protest organisiert, reicht für diese offenbar, um ihrem typischen Hass freien Lauf zu lassen: Es hagelt widerliche Beleidigungen (“Dummzucht”; “Rotznase”, “unterbelichteter Sprössling”), man spricht ihm ab, eine eigene Meinung zu haben und wünscht ihm, dass er Opfer von Gewalt wird (“Eine auf’s Maul hauen”, “…die Ausländer werden ihm irgendwann seine Dummheit ausprügeln”, “Der Kleine braucht mal ein paar richtige Watschen”). Noch einmal: Gegen einen 14-jährigen! Weil er eine Demo organisiert hat! Unzählige weitere Belege: AfD-Kommentarspalten besteht nur aus Faschisten Völlig egal, wer: Sobald jemand eine andere Meinung hat als die Faschisten von der AfD, wird dieser vogelfrei und massivem Hass ausgesetzt. Man spricht ihm ab, eine eigene Meinung haben zu dürfen, man beleidigt ihn, man wünscht ihm, Opfer von Gewalt zu werden. Und dabei machen die AfD-Anhänger auch nicht vor Kindern halt. Das passiert wohlgemerkt auch in den Kommentarspalten von AfD-Politiker*innen, die diese Kommentare unkommentiert stehen lassen.

via volksverpetzer: Gewaltwünsche: So widerlich hetzen AfD-Anhänger gegen 14-jährigen!