Faceless hatred thrives online — and is on rise
Neo-nazi web networks date to ’80s, report says
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A website popular with racists that was used by the man charged in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was shut down within hours of the slaughter, but anti-semites and racists who hang out in such havens just moved to other online forums.
On Wednesday, four days after 11 people were fatally shot in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, anonymous posters on another website popular with white supremacists, Stormfront, claimed the bloodshed at Tree of Life synagogue was an elaborate fake staged by actors. The site’s operator, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, said traffic has increased about 45 percent since the shooting.
The anti-semitic rhetoric was just as bad on another site popular with white supremacists, The Daily Stormer, where a headline said:
“Just go, Jews. You’re not welcome.”
Trying to stop the online vitriol that opponents say fuels real-world bloodshed is a constant battle for groups that monitor hate. Shut down one platform like Gab, where the shooting suspect posted a message shortly before the attack, and another one remains or opens.
The problem dates to the dawn of the internet, when users connected their computers to each other by dialing telephone numbers. A report by the New York-based Anti-defamation League in 1985 found there were two online “networks of hate” in the United States, both run by neo-nazis who spread anti-semitic, racist propaganda.
Today, the vastness of the online world is a big part of the problem, said Oren Segal, director of the ADL’S Center for Extremism. Determining how many hate sites exist is nearly impossible, he said.
A new study by the VOX-POL Network of Excellence, composed of academic researchers who study online extremism, said at least 100,000 people and automated accounts are aligned with radicals commonly referred to as the “alt-right,” and the true number is probably more than twice that.
An ADL report released a day before the shooting said extremists had increased anti-semitic harassment against Jewish journalists, political candidates and others ahead of the midterm elections. Researchers who analyzed more than 7.5 million Twitter messages from Aug. 31 to Sept. 17 found almost 30 percent of the accounts repeatedly tweeting derogatory terms about Jews appeared to be automated “bots” that spread the message further and faster than if only people were involved.
The New York-based ADL said that before the 2016 election of President Donald Trump anti-semitic harassment was rare, but afterward it became a daily occurrence. It commissioned a report in May that estimated about 3 million Twitter users posted or reposted at least
4.2 million anti-semitic tweets in English over a 12-month period ending Jan. 28.
Don Black, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who runs Stormfront, said traffic is up 45 percent partly because Gab shut down and partly because of increased interest among users. He said his site has about 330,000 registered users.