Julia Ebner - The far right thrives on global networks. They must be fought online and off
NB: This article makes an important point. Public speech today is aggressively polemical in style and content; fixated on enforcing an either/or perspective on everyone. It normalises conflict and is a manifestation of permanent ideological warfare. A crucial requirement for the defence of democracy is to preserve the culture of debate, dialogue and listening to different voices and opinions. DS
To prevent radicalisation, hate crimes & violent extremism, we need to tackle the source of reciprocal radicalisation: the vicious circle of hate driven by “us against them” narratives. Disbanding groups and removing extremist online content is the first step... more importantly, we need to strengthen civil society-led efforts to dissect binary world views & replace them with credible, nuanced alternatives.
Thousands of anonymous far-right Twitter accounts that spread hate
against ethnic and religious minorities each day. Meanwhile, National Action
calls for a “White Jihad”, right next to a tweet about their Miss Hitler 2016
competition. After National Action became Britain’s first far-right group to be
banned, its web page was taken down. Yet, until a few days ago its official
Twitter profile has been operative and hosts an arsenal of dangerous
propaganda.
The home affairs
committee’s new report released today, called Hate Crime: Abuse, Hate and
Extremism Online harshly condemns social media companies for their failure to
identify and remove illegal content. They are “shamefully far from taking
sufficient action” to safeguard online users from harassment, abuse and
promotion of violence, it warns. The report comes at a crucial time. Our
research at Quilliam into
far-right extremism and hate crimes, which contributed to the report’s
findings, shows that the far right has gained influence on all levels: from
far-right populism to white supremacist terrorism, from alt-right movements to
neo-Nazi groups.
Over the past year,
anti-immigrant rhetoric has grown and anti-Muslim hate crimes have surged. The government’s
Channel programme, which aims to reach people at risk of being radicalised,
is receiving more far-right referrals than ever before, and online hate speech
against ethnic and religious minorities has reached unprecedented levels. The
Metropolitan police even warned that the threat from far-right groups is as
severe as the jihadist threat.
The British far-right
landscape is increasingly splintered and leaderless. But low membership numbers
of street protest movements such as the EDL and Pegida UK are hardly
comforting. Some of their former cohort have joined smaller, more militant
groups while others have focused their efforts on spreading hate online.
Increasingly, far-right movements show signs of collective learning and create
powerful multiplier effects for their messages. As early adopters of new
technology, they have been exceptionally good at using social media to widen
their echo chambers and foster ties with like-minded groups abroad.
British
“counter-jihadis” have stepped up their cooperation with American alt-righters,
French and Austrian “identitarians” and even German and Polish
neo-Nazis. This is the paradox of modern-day nationalists: they capitalise on
the opportunities of globalisation to spread their anti-globalist views
globally. It is within this
context that EDL founder turned Pegida UK leader Tommy Robinson features
prominently on Alex Jones’s conspiracy theory show, Infowars, and receives
support from American alt-right leaders Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller.
Platforms such as Gates of Vienna, the FrontPage Mag and Jihad Watch provide
outlets for all of them.
Once their ideas are
carried into social media echo chambers, hateful rhetoric quickly turns into
crime and calls for violence. Some far-right pages have become melting pots for
misogynistic, racist, anti-Muslim and antisemitic hate speech, where
#Manosphere activists meet conspiracy theorists and alt-right trolls. These
online nexus points have enabled British far-right activists to mobilise young
people, hijack online subcultures and obfuscate the 24-hour media circle by
spreading hyper-partisan and alternative news.
It would be wrong to
claim that we have not made any progress in challenging far-right hate crimes
and extremism. In the past year, Twitter has started removing neo-Nazi
accounts, the media has begun calling far-right-inspired attacks “terrorism”
and Prevent efforts increasingly focus on rightwing radicalisation. But with an
American president who conflates Islam and Islamist extremism while blurring
the lines between fact and fiction, efforts have been somewhat impeded. The
election successes of populist politicians across Europe and the US have
further normalised extremists’ rhetoric and given credence to the perception of
an inevitable conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims.
That the far right has
moved from the fringe into the mainstream demonstrates the massive support that
white supremacist movements have attracted from digital natives. Their online
followership often exceeds that of mainstream political parties: with over
200,000 followers, Tommy Robinson’s Twitter account has almost the same number
of followers as Theresa May’s.
Neo-Nazis outperform
Isis in nearly every metric, a 2016 report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found. In my
evidence to the home affairs committee, I warned of the link between online
hate speech and offline violence. The murder of Jo Cox by far-right terrorist Tommy Mair in the run-up to the
Brexit referendum was a sad reminder that dehumanising words can inspire and
translate into violent action and self-starter terrorism. My conversations with
members and ex-members of the EDL, Pegida and Combat18, as well as Hizb ut-Tahrir,
Al-Muhajiroun and Isis, confirmed that jihadis and far-right extremists use
each others’ rhetoric to reinforce their common narrative that a final battle
between the west and Islam is inevitable.
This is why the far
right celebrates every terrorist attack as a victory for their narrative of
“all Muslims are terrorists”, while jihadis rejoice at the election of
far-right politicians. Robinson reacted to the Westminster attack by going on
an anti-Muslim rant, while Marine Le Pen instantly exploited the Champs-Élysées
attack by giving her anti-immigration line a final pre-election push. Likewise,
Isis-supporting Telegram channels cheered at the news of Donald Trump’s victory
and expressed their hope that Le Pen will become France’s next president.
To prevent
radicalisation, hate crimes and violent extremism, we will need to tackle the
source of reciprocal radicalisation: the vicious circle of hate driven by “us
against them” narratives. Disbanding groups and removing extremist online
content is the first step. But, more importantly, we will need to strengthen
civil society-led efforts to dissect binary world views and replace them with
credible, more nuanced alternatives.
The Rage:
The New Vicious Circle of Extremism by Julia Ebner will be published in
September 2017
