From hope to hate: how the early internet fed the far right

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: August 31, 2017 at 8:56:25 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] From hope to hate: how the early internet fed the far right
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> From hope to hate: how the early internet fed the far right
> The beginning of the internet was full of hope: limitless information would make us wiser, kinder, less bigoted. So 
> when did hate get a foothold? 
> By Jamie Bartlett
> Aug 31 2017
> <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/31/far-right-alt-right-white-supremacists-rise-online>
>
> Back in 1990, the American lawyer and author Mike Godwin proposed a law of early internet behaviour: “As an online 
> discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
>
> In short, the more you talk online, the more likely you’ll be nasty. “Godwin’s Law” was in fact only half the story: 
> it turns out talking online didn’t only make people think their opponents were Nazis. Some of them actually had 
> become Nazis. 
>
> The apparent success of the “alt-right” and broader radical right movements in Europe and the US has plenty of 
> analysts baffled. An incredulity that these nationalists are using the internet – supposedly the very essence of 
> openness, progress and tolerance – to promote an agenda which agitates for the precise opposite. But the radical 
> right has frequently been the most avid and enthusiastic adopters of shiny new technology, and have long found the 
> internet a uniquely useful place. 
>
> It all started with the Italian Futurists, who were proto-fascists at the turn of the 20th century. They dreamed of 
> tearing up tradition and history so to better rush headlong into a future of technology, violence and masculinity. 
> The technologies of their day were weapons, cars and radios, but the same dynamic holds true with digital technology 
> today. As long ago as 1990 – before you were online – the white supremacist movement Stormfront spotted that 
> networked computing would be a boon for their movement. They were perhaps the first political movement in the US to 
> set up a bulletin board system (BBS) (they were a cross between a forum and a website, and were the main way people 
> got online in the 80s). By 1995 Stormfront had turned their BBS into a proper website. In a now familiar flourish Don 
> Black, the former KKK leader who ran the site, said it was to “provide an alternative news media” and create a 
> virtual community for the fragmented white nationalist movement. 
>
> “Is hate young and new on the web?” asked one slightly stunned article back in 1998. 
>
> That question has been asked almost every year since. But the answer was and remains no. Stormfront is the rule 
> rather than the exception. For most of the 2000s, the far-right British National Party had the most active and best 
> designed website in UK politics. (Back in 2013 they were the first party to gamify their website – offering prizes 
> for mentioning keywords in posts in order to drive up engagement). 
>
> In the years leading up to his murderous attacks in 2011, Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik wrote a 1,516-page 
> manifesto titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. In it he makes clear his belief that social media – 
> especially Facebook – would help the white “resistance movements” fight back against multiculturalism, because it 
> offered new opportunities to push propaganda and connect with like-minded individuals around the world. He even made 
> a plea to all patriots to “create a nice website, a blog and establish a nice-looking Facebook page ... to market the 
> organization”.
>
> This is precisely what all “patriots” – whether mild or radical – have done. If you look in almost any western 
> democracy, typically the most active political movement online is the radical right: posting manically, creating new 
> groups, and messaging with the newest encrypted apps. I’m not suggesting a moral equivalence between all these 
> groups. The British National Party doesn’t advocate Breivik-style murder. The point is this: radical groups, 
> especially those on the radical right who dislike openness and worry about diversity are extremely comfortable on the 
> platforms that are meant to promote exactly that.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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