Image: From “The Weird, Dark History of 8chan.”

See also Cross Cultural Solidarity’s related resources on Right Wing Conspiracy Theories, Video Games and Radicalization, and Preventing Youth Radicalization.

Combatting Extremism Online

Institute for Strategic Dialog: Countering the Appeal of Extremism Online.

Michelle Kelley: The key to defeating the far right’s online hate: History provides lessons on how to pit popular culture against Internet hate speech and racist propaganda.

4chan

Kat Bouza: Tucker Carlson’s New Favorite Website Is 4Chan: This imageboard has everything! Unabashed racism, inceldom, violent misogyny — and the Fox News host implied it’s the last bastion of free speech online.

Owen Gleiberman: ‘The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem’ Review: A Netflix Doc Smartly Tells an Internet Hate Story: When 4Chan Met QAnon.

Tess Owen: Indiana Mall Gunman Appears to Have Posted Plans on 4chan.

8chan

BBC: What is 8chan?

Luke Darby: How white supremacy went mainstream in the US: 8chan, Trump, voter suppression.

Timothy McLaughlin: The Weird, Dark History of 8chan: Its founder Fredrick Brennan is appalled by the notorious chat site’s links to right-wing extremism and mass shootings. Inside his tortured journey through the web’s cesspool and his attempt at redemption.

AI

David Gilbert:

• Here’s How Violent Extremists Are Exploiting Generative AI Tools:Experts are finding thousands of examples of AI-created content every week that could allow terrorist groups and other violent extremists to bypass automated detection systems.
• An AI-Altered Hitler Speech Is Going Viral On X: Two AI-altered clips of Hitler’s 1939 Reichstag speech have racked up millions of views on X after being shared by a far-right troll.
• Neo-Nazis Are All-In on AI: Extremists are developing their own hateful AIs to supercharge radicalization and fundraising—and are now using the tech to make weapon blueprints and bombs. And it’s going to get worse.

Nick Robins-Early: Disinformation reimagined: how AI could erode democracy in the 2024 US elections.

Discord

Military Times: Quieting Discord: A new frontier in military leaks and extremism.

The Washington Post: ‘Problematic pockets’: How Discord became a home for extremists.

Epik

CNN: Epik is a refuge for the deplatformed far right. Here’s why its CEO insists on doing it.

NPR: ‘Lex Luthor Of The Internet’: Meet The Man Keeping Far-Right Websites Alive.

SPLC: Leaked Data Shows Epik Registered Site Associated With Neo-Nazi Terror.

The Washington Post: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret: The colossal hack of Epik, an Internet-services company popular with the far right, has been called the “mother of all data lodes” for extremism researchers. Some of those named in the data have already lost their jobs.

William Turton: The Far Right’s Favorite Web Host Has a Shadowy New Owner: Known for doing business with far-right extremist websites, Epik has been acquired by a company that specializes in helping businesses keep their operations secret.

Facebook

Bobby Allyn: Facebook Removes Trump Ads With Symbol Used By Nazis. Campaign Calls It An ‘Emoji’.

Frank Figliuzzi: Far right militias are returning to Facebook — and it’s looking the other way: Inattention from the platform’s parent company Meta risks abetting another event like Jan. 6.

Tess Owen:

• The Boogaloo Movement Keeps Finding Ways to Return to Facebook: Facebook axed nearly 100 Boogaloo Pages. Weeks later, they were back.
• Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups:After lying low for years in the aftermath of January 6, exclusive reporting shows, militia extremist groups and profiles have been quietly reorganizing and ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook.

Tech Transparency Project: Facebook Profits from White Supremacist Groups.

Brandy Zadrozny: Facebook banned anti-government ‘Boogaloo’ groups. They found a way to return, research says. Members of the loose-knit Boogaloo movement who found each other online joined armed protests against Covid lockdowns.

Gab

David Gilbert: Gab’s Racist AI Chatbots Have Been Instructed to Deny the Holocaust: The proliferation of generative AI chatbots on extremist platforms could lead to increased radicalization, experts warn.

Christopher Mathias: Gab Was Key To The Tree Of Life Shooting. Doug Mastriano Seems To Be Paying It For Followers. The GOP nominee for governor of Pennsylvania paid the far-right platform a $5,000 “consulting” fee. Now, new Gab accounts are automatically following him.

Tess Owen: Gab Founder Andrew Torba Wants to Build a Christian Nationalist Internet: Facing increased competition from the likes of Truth Social, Torba has pivoted from free-speech zealot to hardcore Christian nationalist.

Gamergate

Vittoria Elliott: Gamergate’s Aggrieved Men Still Haunt the Internet: Ten years ago, much of the frustrations gamers were expressing came from anger over no longer being the target audience. Now those feelings are everywhere, from fandom to politics.

David Gilbert: Gamergate’s Legacy Lives on in Attacks Against Kamala Harris: A decade after Gamergate launched a new, toxic era of online communication, the tactics developed and honed in 2014 are now in full view in attacks against the vice president.

Instagram

David Ingram: Instagram failed to act on 93% of abusive comments aimed at female politicians, study says.

Alex Kaplan: A group of far-right media figures is using social media to recruit for its newly formed militia: The group is recruiting on Instagram, despite Meta’s previous crackdowns on militias.

Tess Owen: Instagram Has a White Nationalist ‘Groyper’ Problem. “Groypers,” followers of white nationalist livestreamer Nicholas Fuentes, are all over Instagram, some with thousands of followers.

Gaby Del Valle: GLAAD report says Meta allows anti-trans hate to ‘flourish’ on its platforms.

Online Extremism & Mass Shootings

Moustafa Ayad & Isabelle Frances-Wright: Minors exposed to mass shooter glorification across mainstream social media platforms.

Jessica Guynn & Will Carless: Columbine school shooters glorified by young followers: Inside the scary online obsession.

Mack Lamoureux: Teen Gets 11 Years for Neo-Nazi Videos That Inspired Racist Buffalo Mass Shooting: The U.K teen’s hateful content was linked to two mass shootings in the U.S.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss:  America’s Epidemic of Hate: Stopping Mass Shootings Requires Combating Online Extremism.

Kevin Roose: ‘Shut the Site Down,’ Says the Creator of 8chan, a Megaphone for Gunmen.

Becky Sullivan: Reddit and YouTube must face a lawsuit over the radicalization of the Buffalo shooter.

Daniel Victor: In Christchurch, Signs Point to a Gunman Steeped in Internet Trolling.

The Washington Post:  Texas gunman fantasized over race wars on social media before mass killing.

Militias Organizing Online

 Ali Breland: Militias Still Have a Safe Space on YouTube: A new report found hundreds of videos from sympathizers of groups that participated in the Capitol riot.

Frank Figliuzzi: Far right militias are returning to Facebook — and it’s looking the other way: Inattention from the platform’s parent company Meta risks abetting another event like Jan. 6.

Alex Kaplan: A group of far-right media figures is using social media to recruit for its newly formed militia: The group is recruiting on Instagram, despite Meta’s previous crackdowns on militias.

Tess Owen: Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups:After lying low for years in the aftermath of January 6, exclusive reporting shows, militia extremist groups and profiles have been quietly reorganizing and ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook.

Neo-Nazis Online

Bobby Allyn: Facebook Removes Trump Ads With Symbol Used By Nazis. Campaign Calls It An ‘Emoji’.

BBC: IBM suspends ads on X after they appeared next to Nazi posts.

Ben Goossen: The Pacifist Roots of an American Nazi: Ingrid Rimland was a pioneering voice of the neo-Nazi Internet. She was also raised Mennonite, a peaceful religion with a long history of celebrating white “ethnic” identity.

David Gilbert:

• TikTok Has a Nazi Problem: Not only is TikTok’s algorithm promoting Neo-Nazi content, extremist organizations are also using the platform to recruit new members and encourage real-world action.
• Elon Musk’s X Is Suspending Accounts That Reveal a Neo-Nazi Cartoonist’s Alleged Identity: Researchers and journalists have been blocked on X from sharing the alleged identity of the neo-Nazi cartoonist Stonetoss.
• An AI-Altered Hitler Speech Is Going Viral On X: Two AI-altered clips of Hitler’s 1939 Reichstag speech have racked up millions of views on X after being shared by a far-right troll.
• Neo-Nazis Are All-In on AI: Extremists are developing their own hateful AIs to supercharge radicalization and fundraising—and are now using the tech to make weapon blueprints and bombs. And it’s going to get worse.

Institute for Strategic Dialog. NazTok: An organized neo-Nazi TikTok network is getting millions of views.

Jonathan M. Katz: Substack Has a Nazi Problem: The newsletter platform’s lax content moderation creates an opening for white nationalists eager to get their message out.

Mack Lamoureux: Teen Gets 11 Years for Neo-Nazi Videos That Inspired Racist Buffalo Mass Shooting: The U.K teen’s hateful content was linked to two mass shootings in the U.S.

Ben Makuch: Neo-Nazi terrorist group using Steve Bannon account to radicalize people: Group is covertly seeding violent propaganda on to mainstream social media channels.

Parler

Will Carless: This social media network set the stage for Jan. 6, then was taken offline. Now it’s back.

Makena Kelly & William Turton: Parler’s New Owners Swear This Time Will Be Different: The “free speech” social media alternative is back on Apple’s App Store ahead of its official relaunch.

Tess Owen: Kanye West Is Buying Parler as the Far-Right Scrambles to Co-Opt Him: The rapper, who has fully gone public with his antisemitism, is buying the far-right platform. The extreme right could not be more thrilled.

Reddit

All Things Considered: Behind Reddit’s Decision To Boot ‘The_Donald’ Forum.

James Vincent: Reddit reports 18 percent reduction in hateful content after banning nearly 7,000 subreddits.

Becky Sullivan: Reddit and YouTube must face a lawsuit over the radicalization of the Buffalo shooter.

SimpleX Chat

David Gilbert: Neo-Nazis Are Fleeing Telegram for Encrypted App SimpleX Chat:Neo-Nazis are joining SimpleX Chat, a relatively unknown app that received funding from Jack Dorsey and promises users there is no way for it or law enforcement to track their identity.

Ben Makuch: Far-right extremists flee from Telegram to SimpleX over privacy features:App that doesn’t require users’ emails or phone numbers secured over $1m in funding with help from Jack Dorsey.

Substack

Shane Burley: How Deep Does Substack’s Far-Right Problem Run, Really?

Jonathan M. Katz: Substack Has a Nazi Problem: The newsletter platform’s lax content moderation creates an opening for white nationalists eager to get their message out.

Telegram

Will Carless: Telegram CEO’s arrest roils far-right users in US.

Joseph Cox: Telegram Changes Policy, Says It Will Provide User Data to Authorities.

David Gilbert: The Far Right Is Already Demonizing Kamala Harris: Social media platforms, far-right message boards, and extremist Telegram channels are full of misogynistic and racist hatred directed at the vice president.

David Gilbert & Isabel Fraser: X Is Boosting the Far Right’s UK Riots as Telegram Scrambles for Control: Far-right protesters are trying to share violent rhetoric on social media. For the first time, Telegram is blocking them—while X is giving them a platform.

Tess Owen: How Telegram Became White Nationalists’ Go-To Messaging Platform.

Phil Williams: A white supremacist warned me to comply with his demands or else. Now, he’s in federal custody:Hate-group researchers say Kai Liam Nix was the person behind the anonymous Appalachian Archives on Telegram.

Odette Yousef & Mary Louise Kelly: The arrest of Telegram’s founder has spooked the far right in the U.S.

“Terrorgram”

Abner Hauge & Social Research Club: Terrorgram Collective Leader was a Tucker Carlson Fanboy and failed Youtuber.

Richard Luscombe: US says white supremacist group tried to incite followers on Telegram to spark race war.

ProPublica:

• The Accelerationists’ App: How Telegram Became the “Center of Gravity” for a New Breed of Domestic Terrorists.
• Neo-Nazi Telegram Users Panic Amid Crackdown and Arrest of Alleged Leaders of Online Extremist Group.

Jeff Stone: Far-Right ‘Terrorgram’ Chatrooms Are Fueling a Wave of Power Grid Attacks: Extremist communities see damaging power substations as a way to fuel unrest and ultimately overthrow the US.

Ali Winston: ‘Terrorgram’ Charges Show US Has Had Tools to Crack Down on Far-Right Terrorism All Along.

TikTok

2022

Media Matters for America: After Twitter lifted Libs of TikTok’s suspension, the viral anti-LGBTQ account immediately returned to targeting educators and a children’s hospital.

Tess Owen: Christian Fascist Propaganda Is All Over TikTok.

2023

Tess Owen: Schools Report Bomb Threats Following Libs of Tiktok Anti-LGBTQ Posts: Almost a dozen schools or school districts contacted by VICE News reported a surge in bomb threats and harassment following the posts.

Will Carless: When Libs of TikTok tweets, threats increasingly follow.

2024

Institute for Strategic Dialog. NazTok: An organized neo-Nazi TikTok network is getting millions of views.

David Gilbert:

• TikTok Pushed Young German Voters Toward Far-Right Party: Young Germans searching TikTok for parties and candidates were disproportionately served content related to the far-right Alternative for Germany, says a new report shared exclusively with WIRE.
• TikTok Has a Nazi Problem: Not only is TikTok’s algorithm promoting Neo-Nazi content, extremist organizations are also using the platform to recruit new members and encourage real-world action.

NPR: Germany’s far-right AfD is using TikTok to vie for the immigrant vote.

Ciarán O’Connor & Jared Holt: TikTok and White Supremacist Content.

Nikki McCann Ramirez: Libs of TikTok Fueled Bomb Threats at Oklahoma Schools. The Superintendent Just Hired Her.

Truth Social

Ken Bensinger and Maggie Haberman: Trump’s Evolution in Social-Media Exile: More QAnon, More Extremes.

NPR: Trump posted a video on Truth Social calling the country a ‘unified reich’ if he wins.

William Turton: The Hacking Lawsuit Looming Over Truth Social: The founding CEO of DWAC has accused his former assistant of hacking into his accounts as part of a “coup d’état,” the latest legal mess for Truth Social.

The Washington Post: How Trump’s allies amplify his Truth Social messages to the wider world.

Twitter/X

2022

Andy Cao, Jason M. Lindo & Jiee Zhong: Can Social Media Rhetoric Incite Hate Incidents? Evidence from Trump’s “Chinese Virus” Tweets.

Media Matters for America: After Twitter lifted Libs of TikTok’s suspension, the viral anti-LGBTQ account immediately returned to targeting educators and a children’s hospital.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss: Elon Musk’s Twitter is a welcoming home for Trump-disillusioned QAnon.

2023

BBC: IBM suspends ads on X after they appeared next to Nazi posts.

CNN: Twitter removes transgender protections from hateful conduct policy.

Drew Harwell: New video undercuts claim Twitter censored pro-Trump views before Jan. 6: In the internal video call from Jan. 5, 2021, workers were told not to take tougher action against a growing wave of tweets they feared were veiled incitements to violence.

Tess Owen:

• Racist Premium X Users Exploiting Israel-Hamas War to Push Antisemitism, Islamophobia.
• At Leading Anti-Hate Group, Boss’s Embrace of Elon Musk Raises Tensions: Some staff at the Anti-Defamation League are wondering why, when antisemitism is on the rise, their CEO is treating the X owner with kid gloves.

The Washington Post:

• Antisemitism was rising online. Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it.
• The Washington Post: Elon Musk’s Twitter pushes hate speech, extremist content into ‘For You’ pages: A Washington Post analysis found that accounts following dozens of Twitter handles pushing hate speech were subjected to an algorithmic echo chamber,in which Twitter fed additional hateful and racist content to users.

2024

Carole Cadwalladr: Inciting rioters in Britain was a test run for Elon Musk. Just see what he plans for America.

Will Carless: Study found hate speech in tweets. So Musk tried to punish the researchers, judge says.

Will Carless & Jessica Guynn: Riots in the UK spurred by racist posts on X. Experts warn of a repeat in the US.

Mari Cohen & Alex Kane: Top Executive Leaves ADL Over CEO’s Praise of Elon Musk: Yaël Eisenstat’s departure is the most prominent instance of post-October 7th dissent within the organization.

Arianna Coghill & Garrison Hayes: Elon Musk Keeps Spreading a Very Specific Kind of Racism: He is the “patient zero for this sort of stuff right now.”

Kate Conger & Jim Rutenberg: Elon Musk Is Spreading Election Misinformation, but X’s Fact Checkers Are Long Gone: Civil rights lawyers and Democrats are sounding alarms about Mr. Musk’s claims about voting. The Biden campaign called his posts “profoundly irresponsible.”

Andrew Couts: Elon Musk Is a National Security Risk:Musk’s now-deleted post questioning why no one has attempted to assassinate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris renews concerns over his work for the US government—and potential to inspire extremist violence.

Paresh Dave: Inside Two Years of Turmoil at Big Tech’s Anti-Terrorism Group:X has left the board of GIFCT, an organization through which tech companies exchange information to keep violent content off the web. It’s the latest in a series of episodes driving tension within the ranks.

Vittoria Elliott: X’s First Transparency Report Since Elon Musk’s Takeover Is Finally Here:In the first half of 2024, the report says, X received nearly 67 million reports of hateful conduct, and took action on more than 2,000 accounts.

David Gilbert:

• Elon Musk’s X Is Suspending Accounts That Reveal a Neo-Nazi Cartoonist’s Alleged Identity: Researchers and journalists have been blocked on X from sharing the alleged identity of the neo-Nazi cartoonist Stonetoss.
• Donald Trump Doesn’t Need X—but Elon Musk Desperately Needs Him Back.
• Trump’s New Silicon Valley Supporters Really Want You to Forget He Called Nazis ‘Fine People’: Over the past few weeks, figures like Elon Musk have tried to minimize comments Donald Trump made about the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

David Gilbert & Isabel Fraser: X Is Boosting the Far Right’s UK Riots as Telegram Scrambles for Control: Far-right protesters are trying to share violent rhetoric on social media. For the first time, Telegram is blocking them—while X is giving them a platform.

Pema Levy: Elon Musk Is Directing All X Litigation Toward His Favorite Judge: The Texas-based GOP-appointee has a financial stake in Musk’s car company.

Anna Merlan: Can Elon Musk Really Sue People for Not Wanting to Be Seen With Him? A lawsuit claims that corporate advertisers avoided X as part of a vast left-wing conspiracy.

Brianna Morris-Grant: Misinformation posted to Twitter comes from ‘superspreader’ accounts, say researchers, amid warnings for future of content moderation on X.

Sebastian Murdock: Elon Musk Says He’ll Reinstate Twitter Account Of Hitler-Loving White Supremacist.

Tom Phillips: Bolsonaro supporters hit streets of Rio and hail new hero Elon Musk: Owner of X has used social media platform to bash judge in charge of investigations into former president.

Jonathan Stempel: Musk’s X Corp loses lawsuit against hate speech watchdog.

The Washington Post: Elon Musk’s misleading election claims reach millions and alarm election officials: The X billionaire’s false posts about noncitizen voting spur officials to fact-check him, lead to requests to purge voter rolls, and add to worries about threats, election officials say.

Jason Wilson: Revealed: US university lecturer behind far-right Twitter account and publishing house. Guardian investigation identifies Jonathan Keeperman, a former lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, as ‘Lomez’.

YouTube

Ali Breland: Militias Still Have a Safe Space on YouTube: A new report found hundreds of videos from sympathizers of groups that participated in the Capitol riot.

David Gilbert: YouTube Livestreamers Made Money ‘Hunting’ for Migrants Along the US Border: After leaving Texas, members of the Take Our Border Back convoy livestreamed their harassment of migrants in Arizona and California.

Mack Lamoureux: Man Posted YouTube Video With Father’s Severed Head While Ranting About Joe Biden: Justin Mohn was arrested in Pennsylvania after his mother found the headless corpse.His social media shows a long history of troubling far-right conspiracy theories and talking points.

Kevin Roose: The Making of a YouTube Radical.

Other

J.M. Berger: The Strategy of Violent White Supremacy is Evolving: the Failed Approach of ‘Leaderless Resistance’ Gets a Second Chance in the Information Age.

Will Carless: To combat bullying and extremism, Air Force Academy turns to social media sleuthing.

Joan Donovan, Emily Dreyfuss, & Brian Friedberg: How Memes Led to an Insurrection: A president who understood the power of memes was able to send thousands of people into battle against democracy itself.

Elizabeth Dwoskin: Come to the ‘war cry party’: How social media helped drive mayhem in Brazil. Researchers detected a surge in aggressive rhetoric from election denialists in far-right channels online ahead of Sunday’s rioting.

Vittoria Elliott & David Gilbert: A Far-Right Indian News Site Posts Racist Conspiracies. US Tech Companies Keep Platforming It.

Kayla Gogarty: The unhinged MAGA “meme team” apparently behind Trump’s “unified Reich” video.

Malcolm Harris: Lol Klans: A scholar of the Ku Klux Klan explains how the KKK used the same trolling tactics as the alt-right.

Neil F. Johnson:

• Hidden resilience and adaptive dynamics of the global online hate ecology.
• The physics professor who says online extremists act like curdled milk: Hate may be less like a cancer and more like bubbles, says Neil Johnson, who applies physics theory to human behavior.

Juliette Kayyem: A ‘Lone-Wolf’ Shooter Has an Online Pack: Even when a shooter acts alone, their ideology is often shared.

Talia Lavin: White Supremacy And Its Online Reach.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss: How the internet supercharged white supremacist homeschooling: Extremists using homeschooling education to spread white supremacist ideology is becoming a growing problem.

Brandy Zadrozny: Michael Benz, a conservative crusader against online censorship, appears to have a secret history as an alt-right persona: Frame Game, the pseudonym of an alt-right internet personality, hid his face while pushing racist conspiracy theories.