Trolling in the Deep

“Both of these guys made nasty, violent, prejudiced posts. Yet, as reporter after reporter has noted, their online lives were—to the human eye at least—indistinguishable from the legions of other trolls who say despicable things. There is just no telling who will stay in the comments section and who will try to kill people in the real world.” Alexis Madrigal: The Dilemma of Anti-Semitic Speech Online.

+ “Before he opened fire inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing at least 11 people who had gathered for Shabbat services, Robert Bowers, the alleged shooter, found a safe space to express the anti-Semitic hatred that was consuming him. ‘There is no MAGA as long as there is a k*** infestation,’ Bowers wrote on Gab. On Twitter or Facebook, Bowers’s views would have gotten him banned; on Gab, he fit right in.” Vanity Fair: Gab’s Demise Is Just The Beginning Of A Horrific New Era Of Far-Right Extremism.

+ NYT: On Instagram, 11,696 Examples of How Hate Thrives on Social Media. (Editor’s note: We need to stop pretending that the hate speech exploding across America is solely the result of social media. While social media hate speech is a very big problem, Fox News and Trump (and his enablers) are far more responsible than any social network. They have legitimized hateful lies, over and over. Gab didn’t create the synagogue shooter. Look at his words. They’re straight out of the Fox/Maga playbook.)