Online to Offline Crossover of White Supremacist Propaganda Article Swipe
YOU?
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· 2023
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3543873.3587569
· OA: W4327525418
White supremacist extremist groups are a significant domestic terror threat\nin many Western nations. These groups harness the Internet to spread their\nideology via online platforms: blogs, chat rooms, forums, and social media,\nwhich can inspire violence offline. In this work, we study the persistence and\nreach of white supremacist propaganda in both online and offline environments.\nWe also study patterns in narratives that crossover from online to offline\nenvironments, or vice versa. From a geospatial analysis, we find that offline\npropaganda is geographically widespread in the United States, with a slight\ntendency toward Northeastern states. Propaganda that spreads the farthest and\nlasts the longest has a patriotic framing and is short, memorable, and\nrepeatable. Through text comparison methods, we illustrate that online\npropaganda typically leads the appearance of the same propaganda in offline\nflyers, banners, and graffiti. We hope that this study sheds light on the\ncharacteristics of persistent white supremacist narratives both online and\noffline.\n
