White Supremacy Thriving Online, Despite Prevention Efforts
By Extremism Watch Desk
October 30, 2019 10:54 PM

WASHINGTON - As major tech companies step up efforts to curb extremist content on their platforms, far-right white extremists continue to find ways to spread violent messages and attract sympathizers on the internet.

Experts warn that far-right extremists in the West are turning to fringe sites such as Gab, BitChute, 4chan, 8chan and others to propagate their conspiracies.

While significant progress has been made to remove extremist content on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a large chunk of white extremist content on fringe platforms could go unnoticed.

8chan logo, anonymous online forum, graphic element on black
The 8chan logo from an anonymous online forum.
“White supremacists are typically early adopters of technology. They go and hang out in places where there aren’t strong rules — places they’re more likely to get a foothold,” Keegan Hankes, interim research director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told VOA.

In September, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released its framework for countering terrorism and targeted violence, which states that online space appears essential to the recent growth of white supremacists, in particular.

“Celebration of violence and conspiracy theories about the ‘ethnic replacement’ of whites as the majority ethnicity in various Western countries are prominent in their online circles,” the department said.