Compromise of media giants with extremism giants! / Neo-Nazi funding from Facebook
Fars News Agency – Media Group – Alireza Sepahvand: The extremist neo-Nazis who were supposed to be banned from Facebook are still present on the social network and other social media such as Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, and continue to generate revenue to continue their activities.
The so-called top martial arts group in Europe is for right-wing extremists. German authorities have twice banned their matches. But the “Kampf der Nibelungen” or “Battle of the Nibelungs” is still growing on Facebook, where its organizers turn several pages, are also active on Instagram and YouTube, and use them to spread their ideology, recruit and earn They use the proceeds through the sale of tickets and branded goods, the ultimate goal of which is extreme racial extremism and the use of violence and crime against other races, especially immigrants in Europe.
The “Battle of the Niblungs”, which refers to a classic heroic epic that was very popular with the Nazis, is one of dozens of far-right groups that, despite repeated promises by Facebook and other platforms to purge these extremist groups, continue to benefit the mainstream media. use.
According to research conducted by the Associated Press’ Center for the Counting of Extremist Groups, there are at least 54 Facebook profiles belonging to 39 entities that the German government and civil society groups have described as “extremist.” To fight extremism, these groups have close to 268,000 subscribers and likes on Facebook alone.
The CEP “Extremist Counting Project” also found 39 extremist profiles on Instagram, 16 Twitter accounts and 34 YouTube channels with more than 9.5 million views. Approximately 60% of profiles explicitly show for the purpose of monetizing, showing prominent links to online stores, or photos promoting the product.
Click on the big blue “View Store” button on your Facebook page and click on “Erik & Sons” to buy a T-shirt with the caption “My favorite color is white” for 20 euros ($ 23). Deutsches Warenhaus labels for € 2.50 ($ 3) and “Don’t welcome refugees” labels by extremist anti-immigrant groups. The Facebook feed OPOS Records promotes new music and products, including True Aggressio, Pride & Dignity and One Family T-shirts. The brand, which stands for “One People One Struggle”, also links to its online store via Twitter and Instagram.
The individuals and organizations in the CEP (Extremist Counting Project) database are individuals from the German far-right music and sports scene.
“They are the ones who build the infrastructure that people get to know, make money from, enjoy music, and serve their extremist goals,” said Alexander Ritzman, the project’s lead researcher. Most likely, the ones I have mentioned here do not seem to commit violent crimes. They are very smart and they create narratives and strengthen the activities of this environment, and then violence appears elsewhere.
The CEP (Extremist Counting Project) says it focuses on groups that overthrow liberal democratic institutions and norms such as freedom of the press, protection of minorities and universal human dignity, and believe that the white race is under siege and should be If necessary, be maintained with violence. The CEP says none of them have been banned, but almost all of them have been described as extremist in German intelligence reports.
Groups seem harmless on Facebook. They avoid blatant violations of the platform rules, such as the use of hate speech or the sending of the “broken cross of Nazi Germany,” which is generally illegal in Germany.
These key German far-right architects use the power of mainstream social media to promote festivals, fashion brands, music labels and mixed martial arts competitions that can sell millions of dollars, and like-minded thinkers. Connect yourself around the world.
But simply cutting off such groups can have unintended and destructive consequences.
“We do not want to go the way of telling sites that they should remove people based on their personality, but not on what they do on the site,” said David Green, director of civil liberties at the Electronic Borders Foundation in San Francisco. .
He added that giving broad platforms to sanctions organizations that are considered undesirable could put pressure on repressive governments to remove their critics. This could lead to serious human rights concerns. The history of content modification has shown us that it will almost always be to the detriment of marginalized and disabled people.
German authorities banned the “Battle of the Niblungs” event in 2019, because it was not really about sports, but instead took care of fighters with martial arts skills for political struggle!
In 2020, coinciding with the outbreak of the Corona virus, organizers planned to broadcast the event online, including on Instagram and other platforms, to promote the website. According to local media, a few weeks before the planned event, more than 100 black-clad police in Balklava broke up a rally at a motorcycle club in Magdeburg, where the fighting was being filmed, and pulled out a boxing ring. .
According to German government intelligence reports, the “Battle of the Niblungs” is a central point of contact for right-wing extremists. The organization speaks openly about its political goals of fighting the “rotten” liberal democratic order and attracts supporters from all over Europe and the United States.
Members of a street fight club of California’s top white movement, the Uprising Movement, and its founder, Robert Rono, have competed in the Niblanges. In 2018, at least four members of the Rise Above movement were arrested on charges of rioting for taking to the streets during a “Alliance of the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia. And now a number of Nieblang battle graduates are in prison, and their crimes include premeditated murder, rape and assault on immigrants.
Today, National Socialism, which describes itself as a “magazine of nationalists for nationalists,” praises the struggle of the Niblangs and other groups to strengthen the will to fight and to motivate “activists to improve their readiness to fight.”
But There has been no mention of the group’s professional or anti-government violence on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Instead, the brand is known as a health-conscious lifestyle that ostensibly sells tea cups and shoulder bags.
“Explore nature, enjoy the house!” A Facebook post above a photo of a muscular man at the top of a mountain wearing a “resistance” tracksuit shows a Niblang sponsor. All the men in the photos are white and enjoy useful activities such as jogging and mountaineering.
Condemned to incite hatred by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the German state of Thuringia, Thorsten Hayes, described as “one of Germany’s most prominent neo-Nazis,” also has several pages on Facebook and other social media.
Frank Kreimer, described by the German government as an “extreme right-wing musician”, uses his Facebook page to direct people to his blog and online store “Sonnenkreuz”, which features white national books and coronavirus conspiracies, as well as sports nutrition products. .. sells girls’ T-shirts with the slogan “insurgent vaccine”.
The Battle of the Niblangs Hayes and Kreimer declined to comment.
Facebook told the Associated Press that it has 350 employees whose main task is to fight terrorism and organized hatred, and is reviewing the pages and accounts marked in the report.
A company spokesman claimed: “We ban organizations and individuals who declare a mission of violence or are involved in violence. Between April and June, Facebook removed more than 6 million items of organized hate-related content worldwide and is working to move even faster.
Google said it has no interest in displaying hateful content on YouTube and is reviewing the accounts marked in the report. The company announced that it has partnered with dozens of experts to update its policies on premium content in 2019, which has led to a fivefold increase in the number of channels and movies removed.
Twitter says it is committed to ensuring that public conversation is “safe and sound” in its context and does not tolerate violent extremist groups. A spokesman for Facebook told the Associated Press: “Threatening or promoting violent extremism is against our law.
Robert Klaus, author of a book on the extreme right martial arts, says that the sports brands in the CEP (Extremist Group Counting) database are all rooted in far-right neo-Nazi groups in Germany and Europe. For example, one of the founders of the Battle of the Niblangs is part of a violent network of hammers, and another early supporter, the Russian neo-Nazi Kapostin, known as Dennis Nikitin, has been barred from entering the European Union for ten years.
Klaus said banning such groups on Facebook and other major platforms would limit their access to new audiences, but could also take them underground and make it harder to monitor their activities.
“This is a dangerous move because they can hire people,” he said. The ban on these accounts cuts them off from the audience, but their key figures and ideology are not lost.
“The danger is that the mainstream heavyweights of German music on Facebook and Twitter are seemingly harmless, which is more than They use it to promote their music, but they are actually a major threat to extremism, and the important thing is that branding and branding can help normalize the image of extremists.
He estimated that far-right concerts in Germany were earning around € 2 million ($ 2.3 million) a year before the outbreak of the Corona virus, excluding the sale of CDs and branded goods. According to him, the expulsion of extremist bands from Facebook is unlikely to have a large impact on their income, because there are other platforms that can follow them, such as Telegram and Gab. Right-wing extremists are not stupid and will always find a way to promote their content.
None of the groups’ activities appear to be illegal on major platforms, although they may violate Facebook’s guidelines that prohibit “dangerous individuals and organizations” who support violence online or offline. Facebook says it does not allow Nazism, white supremacy, white nationalism or white separatism to be advocated, and bans individuals and groups who adhere to such “hateful ideologies.”
Last week, Facebook exposed nearly 150 accounts and pages related to the German anti-quarantine movement Querdenken to groups that published false information or incited violence but were not included in the platform’s bad groups. Social »deleted.
But how these laws are being developed is unclear and controversial.
“If something goes wrong on the platform, it is easier to justify the suspension of a platform than to remove someone just because of their ideology,” said Daniel Holznagel, a Berlin court judge. Given human rights, this will be more difficult. It is the basis of Western society and human rights that our legal regimes do not boycott any idea, ideology or thought.
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a collaboration between the Associated Press and PBS that explores the challenges of think tanks and institutions claiming traditional US and European democracy.
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