From Anti-Muslim to Anti-Jewish: Target Substitution on Fringe Social Media Platforms and the Persistence of Online and Offline Hate

The 2016 presidential campaign saw high levels of anti-Muslim online and offline hate. But, by the August 2017 'Unite the Right' rally, anti-Muslim discourse and hate crimes had partly receded, despite the group remaining politically salient and despite a sharp increase in White 'nationalist' activity targeting another religious minority, Jews. Was this by chance? Because we might expect White nationalist activity to increase hate against all groups, the counter-intuitive decline in anti-Muslim hate could have been coincidental. We argue instead that those shifts in animus toward Muslims and Jews should be considered in tandem, and that these over-time patterns of hate reflected different manifestations of elevated and constant religious ethnocentrism, especially among far-right extremists. Using data on fringe and mainstream social media sites and hate crime databases, we present two core sets of findings. First, increased anti-Jewish speech was partly driven by the same far-right communities and extremists who previously promoted anti-Muslim speech. Moreover, combined anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish rhetoric in fringe far-right social media over this period was sustained at a high and largely constant level, seeing shifts primarily in the targets of hate speech. Second, similar patterns manifest offline: hate crimes were more strongly associated with which group was targeted by hate speech, but not the overall prevalence of hate speech. Together, this study demonstrates a robust link between the dislike toward Muslims and dislike toward Jews, and how fringe groups organize the dissemination of hate.

Automated summary

The 2016 presidential campaign witnessed a rise in anti-Muslim hate, but by the August 2017 'Unite the Right' rally, this hate had decreased partly, while hate crimes against Jews had increased. This study argues that the decline in anti-Muslim hate may not be coincidental and that there is a robust link between the dislike toward Muslims and Jews, driven by far-right extremists. Data from social media sites and hate crime databases support this argument, showing sustained high levels of anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish rhetoric in fringe far-right groups.