4 ms·

The board specifically set aside for politics on 4chan is probably the most popular neo-Nazi discussion forum on the internet. "Far-right" is a completely fair

The board specifically set aside for politics on 4chan is probably the most popular neo-Nazi discussion forum on the internet. "Far-right" is a completely fair description of the political leanings of that site.

brucethemoose2 4y ago
But they have never been "far right" in the way that the traditional racial supremacy kind of neo nazis are. If anything, they are good evidence for horseshoe theory, or perhaps invalidity of the left-right scale: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  /pol/ most certainly is that way. I've been on 4chan for more than 15 years and I research far right extremism professionally. /pol/ isn't the most right wing or extreme place on the internet, but claiming it's not like 'traditional racial supremacy [..] neo-nazis' is nonsense, that's 20-25% of /pol/ threads.
  - brucethemoose2 4y ago
    Touche, I am not a /pol/ regular. Glimpses of /b/ is about as far as I got, and the Nazism seemed more like trolling and baiting on the surface.
  - TechBro8615 4y ago
    > I research far right extremism professionally Please elaborate. This is a common claim among "disinformation experts," when what they really mean is they occasionally browse /pol/ while telling themselves it's an academic exercise and they're obviously better than everyone posting on that "cesspool." If reading /pol/ for hours a day is enough to say you "research far right extremism professionally," then I'd posit that every one of the most active users of /pol/ is more of an expert on it than any pseudo-intellectual making a spurious claim to authority based on their "professional expertise." By that metric, nearly every one of your "research subjects" is more of an expert than you, so if we want a fair assessment of 4chan, we should probably ask someone who uses it genuinely rather than sanctimoniously.
    - vulcan01 4y ago
      This comment is written in bad faith - generally on HN we try to take what people say at face value. They said they research far-right extremism professionally. The good-faith interpretation is that they do this as part of their job, as that is what "professionally" means.
      - TechBro8615 4y ago
        I'm skeptical that any such job exists.
        skissane 4y ago
        > I'm skeptical that any such job exists. The University of Oslo has a "Center for Research on Extremism" (CRE-X). https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/ https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/ While their name suggests they might be just as interested in the far-left as the far-right, if you look at their actual publications, they are almost entirely focused on the far-right, and even those rare occasions they do pay any attention to the far-left, it is generally cases of far-right/far-left overlap. So yes, they are an example of people researching far-right extremism for a living. In fact, there are lots of other university and independent research centres looking into the topic–I cited CRE-X as an example only because they were at the top of my Google search results. It is something government research funders in many countries want to invest in, and there are also various wealthy philanthropists and charity/activist/lobby groups willing to put money towards it. Nothing unbelievable about someone claiming to do it professionally, because people do.
        SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
        Realistically, there is reason for an institution in Norway to study far-right extremism, as it can and has happened there. e.g. Utøya in 2011
        skissane 4y ago
        > The University of Oslo has a "Center for Research on Extremism" (CRE-X) > I cited CRE-X as an example only because they were at the top of my Google search results C-REX, not CRE-X. And I didn’t just mangle their acronym once, I managed to do it twice
- nemothekid 4y ago
  >But they have never been "far right" in the way that the traditional racial supremacy kind of neo nazis are. There is no way you are talking about /pol/. I refuse to believe you have spent any amount of time on /pol/ and haven't seen the countless race IQ charts.
SkinTaco 4y ago
This is like saying reddit is far right because of the_donald
- pcwalton 4y ago
  The_Donald was (1) banned and (2) not the official politics forum. It's more like characterizing Reddit as a whole as left-leaning because /r/politics is, which is, in my book, a fair claim.
  - TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
    Reddit's userbase seems to be mostly "brogressive". Imgur, surprisingly, seems more solidly "based".
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  I mean the goofiness comes from "what are the politics of a website" being inherently kind of a strange question with no clear answer. The motivations and values of the people who run these sites are mostly not legible to us. We can look at what the sites are used for. If someone is using their own money to host a forum for neo nazis it's very coherent to describe this behavior as, at the very least, supporting neo nazis. If they are also hosting a motorcycle forum with their money, does that cancel out the neo nazi support? Is it reasonable to say either site IS a nazi forum? What if most but not all members of the motorcycle forum are also nazi forum members? What if only a few of them are? What if they share login systems and comment histories? There aren't clear boundaries between these things. The nazi forum is definitely a nazi forum. Whether the motorcycle forum is a nazi forum depends on how much userbase and culture and branding they share, and how high your tolerance for nazis is; an individual assessment without an objective answer.
- diamondfist25 4y ago
  We all know the FBI got their tentacles in Reddit’s policies. O wait.
local_crmdgeon 4y ago
I thought Stormfront was the big website for them? /pol/ is a bunch of nutters but it's not well organized. Arguably there's more visible White Nationalism on Twitter.

brucethemoose2 4y ago

But they have never been "far right" in the way that the traditional racial supremacy kind of neo nazis are. If anything, they are good evidence for horseshoe theory, or perhaps invalidity of the left-right scale: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

anigbrowl 4y ago
/pol/ most certainly is that way. I've been on 4chan for more than 15 years and I research far right extremism professionally. /pol/ isn't the most right wing or extreme place on the internet, but claiming it's not like 'traditional racial supremacy [..] neo-nazis' is nonsense, that's 20-25% of /pol/ threads.
- brucethemoose2 4y ago
  Touche, I am not a /pol/ regular. Glimpses of /b/ is about as far as I got, and the Nazism seemed more like trolling and baiting on the surface.
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  > I research far right extremism professionally Please elaborate. This is a common claim among "disinformation experts," when what they really mean is they occasionally browse /pol/ while telling themselves it's an academic exercise and they're obviously better than everyone posting on that "cesspool." If reading /pol/ for hours a day is enough to say you "research far right extremism professionally," then I'd posit that every one of the most active users of /pol/ is more of an expert on it than any pseudo-intellectual making a spurious claim to authority based on their "professional expertise." By that metric, nearly every one of your "research subjects" is more of an expert than you, so if we want a fair assessment of 4chan, we should probably ask someone who uses it genuinely rather than sanctimoniously.
  - vulcan01 4y ago
    This comment is written in bad faith - generally on HN we try to take what people say at face value. They said they research far-right extremism professionally. The good-faith interpretation is that they do this as part of their job, as that is what "professionally" means.
    - TechBro8615 4y ago
      I'm skeptical that any such job exists.
      - skissane 4y ago
        > I'm skeptical that any such job exists. The University of Oslo has a "Center for Research on Extremism" (CRE-X). https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/ https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/ While their name suggests they might be just as interested in the far-left as the far-right, if you look at their actual publications, they are almost entirely focused on the far-right, and even those rare occasions they do pay any attention to the far-left, it is generally cases of far-right/far-left overlap. So yes, they are an example of people researching far-right extremism for a living. In fact, there are lots of other university and independent research centres looking into the topic–I cited CRE-X as an example only because they were at the top of my Google search results. It is something government research funders in many countries want to invest in, and there are also various wealthy philanthropists and charity/activist/lobby groups willing to put money towards it. Nothing unbelievable about someone claiming to do it professionally, because people do.
        SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
        Realistically, there is reason for an institution in Norway to study far-right extremism, as it can and has happened there. e.g. Utøya in 2011
        skissane 4y ago
        > The University of Oslo has a "Center for Research on Extremism" (CRE-X) > I cited CRE-X as an example only because they were at the top of my Google search results C-REX, not CRE-X. And I didn’t just mangle their acronym once, I managed to do it twice
nemothekid 4y ago
>But they have never been "far right" in the way that the traditional racial supremacy kind of neo nazis are. There is no way you are talking about /pol/. I refuse to believe you have spent any amount of time on /pol/ and haven't seen the countless race IQ charts.

SkinTaco 4y ago

This is like saying reddit is far right because of the_donald

pcwalton 4y ago
The_Donald was (1) banned and (2) not the official politics forum. It's more like characterizing Reddit as a whole as left-leaning because /r/politics is, which is, in my book, a fair claim.
- TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
  Reddit's userbase seems to be mostly "brogressive". Imgur, surprisingly, seems more solidly "based".
giraffe_lady 4y ago
I mean the goofiness comes from "what are the politics of a website" being inherently kind of a strange question with no clear answer. The motivations and values of the people who run these sites are mostly not legible to us. We can look at what the sites are used for. If someone is using their own money to host a forum for neo nazis it's very coherent to describe this behavior as, at the very least, supporting neo nazis. If they are also hosting a motorcycle forum with their money, does that cancel out the neo nazi support? Is it reasonable to say either site IS a nazi forum? What if most but not all members of the motorcycle forum are also nazi forum members? What if only a few of them are? What if they share login systems and comment histories? There aren't clear boundaries between these things. The nazi forum is definitely a nazi forum. Whether the motorcycle forum is a nazi forum depends on how much userbase and culture and branding they share, and how high your tolerance for nazis is; an individual assessment without an objective answer.
diamondfist25 4y ago
We all know the FBI got their tentacles in Reddit’s policies. O wait.

local_crmdgeon 4y ago

I thought Stormfront was the big website for them? /pol/ is a bunch of nutters but it's not well organized. Arguably there's more visible White Nationalism on Twitter.