9 ms·

Hey, thanks for comment. I'm a bit skeptical of the whole linguistic analysis thing, for various reasons. But I could be convinced otherwise (Also this would

by sethsd 12y ago

Hey, thanks for comment. I'm a bit skeptical of the whole linguistic analysis thing, for various reasons. But I could be convinced otherwise (Also this would bias the analysis away from people who just register and lurk) ... Another thing I looked at was Facebook profiles. But this part was cut due to space. Here's what I found: Not surprisingly, most Stormfront users do not want to announce their white nationalism to the world. But about 100 Americans say on Facebook that they like Stormfront and are publicly searchable. This small, selected sample can offer suggestive clues to the membership of such sites. Are, for example, white nationalists unpopular and social pariahs? Nearly 80 percent of Stormfront fans had more than 100 Facebook friends. Nearly 60 percent had more than 200 friends. By comparison, a 2011 study found only half of Facebook users had more than 100 friends. Finally, another thing that was interesting was the percent of people who are atheists on the site. But I wasn't sure exactly what to compare that to, so that got cut too. - Seth

henrymercer 12y ago
"Why do some people feel this way?...And I can honestly offer the following answer: I have no idea." Do you actually not know? Or are you asking rhetorically? The reasons seem pretty obvious to me, not sure why they would be hard to figure out.
- sethsd 12y ago
  i meant that i don't know what the answer is. because the obvious answers that sound really good -- diversity, education, economic development -- may not work.
  - henrymercer 12y ago
    IMO, the Stromfront-type writings consist of about 30% legitimate grievance and perhaps 70% crackpottery, all portrayed in a grossly simplified and vulgar way. Part of the fuel for the crackpottery, is that the media/NYTimes in general ignore or downplay the legitimate grievances. Once you stop believing the NYTimes, well, what do you believe? You can believe anything a random site on the internet says. So one obvious answer, which you left out, is to actually address the legitimate grievances. The other obvious answer is censorship. Why don't we have a Stormfront TV channel? Because such a channel could never get a cable license, and if it did, it would get sued out of existence. Surely some lawsuit can be conjured up to shut down Stormfront, and make it impossible for other web hosts to host such sites? So either address the grievances and make peace or crush them underfoot and leave no doubt - those are always the two traditional ways to deal with hateful dissenters.
    - michaelochurch 12y ago
      30% legitimate grievance Legitimate grievance? How is blaming the world's problems on "the Jews" (as if they all operated as one) anything remotely resembling legitimate grievance? Poor, rural white Americans are getting a raw deal (thanks, in large part, to right-wing politicians they were misled into electing) but that's because poor, rural people everywhere are getting a bad deal these days. "Whites are an oppressed group" is complete idiocy and an indefensible position.
      - henrymercer 12y ago
        "The Jews are to blame" aspect is NOT part of the 30% that is legitimate grievance. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029096
        igravious 12y ago
        Yeah, silly michaelochurch. It's black on white crime of course. (Well according to your comment.) Add to that faulty logic. Add to that the general degradation of morals and the kids of today, I tell you. --- Let's completely forget the centuries long history of white on black oppression that has led to the unequal socio-economic conditions between blacks and whites. I'd, you know, cut them some slack. --- You do realise that every generation has claimed that the "youth of today" are nothing compared to how things were "back in the day". I mean, really? --- The only thing you said that made sense is tribalism. I would jettison the rest if I were you.
        henrymercer 12y ago
        "Let's completely forget the centuries long history of white on black oppression that has led to the unequal socio-economic conditions between blacks and whites. I'd, you know, cut them some slack." By saying "cut them some slack" you are implying that I am doing the opposite. IE, I you are implying that I am being too hard on black people. How is this case? I pointed out a legitimate problem - black-on-white crime. Is it not a problem that multiple friends and people like my friends (ie white or Asian) were assaulted or killed in nearby neighborhoods? Is it not a problem? Should I just be silent about these problems? What on earth does "cutting them some slack mean"? I'm not endorsing stormfronts views on the matter, I am just saying that the base of their hatred there are some real, legitimate problems. "You do realise that every generation has claimed that the "youth of today" are nothing compared to how things were "back in the day". I mean, really?" Yes, I realize that. It also true. Most of the people who ever complained about the decline of the youth, were in fact correct. That is how the rise and fall of civilizations works. Civilizations explode out of a small tribes of ultra-militant, ultra-fertile, ultra-patriarchal, utlra-disciplined people. See for instance, the Puritan settlers of America who had fertility rates of nearly 10 per woman, who conquered New England, begot 16 million descendants and established the American empire. Each generation was slightly more decadent than the previous. But the momentum from the starting culture was so great that there was a lot of expansion before the cultural decay becomes apparent, and the decline phase sets in. Eventually, the society becomes too decadent and corrupt, and a new hard-core tribe comes in and conquers. So the cycle goes. How many years before ISIS rules us all? Hopefully it won't be in my lifetime. One side note - the decline is not uniform or all one-way. Within the broader trend there are ebbs and flows among subpopulations of being more or less vulgar, more or less decadent, etc. Vulgarity actually probably decreases for a while as the break-out tribe becomes more "civilized", and then starts to rise again as order declines. (I think the 1950's were probably an absolute minimum of vulgarity in the U.S.) "I would jettison the rest if I were you." Is that a threat?
- dsjoerg 12y ago
  What are these obvious reasons?
  - henrymercer 12y ago
    The hateful milieu arises from the mixing of four ingredients: One part legitimate grievance. For instance, black on white crime is a huge problem that is not talked about and not addressed in mainstream discourse. In Philadelphia, a close friend of mine got mugged at gunpoint outside of her apartment. Two blocks away, recently, a twenty-something woman who could have been any of my friends, was mugged, shot, and killed. In another incident, a man fitting my own demographic profile, was mugged, shot and paralyzed, a few blocks away. Elsewhere, a group of yuppies walking home were attacked by a "flash mob" and had the crap beaten out of them ( http://www.phillymag.com/news/2011/06/27/fk-flash-mobs/ http://www.phillymag.com/news/2011/06/27/fk-flash-mobs/ ). My friend now fears to go to the grocery store after dark. Young professionals fear sending their kids to public schools because their kids will get beaten up and be made miserable ( see http://thenotebook.org/blog/125398/looking-back-on-racial-violence-south-philly-high http://thenotebook.org/blog/125398/looking-back-on-racial-vi... or http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1lfr7l/as_a_new_white_kid_in_a_predominately_black/cbyx7d8 http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1lfr7l/as_a_n... ) When you have legitimate grievances, and discussion of those grievances is actively suppressed (see http://whitegirlbleedalot.com/ http://whitegirlbleedalot.com/ ), then it is easy to get carried away with further conspiracies that are not actually true. That leads us to the next ingredient. One part pattern-matching that leads to plausible, but false, grievances. For instance, it is undeniably true that "Jews totally run Hollywood" ( see http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/19/opinion/oe-stein19 http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/19/opinion/oe-stein19 ). It is also arguably true that the output of Hollywood is poisoning our culture and leading to the destruction of our civilization. If you believe those two things, then it is not that much of a leap to believe that Jews are ruining the country. Personally, I believe that Hollywood is poisonous, but I do not blame it on the Jews. I think the Jewish people have a disproportionate number of savvy businessman, they ended up running the studios for historical reasons, and that they are mainly producing the films that people want to see. If Hollywood was run by gentiles, the output would be largely the same. Perhaps the main problem is actually the First Amendment - civilization might not be able to survive the freedom to watch addictive trash on television. One part tribal instinct. When you feel like you have been lied to, called evil, and excluded, well, you want to find other fellow travelers to bond with. And then the internal dialogue feeds on itself, and it exacerbates the "us-against-them" mentality. One part general vulgarity due to a break down in character education in our society. My mother has frequently commented on the general rudeness, vulgarity, uncivilness, etc. in recent generations versus when she grew up in the 1950's. I suspect this is not just nostalgia. Especially on the internet, people say awful things. Put it all together, and Stormfront is what you get.
clarkm 12y ago
Eh, I don't think the number of Facebook friends is a meaningful comparison here. At least, not without additional controls. If a user takes the time to seek out such niche likes on Facebook, they also probably take the time to seek out friends to add. I know Facebook doesn't have the massive fake user problem that plagues Twitter, but still, I'd wager that fake profiles, inactive accounts, and users from countries with low Facebook usage skew the average significantly. You can't really tell if they are "social [media] pariahs" unless you compare them to a representative sample. You could control for the average number of likes, and compare that to the average number of friends. Or even better, you could compare them to several groups of users who like other fringe topics (from all parts of the political spectrum) and see if they're significant outliers. In fact, this is going on my idea list. :)
- sethsd 12y ago
  yea, that seems a better way to do it. and regardless you're dealing with such a small percentage of white nationalists and such a selected sample that it can only be suggestive. but i'm really not sure how else you could get any clues, so it seems worthwhile. -- seth
tinco 12y ago
Thanks a lot for making an account and taking part in the discussing, and my apologies for bashing your article a bit. Obviously the topic is very interesting and I'm very happy you made the article. I would actually be wary of the lurkers, I suppose there is a significant amount of people who are 'interested' in stormfront without actually sharing the belief who have accounts there. The Facebook statistic would be very interesting if it had been of the average Stormfront user. There's a chance the sort of person who has extreme opinions on their FB just has more friends, with only 100 out of 200.000 it's hard to tell. It's funny you are skeptical of the linguistic analysis thing while you opened the article with a quote from a girl who was impressed by the linguistic analysis of that NYT quiz ;) You can make this sort of analysis without any specific knowledge at all, a very generic n-gram analysis could give you anything from common phrases used by stormfront users to linking their identities across mediums (i.e. stormfront to twitter/facebook).

by sethsd 12y ago

henrymercer 12y ago

"Why do some people feel this way?...And I can honestly offer the following answer: I have no idea." Do you actually not know? Or are you asking rhetorically? The reasons seem pretty obvious to me, not sure why they would be hard to figure out.

sethsd 12y ago
i meant that i don't know what the answer is. because the obvious answers that sound really good -- diversity, education, economic development -- may not work.
- henrymercer 12y ago
  IMO, the Stromfront-type writings consist of about 30% legitimate grievance and perhaps 70% crackpottery, all portrayed in a grossly simplified and vulgar way. Part of the fuel for the crackpottery, is that the media/NYTimes in general ignore or downplay the legitimate grievances. Once you stop believing the NYTimes, well, what do you believe? You can believe anything a random site on the internet says. So one obvious answer, which you left out, is to actually address the legitimate grievances. The other obvious answer is censorship. Why don't we have a Stormfront TV channel? Because such a channel could never get a cable license, and if it did, it would get sued out of existence. Surely some lawsuit can be conjured up to shut down Stormfront, and make it impossible for other web hosts to host such sites? So either address the grievances and make peace or crush them underfoot and leave no doubt - those are always the two traditional ways to deal with hateful dissenters.
  - michaelochurch 12y ago
    30% legitimate grievance Legitimate grievance? How is blaming the world's problems on "the Jews" (as if they all operated as one) anything remotely resembling legitimate grievance? Poor, rural white Americans are getting a raw deal (thanks, in large part, to right-wing politicians they were misled into electing) but that's because poor, rural people everywhere are getting a bad deal these days. "Whites are an oppressed group" is complete idiocy and an indefensible position.
    - henrymercer 12y ago
      "The Jews are to blame" aspect is NOT part of the 30% that is legitimate grievance. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029096
      - igravious 12y ago
        Yeah, silly michaelochurch. It's black on white crime of course. (Well according to your comment.) Add to that faulty logic. Add to that the general degradation of morals and the kids of today, I tell you. --- Let's completely forget the centuries long history of white on black oppression that has led to the unequal socio-economic conditions between blacks and whites. I'd, you know, cut them some slack. --- You do realise that every generation has claimed that the "youth of today" are nothing compared to how things were "back in the day". I mean, really? --- The only thing you said that made sense is tribalism. I would jettison the rest if I were you.
        henrymercer 12y ago
        "Let's completely forget the centuries long history of white on black oppression that has led to the unequal socio-economic conditions between blacks and whites. I'd, you know, cut them some slack." By saying "cut them some slack" you are implying that I am doing the opposite. IE, I you are implying that I am being too hard on black people. How is this case? I pointed out a legitimate problem - black-on-white crime. Is it not a problem that multiple friends and people like my friends (ie white or Asian) were assaulted or killed in nearby neighborhoods? Is it not a problem? Should I just be silent about these problems? What on earth does "cutting them some slack mean"? I'm not endorsing stormfronts views on the matter, I am just saying that the base of their hatred there are some real, legitimate problems. "You do realise that every generation has claimed that the "youth of today" are nothing compared to how things were "back in the day". I mean, really?" Yes, I realize that. It also true. Most of the people who ever complained about the decline of the youth, were in fact correct. That is how the rise and fall of civilizations works. Civilizations explode out of a small tribes of ultra-militant, ultra-fertile, ultra-patriarchal, utlra-disciplined people. See for instance, the Puritan settlers of America who had fertility rates of nearly 10 per woman, who conquered New England, begot 16 million descendants and established the American empire. Each generation was slightly more decadent than the previous. But the momentum from the starting culture was so great that there was a lot of expansion before the cultural decay becomes apparent, and the decline phase sets in. Eventually, the society becomes too decadent and corrupt, and a new hard-core tribe comes in and conquers. So the cycle goes. How many years before ISIS rules us all? Hopefully it won't be in my lifetime. One side note - the decline is not uniform or all one-way. Within the broader trend there are ebbs and flows among subpopulations of being more or less vulgar, more or less decadent, etc. Vulgarity actually probably decreases for a while as the break-out tribe becomes more "civilized", and then starts to rise again as order declines. (I think the 1950's were probably an absolute minimum of vulgarity in the U.S.) "I would jettison the rest if I were you." Is that a threat?
dsjoerg 12y ago
What are these obvious reasons?
- henrymercer 12y ago
  The hateful milieu arises from the mixing of four ingredients: One part legitimate grievance. For instance, black on white crime is a huge problem that is not talked about and not addressed in mainstream discourse. In Philadelphia, a close friend of mine got mugged at gunpoint outside of her apartment. Two blocks away, recently, a twenty-something woman who could have been any of my friends, was mugged, shot, and killed. In another incident, a man fitting my own demographic profile, was mugged, shot and paralyzed, a few blocks away. Elsewhere, a group of yuppies walking home were attacked by a "flash mob" and had the crap beaten out of them ( http://www.phillymag.com/news/2011/06/27/fk-flash-mobs/ http://www.phillymag.com/news/2011/06/27/fk-flash-mobs/ ). My friend now fears to go to the grocery store after dark. Young professionals fear sending their kids to public schools because their kids will get beaten up and be made miserable ( see http://thenotebook.org/blog/125398/looking-back-on-racial-violence-south-philly-high http://thenotebook.org/blog/125398/looking-back-on-racial-vi... or http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1lfr7l/as_a_new_white_kid_in_a_predominately_black/cbyx7d8 http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1lfr7l/as_a_n... ) When you have legitimate grievances, and discussion of those grievances is actively suppressed (see http://whitegirlbleedalot.com/ http://whitegirlbleedalot.com/ ), then it is easy to get carried away with further conspiracies that are not actually true. That leads us to the next ingredient. One part pattern-matching that leads to plausible, but false, grievances. For instance, it is undeniably true that "Jews totally run Hollywood" ( see http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/19/opinion/oe-stein19 http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/19/opinion/oe-stein19 ). It is also arguably true that the output of Hollywood is poisoning our culture and leading to the destruction of our civilization. If you believe those two things, then it is not that much of a leap to believe that Jews are ruining the country. Personally, I believe that Hollywood is poisonous, but I do not blame it on the Jews. I think the Jewish people have a disproportionate number of savvy businessman, they ended up running the studios for historical reasons, and that they are mainly producing the films that people want to see. If Hollywood was run by gentiles, the output would be largely the same. Perhaps the main problem is actually the First Amendment - civilization might not be able to survive the freedom to watch addictive trash on television. One part tribal instinct. When you feel like you have been lied to, called evil, and excluded, well, you want to find other fellow travelers to bond with. And then the internal dialogue feeds on itself, and it exacerbates the "us-against-them" mentality. One part general vulgarity due to a break down in character education in our society. My mother has frequently commented on the general rudeness, vulgarity, uncivilness, etc. in recent generations versus when she grew up in the 1950's. I suspect this is not just nostalgia. Especially on the internet, people say awful things. Put it all together, and Stormfront is what you get.

clarkm 12y ago

Eh, I don't think the number of Facebook friends is a meaningful comparison here. At least, not without additional controls. If a user takes the time to seek out such niche likes on Facebook, they also probably take the time to seek out friends to add. I know Facebook doesn't have the massive fake user problem that plagues Twitter, but still, I'd wager that fake profiles, inactive accounts, and users from countries with low Facebook usage skew the average significantly. You can't really tell if they are "social [media] pariahs" unless you compare them to a representative sample. You could control for the average number of likes, and compare that to the average number of friends. Or even better, you could compare them to several groups of users who like other fringe topics (from all parts of the political spectrum) and see if they're significant outliers. In fact, this is going on my idea list. :)

sethsd 12y ago
yea, that seems a better way to do it. and regardless you're dealing with such a small percentage of white nationalists and such a selected sample that it can only be suggestive. but i'm really not sure how else you could get any clues, so it seems worthwhile. -- seth

tinco 12y ago

Thanks a lot for making an account and taking part in the discussing, and my apologies for bashing your article a bit. Obviously the topic is very interesting and I'm very happy you made the article. I would actually be wary of the lurkers, I suppose there is a significant amount of people who are 'interested' in stormfront without actually sharing the belief who have accounts there. The Facebook statistic would be very interesting if it had been of the average Stormfront user. There's a chance the sort of person who has extreme opinions on their FB just has more friends, with only 100 out of 200.000 it's hard to tell. It's funny you are skeptical of the linguistic analysis thing while you opened the article with a quote from a girl who was impressed by the linguistic analysis of that NYT quiz ;) You can make this sort of analysis without any specific knowledge at all, a very generic n-gram analysis could give you anything from common phrases used by stormfront users to linking their identities across mediums (i.e. stormfront to twitter/facebook).