December 09, 2021 In August 2021, Instagram announced an update to its work against the spread of abuse on the platform, reiterating a zero tolerance policy for hate speech and abusive content, and adding new features aimed at reducing abuse, especially as it occurs via direct messaging (DM) and comments. Despite this update – and a previous iteration in February, 2021 – extremist content remains easily accessible on Instagram. ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) researchers…

December 01, 2021 A vehicle allegedly driven by Darrell E. Brooks Jr. speeds through the Waukesha Christmas parade route on November 21, as captured on the city’s livestream video of the event. (source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) Darrell Edward Brooks Jr., who faces six counts of first-degree intentional homicide after he drove into a Christmas Parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, apparently shared several conspiracy theory-themed social media posts in 2015, according to a review of his…

December 01, 2021 UPDATE: As of December 9, 2021, Facebook has removed all nine posts reported on the platform in conjunction with our research.  October 2021 marked one year since Facebook banned Holocaust denial from its platform and officially classified Holocaust denial as hate speech instead of misinformation. On the first anniversary of this policy’s enactment on Facebook properties, analysts in ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) sought to determine whether the…

November 29, 2021 Photo credit: Getty On November 23, 2021, a jury returned its verdicts in the civil lawsuit against the organizers of the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. All defendants were found liable of Virginia state civil conspiracy charges, and the jury agreed to award the plaintiffs more than $25 million in damages. Jurors were unable to reach a decision on federal conspiracy charges. Sines v. Kessler, the civil suit filed by…

November 19, 2021 On Friday, November 19, 2021, a jury delivered a unanimous verdict in the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse: not guilty on all five counts, which included homicide and reckless endangerment. The presiding judge warned those in the courtroom against expressions of emotion, but right-wing extremists were bound by no such restrictions, and they reacted online to the ruling with praise for Rittenhouse, vitriol towards “antifa” and the left, and excitement about the…

November 08, 2021 A graphic shared on social media by the Nation of Islam warning against the COVID-19 vaccine (source: Twitter) Months before the first COVID-19 vaccine began to be distributed in the United States, the Nation of Islam (NOI) had already widely disseminated its directive that Black people refuse the vaccine. Over a year later, the NOI and its leading members have continued their unrelenting promotion of anti-vaccine messages in social media posts, print materials, sermons…

November 05, 2021 Political prognosticators feared the 2021 off-year elections could usher in a new era of extremists in elected office. And while the worst-case scenario did not materialize, the election results appear to show an electorate that is not entirely averse to candidates with extremist (and extremist-adjacent) platforms and ideologies, signaling a potentially alarming trend ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. At least eight candidates who attended the January 6 …

November 03, 2021 Tucker Carlson’s special “documentary” series, “Patriot Purge,” which aired online the first week of November, 2021, via the Fox Nation streaming service, promotes many of the false conspiracy theories  Carlson promotes on his regular show on Fox News—the Biden Administration is on a “manhunt” for conservatives; the FBI played a role in the January 6 insurrection; the military wants to purge any soldier whose point of view…

November 02, 2021 Each year, to commemorate the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the notorious terrorist group Al Qaeda releases a video featuring one of the group’s senior leaders who typically reiterates the significance and impact of those deadly events from their warped perspective. Al Qaeda’s 2021 video, which was recently analyzed by experts in ADL’s Center on Extremism and the ADL department of International Affairs, was notable for…

October 28, 2021 Three years ago, Robert Bowers opened fire inside a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, murdering 11 people and devastating the close-knit community of Squirrel Hill. Inspired by antisemitic, anti-immigrant and white supremacist views, Bowers posted his bigoted thoughts on Gab, a site known as a haven for extremists, and then acted on his words, committing history’s deadliest assault on the American Jewish community. In the immediate wake of the attack, and in the…

October 11, 2021 Since 2020, Twitter has taken steps to decrease hate and disinformation on its platform, officially banning some forms of Covid-19 misinformation or purging QAnon-related handles after the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. But while Twitter’s anti-extremist policies are more effective now than they were a year ago, the platform has not addressed the ease with which users are able to drive traffic to hate and misinformation hosted on outside sites. To examine how…

October 11, 2021 On September 27, 2021, the non-profit journalist collective Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) uploaded a cache of data allegedly linked to the Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia, that included logs from the group’s private chatroom on Rocketchat, its emails from January 13 to September 19, 2021, and alleged membership information for more than 38,000 individuals. A review of these membership rolls found that 133 people provided emails with the …

June 29, 2021 In March 2021, Chet Hanks, son of actor Tom Hanks, published a series of social media posts critiquing white men’s attire and behavior, culminating a month later with the release of his song, “White Boy Summer.” A play on Megan Thee Stallion’s 2019 hit song, “Hot Girl Summer,” “White Boy Summer” has taken the internet and meme culture by storm.  And while “White Boy Summer” was not initially intended to be hateful,…

September 27, 2021 In the past eight months, at least nine Rise Above Movement (R.A.M.)-inspired “Active Clubs” have cropped up across the United States. This development signals a renewed effort from R.A.M. to rebrand and spread their influence with a focus on real-world white supremacist activism. The clubs are geographically dispersed, loosely connected and localized chapters spanning from Indiana, Wyoming, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. …

September 27, 2021 The recent blockbuster series of five articles from The Wall Street Journal exposing Facebook’s complicity in spreading toxic content underscores that it is far past time to recognize the harm caused by Facebook. Yet the company and other social media platforms continue to enjoy free rein despite playing outsized and destabilizing roles in determining what content is served up to billions of individuals worldwide. The “Facebook Files” were based on…

September 05, 2021 The Proud Boys are a right-wing extremist group with a violent agenda. That has never been more evident than over the course of the summer of 2021, when the Proud Boys and their associates reportedly engaged in violence at eight separate events. That violence, often against counter-protesters, has included fighting with fists, as is traditional for the Proud Boys, but paintball guns have also become a popular weapon. Proud Boys have also allegedly attacked journalists in…

September 02, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3The number of hate crimes in the United States rose to the highest level in 12 years, propelled by increasing assaults targeting Black and Asian victims, the FBI reported Monday. White supremacist and anti-government extremists have expressed admiration for the Taliban, a worrying development for US officials grappling with the threat of domestic violent extremism. More than 70 State Department officials sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State…

August 26, 2021 Thabat News Agency, an Al Qaeda-linked weekly publication, mocks Time Magazine's December 2001 cover which proclaimed that 2001 was "the last days of the Taliban." Days after the U.S. troops began withdrawing from Afghanistan, the resurgent Taliban claimed territory in provinces across the country. Hundreds of provincial governors surrendered without a fight after the Taliban assured them that they would not execute leaders in areas where they encountered no resistance. …