Research & Analysis

April 21, 2021 Screenshot: ABC News Extremists consistently use mainstream news stories as opportunities to share their racist, often violent, views on a range of social media and online platforms. The April 20, 2021 verdict in the Derek Chauvin murder trial was no exception. Chauvin was found guilty on all three charges in the May 2020 murder of George Floyd. Note: Many of the comments documented in this piece include racist, violent and otherwise disturbing language. Prior to the…

April 09, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Cameron Shea, a 25-year-old leader of the neo-Nazi extremist group Atomwaffen, pleaded guilty to threatening journalists and activists with Nazi posters and menacing messages. Coronavirus lockdowns last year shifted some antisemitic hatred online, where conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the pandemic’s medical and economic devastation abounded, researchers reported. The Arkansas Senate on Wednesday approved a stripped-down hate crimes bill…

March 25, 2021 UPDATE: According to the TruNews website, the channel was banned from Facebook on April 3, 2021, and the TruNews page has been removed from the platform.  In early 2020, ADL wrote about TruNews and its host and founder, Rick Wiles, detailing the fundamentalist Christian video streaming site’s consistently antisemitic, anti-Zionist, anti-LGBTQ+ and Islamophobic rhetoric. In July 2020, a follow-up piece focused on TruNews’ use of…

March 05, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 U.S. House leaders canceled Thursday’s legislative session and rescheduled morning votes after police officials warned of a possible plot by a militia group to storm Capitol Hill. A suspect ADL identified as an alleged white supremacist was arrested after the FBI raided the Florida home he was renting after moving from New Jersey. Jewish groups called for an investigation into allegations that a Frontier Airlines flight crew made antisemitic…

February 17, 2021 It’s been more than a month since a horde of extremists forced their way into the U.S. Capitol, protesting the outcome of a national election and intent on disrupting a time-honored democratic process. At least five people died during the violent attack, including one Capitol Police officer. ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) has identified 212 of the roughly 800 individuals who are believed to have breached the building on January 6. The emerging snapshot…

February 12, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Google's YouTube is still recommending extremist and white supremacist videos to viewers already susceptible to racial hatred, a new report from ADL found. Iranian schools are teaching antisemitism, hatred and conspiratorial material in their textbooks, according to a comprehensive analysis by ADL. Police in Spokane, WA are looking for the person who painted swastikas on the Temple Beth Shalom building and a Holocaust memorial. Read on for more…

February 01, 2021 Users across social media platforms evoked antisemitism during and in the wake of the GameStop incident that took place at the end of January 2021. (photo source: Twitter) During the final week of January 2021, beleaguered retailer GameStop’s stock was driven to astronomical new highs when posters on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit launched a buying frenzy -- ostensibly aimed at soaking the Wall Street hedge funds that had shorted the stock for profit. As the…

January 15, 2021 On January 10, 2021, Nation of Islam (NOI) Student Minister Dr. Wesley Muhammad provided the latest example in the group’s long history of virulent antisemitism. Muhammad delivered a two-hour sermon, broadcast live from NOI’s national headquarters in Chicago, in which he explicitly and repeatedly blamed Jews and Israel for the coronavirus pandemic. As of January 14, his sermon, titled “Beyond Tuskegee: Why Black People Must Not Take the Experimental COVID-19…

January 07, 2021   Manifestantes dentro del Capitolio de EE.UU, uno de ellos con una camisa que dice  “Campamento Auschwitz” — Fuente: ITV news A pocas horas de que extremistas pro-Trump irrumpieron en el edificio del Capitolio de los EE.UU., ideólogos, activistas y adeptos a las teorías de conspiración antisemitas intentaron implicar a los judíos y a los sionistas en la violencia. Aunque estos antisemitas tienen una variedad de…

January 07, 2021 Protestors—one wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt—inside the U.S. Capitol building. Photo credit: ITV news In the hours since pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol building, antisemitic ideologues, activists and conspiracy theorists have attempted to implicate Jews and Zionists in the violence. Although these antisemites have a range of opinions about President Trump, many were united in their belief that the events of Wednesday,…

December 24, 2020 In mid-December an image started circulating on social media. The image was taken in Washington, D.C. and featured a man standing alongside a group of Proud Boys and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the cryptic text “6MWE.” This code for “6 Million Wasn’t Enough” is a not-so-veiled reference to the Holocaust. The man, who has not yet been identified, also wore a Proud Boys baseball hat and the skull face mask popular among -- but not…

December 13, 2020 On December 12, 2020, multiple pro-Trump demonstrations took place in Washington, DC, including one that was organized by white supremacists and another that included extremist speakers on their dais. Later that evening over 100 members of the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys roamed the streets of the city while chanting expletive-laced slogans against Black Lives Matter and Antifa.   The Jericho March The largest event of the day was a prayer…

October 27, 2020 Two years ago, white supremacist Robert Bowers killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh after posting antisemitic, anti-immigrant rants on Gab. Today, supported by a founder who encourages hate speech, the social media site appears to be gaining traction among right-wing extremists, including white supremacists: Sixty percent of the 47 right-wing extremist groups currently on Gab were created this year. Gab is rife with white supremacist groups. …

June 22, 2020 Facebook has been claiming that it is effectively addressing hate on its platforms. ADL and others, however, have continued to expose egregious examples of online hate, misinformation and extremism across the company’s products, particularly on Facebook and Instagram. Whether or not these posts technically violate Facebook’s complicated guidelines around hate speech, as a result of the platform’s casual placement of ads, paid advertisements run a risk of being…

June 16, 2020 On June 15, 2020, a federal grand jury indicted Matthew Patrick Slatzer of Canton, Ohio, on weapons charges. Slatzer, a known neo-Nazi, was arrested in February after bringing a gun into a Canton bar, and was charged with possession of a firearm by a person with a domestic violence conviction. The investigation began after Slatzer -- who, according to police reports, was wearing a sword and hatchet on his belt -- entered a business in Stow, Ohio, on May 3, 2020. He allegedly…

May 22, 2020 On May 1, 2020, when boogaloo activists organized a protest against coronavirus public safety measures in Raleigh, North Carolina, many attendees carried firearms in defiance of state laws prohibiting guns at public demonstrations. It was a scene played out across the country in recent weeks, as boogalooers are energized by resistance to lockdown restrictions, which they view as tyrannical government overreach. Boogaloo adherents have shown up at numerous lockdown protests, waving…

April 20, 2020 Americans’ response to the coronavirus pandemic now includes a spate of nationwide rallies decrying stay-at-home orders and calling for “reopening” the economy. While many of the protests calling for the reopening of the economy and the lifting of state-issued quarantine mandates have been organized by more mainstream conservative organizations, a number have been sponsored in whole or part by identified extremists and a range of rally participants have carried…

March 06, 2020 White supremacist Robert Sterkeson interrupted Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Thursday, March 5, 2020, rally in Phoenix, Arizona, when he waved a Nazi flag behind Sanders. Fellow rally attendees quickly pulled the flag from Sterkeson’s hands, and security teams removed him from the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Sterkeson, of Glendale, Arizona, is a self-described “stunt activist” who has harassed a range of Jewish and…

January 13, 2020 UPDATE: On March 15, 2021, John William Kirby Kelley was sentenced to 33 months in prison for his role in numerous swatting attacks targeting journalists, a Virginia university, a historic predominantly Black church in Virginia, an Islamic Center in Arlington, Texas, and a former U.S. Cabinet member. On January 10, 2020, federal authorities arrested 19-year-old John William Kirby Kelley of Vienna, Virginia, for his alleged role in a multi…