Hindu nationalists that target persons, mostly Muslims, who are cow traders—has steadily increased since the BJP took office in 2014. Perpetrators of “cow protection” vigilantism extensively rely on WhatsApp6 to communicate and spread rumours, a tool that is highly effective for its end-to-end encryption technology. Unfortunately, efforts to combat misinformation on WhatsApp groups have failed since most Indian users have dated hardware that does not support software updates, such as limits on forwarded messages.
A double standard in far-right extremism
So why are such incidents as the one above not covered in international media to the same extent as far-right terror attacks in Europe and North America?
Primarily, it is largely unknown that there is a Hindu nationalist government in India, let alone that Hindu nationalism is a far-right ideology. Yet, Hindu nationalism has its ideological origins with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, which makes it especially well suited in the far-right family. The contemporary Indian and European far right have found common ground in their shared ideological agenda7 steeped in xenophobia and Islamophobia.
Further, far-right violence is largely confined to India’s borders, and as such, it is predominately seen as a domestic issue. Unlike Islamist terrorism, for example, it is not prioritised as a national security concern to Western countries. Relatedly, India is considered an ally to Western countries, and this provides immunity from criticism. Prime Minister Modi—who had joined the RSS at the age of nine and quickly rose through the ranks to become the face of the BJP in the 2014 election—is internationally recognised for his selfies with Mark Zuckerberg, not as the politician who until recently, was banned from the US, UK, and several European countries for his administration’s complicity in the 2002 Gujarat riots.8
Overall, we need to recognize that right-wing extremism is a global phenomenon and that such ideas and narratives do not operate in isolation, but rather compose of expansive transnational activity. Importantly, this means that we must broaden our definition of the far right to include cases in the Global South, or else risk the growing threat of the far right worldwide.
This post was originally published on the Global Network on Extremism & Technology Insights blog.
Dr Eviane Leidig is Head of Policy at CARR and postdoctoral affiliate at the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo.
1 Soma Basu, “Jamia Millia Shooting: Making of a Hindutva Terrorist,” The Diplomat, February 3, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/02/jamia-millia-shootout-making-of-a-hindutva-terrorist/.
2 Sarah Wildman, “India’s Prime Minister Just Selected an Anti-Muslim Firebrand to Lead Its Largest State,” Vox, March 20, 2017, https://www.vox.com/world/2017/3/20/14982146/modi-india-muslim-yogi-adityanath-incitement.
3 Linda Schlegel, “Points, Rankings & Raiding the Sorcerer’s Dungeon: Top-down and Bottom-up Gamification of Radicalisation and Extremist Violence,” Global Network on Extremism & Technology Insights, February 17, 2020, https://gnet-research.org/2020/02/17/points-rankings-raiding-the-sorcerers-dungeon-top-down-and-bottom-up-gamification-of-radicalization-and-extremist-violence/.
4 Ingrid Therwath, “Cyber-Hindutva: Hindu Nationalism, the Diaspora and the Web,” Social Science Information 51 no. 4 (2012): 551-77.
5 Sriram Mohan, “Locating the ‘Internet Hindu’ Political Speech and Performance in Indian Cyberspace,” Television & New Media 16, no. 4 (2015): 339-45.
6 Nadim Asrar, “In India, WhatsApp Stirs Up Deadly Rumours,” Al Jazeera, July 17, 2018, https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/7/17/in-india-whatsapp-stirs-up-deadly-rumours.
7 Eviane Leidig, “The Far-Right is Going Global,” Foreign Policy, January 21, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/21/india-kashmir-modi-eu-hindu-nationalists-rss-the-far-right-is-going-global/
8 “Timeline of the Riots in Modi’s Gujarat,” New York Times, August 19, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/world/asia/modi-gujarat-riots-timeline.html#/#time287_8514
In Germany, Anti-semitism on Social Media Can Be Linked to Offline Violence
Monika Hübscher
On 8 September 2020, the tenth day of the Halle trial, several Jewish survivors gave their remarkable testimonies of the horrific crime.1 The crime took place on 9 October 2019 on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Stephan B. killed two people and injured many more in a terror attack targeting the Jewish community in Halle, Germany.2 Among the testimonies, one survivor pointed out German domestic intelligence and police’s inability to deal with social media and the gaming community that surrounded the attack.3
Stephan B., so it appears, had radicalized himself online and had published several files that included a live stream on Twitch, and on the imageboard Meguca shortly before his attack. The documents that he uploaded demonstrate a worldview of ‘extermination antisemitism’ (Vernichtungsantisemitismus) interconnected with misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, and incitement. ‘Go in and kill everything’, he wrote in bold letters.
Even though Stephan B. is a native German, he spoke mostly English during the live stream. He also wrote his documents in English. This attests to his connections to global radical online communities and the alt-right, with a particular receptiveness to the gaming and manga community, rather than to traditional German right-wing extremist networks.
The global dissemination of hate by malicious actors with the help of social networks and its potential effects offline are issues that antisemitism scholars have begun to pay attention to, but research remains insufficient. Current examples from Germany show how urgently policymakers, practitioners, and other pertinent actors depend on such research to find appropriate restrictions and create mechanisms to combat antisemitism on networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
Already in 2008, Andre Oboler noted that, with the support of social media, antisemitism had reached a new quality.4 Today, antisemitism on social media can be found in all languages, is algorithm-driven, and can be weaponized in troll attacks or through social bots, for example. Indeed, antisemitic content can be disseminated on an unprecedented scale, cost-free, and in fun shapes like GIFs and memes or social media posts.
In his 2013 report, Oboler contrasts the different forms in which antisemitism appears on the platform with Facebook’s insufficient strategies to combat it.5 Recently, Facebook made headlines for having failed to take down profiles and groups of the radical right-wing conspiracy,
