#onlineextremism — Public Fediverse posts

Public Comment: It Is Past Time for You to Quit Elon Musk’s X. “That does not mean that everyone who uses X is going to get brainwashed into becoming a Nazi. But propaganda can work on you in subtler ways as well. It can insinuate extreme ideas into the texture of your everyday life. It can create a whole dreamscape for you to sleepwalk through. And the more time you spend in that dreamscape, […]

PsyPost: Does Google Search favor a liberal view on immigration?. “Google search results for immigration topics tend to present an overall positive view of the issue, according to a recent analysis of Swedish search data. The research, published in Heliyon, found that while the links skew slightly positive, the search engine tends to place neutral, unpoliticized sources at the very top of the […]

ABC News (Australia): Facebook is paying controversial creators to produce rage-bait content. “An ABC NEWS Verify investigation has found Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is directly paying several controversial content creators including a white nationalist with Neo-Nazi links and a prominent anti-vaxxer. Content produced by these creators appears to be, at times, in direct violation of […]

Associated Press: Australian watchdog files legal action against Telegram, saying it failed to remove violent content. “Australia’s online safety watchdog has filed legal action against messaging app Telegram, saying the platform failed to remove extremist content including videos of white supremacist mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and the New Zealand city of Christchurch as well as […]

New York Times: Why Do We Tolerate Elon Musk’s Racist Commentary?. This link goes to a gift article. “Musk’s virulent racism and vicious, disturbing views are no secret. He does not hide them. They sit in plain view, easily accessible on the social media website he owns, where he does everything he can to promote similarly far-right and white supremacist ideas. If there is a question to […]

Courthouse News Service: X ordered to turn over deleted posts in defamation case against Media Matters. “X claims Media Matters intentionally manipulated the platform’s algorithms in order to get ads to appear alongside extremist content and falsely presented that as what an average user experiences on X. As part of its defense, Media Matters sought copies of posts from around fifteen users […]

Reuters: US judge blocks Trump administration’s visa limits for social media researchers. “A federal judge on ‌Tuesday blocked U.S. ‌President Donald Trump’s administration ​from enforcing a policy that targets foreign nationals who study ‌disinformation ⁠and hate speech on social media ⁠for visa denials and deportation.”

Associated Press: Technology is driving an increase in attacks and threats to the UK, senior officials say. “Technology and online platforms are increasingly being used to threaten the United Kingdom, including by hostile countries, extremists and far-right groups, senior British police officials said Thursday.”

University of Duisburg-Essen and machine-translated from German: Dealing with antisemitism and Holocaust distortion on social media. “At the heart of the program is an approximately 15-minute online game that immerses participants in a realistic social media environment. There, they encounter antisemitic and Holocaust-distorting content in the same form as it is disseminated on social networks. […]

InvestigateWest: Idaho labor economist ran anonymous accounts promoting pro-Russian, far-right views. “…online researchers recently identified [Sam] Wolkenhauer as the anonymous poster behind large Substack and X.com accounts that drive thousands of dollars in subscriptions each month with pro-Russian commentary that often traffics in Nazi imagery and amplifies far-right organizations.”

The Guardian: Elon Musk posted twice as often on UK race and immigration as about SpaceX in IPO run-up. “Elon Musk posted about race and immigration in the UK on his social media network X twice as often as he did about SpaceX, which he also owns, in the run-up to the aerospace and AI company’s initial public offering.”

JMIR Publications: The Future of Online Misinformation Research: Tackling the Landscape With Integrity and Urgency. “Since early 2025, the scientific research and funding landscape has faced tremendous changes and challenges in the United States. In this News and Perspectives article, health communication scholar, former program official of the National Cancer Institute, and JMIR Correspondent […]

The Guardian: Attorney general tells department to stop using X amid UK disinformation concerns. “The attorney general for England and Wales has told his office to no longer post on X, making it the first UK government department to stop using the Elon Musk-owned platform amid increasing worries about its use to incite violence and racism.”

PBS News: Social media platforms spread hate music in India despite policy violations, new report says. “Across hundreds of songs, India’s Muslims and Christians are portrayed as enemies, invaders, traitors, demographic threats and legitimate targets of violence. A new report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), a Washington-based research organization, argues that this […]

Ars Technica: Racist comments targeting politicians tripled since Meta relaxed its rules. “The researchers analyzed about 8 million Facebook comments and found that abusive and racist comments targeting both Republican and Democrat lawmakers tripled in the six months after the new rules were put in place. Some categories of abusive comments documented by the researchers saw even sharper rises, […]

Reuters: UK regulator warns online platforms of rising risks after Belfast attack. “Britain’s media regulator ​Ofcom on Wednesday warned online platforms ‌of possible legal consequences if their services are used to incite violence and spread hatred linked to ​recent civil unrest in Belfast, following a knife ​attack in the city.”

The Guardian: ‘Mogging’ is suddenly everywhere. Is that a problem?. “This word for outdoing or outshining others originated in the manosphere, but is now thoroughly mainstream. Why is it so popular – and should we be worried about slang that arises from toxic subcultures?”

Reuters: Romanian prosecutors add hate speech against women to Andrew Tate investigation. “Romanian prosecutors said on Thursday they have extended a criminal investigation into internet personality Andrew Tate by adding charges of instigating ​hatred and discrimination against women.”

Associated Press: Woman fired by Indiana university over Charlie Kirk post to receive $225,000 settlement. “A woman fired by an Indiana university over her Facebook post criticizing conservative activist Charlie Kirk after he was killed will receive $225,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused her former employer of violating her free-speech rights, the woman’s attorneys said Tuesday.”

Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media: Social and Political Framing in Search Engine Results. “While prior research has extensively examined various dimensions of search bias—such as content prioritization, indexical bias, political polarization, and sources of bias—an important question remains underexplored: how do search engines and […]

Courthouse News Service: X pledges crackdown on illegal content in UK. “Elon Musk’s X has committed to cracking down on illegal content to protect U.K. users, Britain’s media regulator said Friday, as it steps up pressure on social media platforms. The commitments include reviewing suspected illegal terrorist and hate content within an average of 24 hours of it being reported, and blocking […]

UC San Diego: Governments May Shape What AI Chatbots Say by Shaping the Web They Learn From. “Ask an AI model the same political question in two different languages, and you may get two very different responses. A new study in Nature suggests one reason why: governments can indirectly influence large language models (LLMs) by shaping the online media environment, and thus the text those systems […]

San Francisco Standard: Most AI chatbots don’t tell you who to vote for. Grok: Hold my beer. “…as the unusually tight polling in the governor’s race has shown, there’s little distinction between the candidates that has broken through to the public. Instead, voters get sedate debates, cringeworthy ads, and overflowing mailboxes of flyers. Ideally, a chatbot could help you cut through […]

Wall Street Journal: The late-night Truth Social storms that offer a window into the president’s mind. This article is MSN-syndicated and has no paywall. “The nighttime missives often include some of the president’s sharpest and most divisive messaging, amplifying conspiracy theories, describing migrants as a threat to the country, threatening to punish his adversaries and mocking his […]

Variety: Trump Media, Parent of Truth Social, Reports Q1 Sales of $871,000 and $405.9 Million Net Loss. “For the first quarter, TMTG generated net sales of $871,200, up 6% year over year. The company reported a $405.9 million net loss and a $387.8 million adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) loss for the first quarter of 2026.”

Washington Post: Inside a MAGA influencer’s turn against the right-wing machine. This link goes to a Yahoo-syndicated version of the article with no paywall. “[Ashley] St. Clair’s transformation from a self-described ‘good little foot soldier’ to MAGA turncoat has unspooled in near-daily monologues to more than 77,000 followers on her TikTok feed, where she applies makeup from her New York […]

Tubefilter: Social media has political divides, but some feeds are more polarized than others. “Researchers set up 323 ‘sock puppet’ accounts on TikTok to measure the political polarization of the For You Page, and they found some apparent disparities between right-leaning and left-leaning feeds.”

PsyPost: Problematic social media use is linked to how feelings of freedom relate to mental health. ” The findings indicate that while feeling free generally supports better psychological well-being, unhealthy attachments to social media tend to weaken the benefits of personal freedom but strengthen the positive effects of national pride.”

Washington Post: Elon Musk’s near-daily online posts about race are turning off some fans. This link goes to a Yahoo-syndicated version of the article with no paywall. “Over the past seven months, 6 percent of Musk’s posts on X, a total of about 850, have been about race, nearly triple the rate for the previous two years. More than half of those posts have used the word ‘white.’ The […]

ProPublica: The White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation. “Federal authorities were chided for seizing electronic devices from Tate and his brother, and told to return them, records and interviews show. Experts said the intervention was highly inappropriate.”