11. White-Crusade: How to Prevent Right-Wing Extremists from Exploiting the Internet
- Author:
- Christina Schori Liang and Matthew John Cross
- Publication Date:
- 07-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- Right-wing extremists (RWEs) are using the current protests over police brutality in the United States as a cover to commit terroristic acts and to grow their numbers. They present a significant danger to public safety and security and are a growing threat in the West. Despite this, the rise of right-wing extremism (a homogenized term for white ethnonationalists, alt-rights, white supremacist groups, male supremacist groups, and right-wing anti-government extremists) has not been afforded the priority and attention it justly deserves. There are three reasons for this. First, the global narrative maintains that terrorism rests almost exclusively in the hands of a balaclava-clad Salafi-jihadist holding a Kalashnikov. Second, Western right-wing media has largely pushed back against covering the rise of right-wing extremism and the media as a whole has failed to contextualize the systematic threat RWEs present. Third, the global pandemic has forced governments to focus their attention on maintaining public health and socioeconomic order and have consequently failed to see how RWEs are subversively using the pandemic to support and expand their own agenda.
- Topic:
- Internet, Radical Right, Digitization, and Political Extremism
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America