Internet hate content recruits young members by appearing mainstream.

Evidence

Additional research might also focus on how the vehicle by which hate is expressed can influence its impact. A development that obviously occurred after Allport’s (1954/1979) time is the recent scrutiny of hate speech on the internet (e.g., Glaser & Dixit, 2002; Leets, 2001), or what has come to be called “cyberhate” (Levin, 2002). White racist internet chat rooms and websites (e.g., www.Stormfront.org) include music, graphics, and videogames, which may enhance the extent to which hate groups can appear to be mainstream and thereby recruit young members. Benjamin Smith, who committed the hate-motivated drive-by murders in July of 1999, told documentary filmmaker Beverly Peterson months before his spree, “It wasn’t really ‘til I got on the Internet, read some literature of these groups that … it really all came together” (www.adl.org/internet/ extremism_rw/inspiring.asp). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1300

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to current platform-algorithm research and the radicalization pipeline literature on YouTube and social media.
• SHARE: The Benjamin Smith quote — a mass shooter self-identifying the internet as the turning point — is a striking anecdote for someone working on online radicalization.