Oklahoma City bombing revealed internet hate literature’s real-world damage

Evidence

Then the Oklahoma City bombing occurred, and we found out a lot more about the “militias,” the distortions being drummed out on the Internet, “hate radio,” and so on. It seemed obvious that denial literature was spreading rapidly anyway and probably having a terrible effect on certain people. That led me to include this chapter, so as to document the power of these lies. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 4377

Categorization

• SEED: The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing — before social media — as an early signal that internet disinformation translates into lethal violence; parallels to January 6 and modern radicalization.
• XREF: Echoes current research on online radicalization pipelines; the militia/Internet nexus predates social media by a decade.