YouTube: Still a Platform for Fascism

This followup from the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC) details how YouTube is still a thriving hub for neo-Nazi and Alt-Right groups. To see their original article, go here.

As we detailed a few weeks back, YouTube has become a platform for white supremacists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis to promote themselves and recruit new members. YouTube claims on the it “does not permit hate speech” on its platform while allowing these videos to proliferate. YouTube has taken half-measures on this content, such as placing content warnings at the beginning and removing advertisements that run along side the videos, to appease the public while avoiding angering its racist “content creators”. We demand the full removal of this content immediately.

Neo-Nazi Groups on YouTube

YouTube is giving a platform to several neo-Nazi groups that are active in the US, two with a known history of violent attacks:

Atomwaffen Division

The violent neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division has garnered significant media attention in recent weeks due to links with several murders. In December, Nicholas Giampa, a teenage neo-Nazi who praised Atomwaffen on social media, killed his girlfriend’s parents when they encouraged her to break off their relationship. Samuel Woodward, who murdered Blaze Bernstein in a brutal stabbing potentially because Bernstein was gay and Jewish, was a member of Atomwaffen.

Atomwaffen’s YouTube videos promote the group and document their racist flyering campaigns at college campuses. Each ends with the same call to action:

Rise Above Movement

Rise Above Movement, a neo-fascist group in Southern California who takes inspiration from violent fascist groups in Poland, Italy, and Russia, is dedicated to physically fighting its political enemies. Members violently attacked leftist protesters in Charlottesville and Berkeley. Their YouTube videos glorify their fight training, aggressive physical attacks on anti-fascist protesters, and neo-fascist ideology.

Republic of Florida

Republic of Florida (ROF), a white supremacist militia, advocates for the creation of a white ethnostate in Florida. ROF claimed in media interviews that Nikolas Cruz, who last week killed at least seventeen people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had trained with ROF. Upon further investigation, it appears ROF lied about Cruz’s involvement with the group in an attempt to gain media for the group and recruit more members. It is abhorrent that ROF wants to claim a racist murderer in their membership for PR purposes. Their poorly produced YouTube videos show a pathetic small group of armed white men fetishizing Nazism.

No Platform for Fascism Plug-In

We have built a plug-in (available for Chrome and Firefox browsers) that allows users to coordinate reporting of targeted videos for removal from YouTube. The No Platform for Fascism plugin allows anti-fascists of varying political ideologies and experience to take a small action from home to fight the rise of white supremacist activity. Thanks to the over 700 reports filed, so far 2 of the original 10 videos we have targeted using the plugin have been removed.

We have populated videos from these three neo-Nazi groups to the plugin, and will continue to populate additional videos to target for removal. We have also added some more helpful guides in the plugin to improve the user experience. Download the plugin at http://noplatform.macc.nyc

No platform for neo-Nazis! No platform for fascism!