How White Nationalists Are Dominating YouTube
Image by Getty Images
By Sam Kestenbaum November 3, 2017
With snappy and conversational videos, the far-right is mastering YouTube — and finding new ways to promote ideas like white nationalism to the masses.
YouTube “has created an environment where white nationalists and right-wing extremists can easily inject hateful rhetoric and conspiracy theories into national political discourse,” according to a report last month from Right Wing Watch.
The report details how a constellation of self-made YouTube celebrities have collaborated and contributed to the mainstreaming of some previously fringe or extremist beliefs.
Better known YouTube stars include rightwing self-help author Mike Cernovich and Lauren Southern, a former reporter for Rebel Media. Bigger names like Cernovich may offer platforms and validation to a less-famous cadre of right-wingers, in what the report calls a “trickle-down exposure” of cross promotion or collaboration.
Some of the “most popular right-wing social media pundits have validated white supremacists and ethno-nationalist voices by joining these extremists on their programs and allowing them to grow their audiences,” Right Wing Watch reports. Other white nationalists who have amassed large followings through YouTube include RamzPaul, Henrik Palmgren, Lana Lokteff and the Mormon blogger known as “Wife with a Purpose.”
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
