The Data of Hate

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/seth-stephens-davidowitz-the-data-of-hate.html?_r=0

VIKINGMAIDEN88 is 26 years old. She enjoys reading history and writing poetry. Her signature quote is from Shakespeare. She was impressed whenthe dialect quiz in The New York Times correctly identified where she was from: Tacoma and Spokane, Wash. “Completely spot on,” she wrote, followed by a smiling green emoji.

I gleaned all this from her profile and posts on Stormfront.org, America’s most popular online hate site.

I recently analyzed tens of thousands of the site’s profiles, in which registered members can enter their location, birth date, interests and other information. Call it Big Hatred meets Big Data.

Stormfront was founded in 1995 by Don Black, a former Ku Klux Klan leader. Its most popular “social groups” are “Union of National Socialists” and “Fans and Supporters of Adolf Hitler.” Over the past year, according to Quantcast, roughly 200,000 to 400,000 Americans visited the site every month. A recent Southern Poverty Law Center report linked nearly 100 murders in the past five years to registered Stormfront members.

The white nationalist posters on Stormfront have issues with many different groups. They often write about crimes committed by African-Americans against whites; they complain about an “invasion” of Mexicans; and they love to mock gays and feminists. But their main problem appears to be with Jewish people, who are often described as super-powerful and clever — the driving force, generally speaking, behind the societal changes they do not like. They sometimes call the Holocaust the “Holohoax.”

Stormfront members tend to be young, at least according to self-reported birth dates. The most common age at which people join the site is 19. And four times more 19-year-olds sign up than 40-year-olds. Internet and social network users lean young, but not nearly that young.

Profiles do not have a field for gender. But I looked at all the posts and complete profiles of a random sample of American users, and it turns out that you can work out the gender of most of the membership: I estimate that about 30 percent of Stormfront members are female.

The states with the most members per capita are Montana, Alaska and Idaho. These states tend to be overwhelmingly white. Does this mean that growing up with little diversity fosters hate?

Probably not. Since those states have a higher proportion of non-Jewish white people, they have more potential members for a group that attacks Jews and nonwhites. The percentage of Stormfront’s target audience that joins is actually higher in areas with more minorities. This is particularly true when you look at Stormfront’s members who are 18 and younger and therefore do not themselves choose where they live.

Among this age group, California, a state with one of the largest minority populations, has a membership rate 25 percent higher than the national average.

One of the most popular social groups on the site is “In Support of Anti-Semitism.” The percentage of members who join this group is positively correlated with a state’s Jewish population. New York, the state with the highest Jewish population, has above-average per capita membership in this group.

In 2001, Dna88 joined Stormfront, describing himself as a “good looking, racially aware” 30-year-old Internet developer living in “Jew York City.” In the next four months, he wrote more than 200 posts, like “Jewish Crimes Against Humanity” and “Jewish Blood Money,” and directed people to a website, jewwatch.com, which claims to be a “scholarly library” on “Zionist criminality.”

Stormfront members complain about minorities’ speaking different languages and committing crimes. But what I found most interesting were the complaints about competition in the dating market.

A man calling himself William Lyon Mackenzie King, after a former prime minister of Canada who once suggested that “Canada should remain a white man’s country,” wrote in 2003 that he struggled to “contain” his “rage” after seeing a white woman “carrying around her half black ugly mongrel niglet.” In her profile, Whitepride26, a 41-year-old student in Los Angeles, says, “I dislike blacks, Latinos, and sometimes Asians, especially when men find them more attractive” than “a white female.”

POLITICAL developments certainly play a role. The day that saw the biggest single increase in membership in Stormfront’s history, by far, was Nov. 5, 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected president.

The top reported interest of Stormfront members is “reading.” Most notably, Stormfront users are news and political junkies. One interesting data point here is the popularity of The New York Times among Stormfront users. According to the economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, when you compare Stormfront users to people who go to the Yahoo News site, it turns out that the Stormfront crowd is twice as likely to visit nytimes.com.

Perhaps it was my own naïveté, but I would have imagined white nationalists’ inhabiting a different universe from that of my friends and me. Instead, they have long threads praising “Breaking Bad” and discussing the comparative merits of online dating sites, like Plenty of Fish and OkCupid.

[...]

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Always going to be a few nutjobs in the pile

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

They're not crazy. They just hate anyone who doesn't look like them. It also shows that there's more of them out there than most folks want to admit.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

They're not crazy. They just hate anyone who doesn't look like them. It also shows that there's more of them out there than most folks want to admit.

You talking about Muslim radicals again ?

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

You talking about Muslim radicals again ?

I know you hate to think there are people out there that look like you and feel this way. It's alright. Remember, they don't represent you as a whole. You don't have the luxury of carrying that burden.

You know it's real when the black Muslim dude is the advocate for peace and tolerance.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I know you hate to think there are people out there that look like you and feel this way. It's alright. Remember, they don't represent you as a whole. You don't have the luxury of carrying that burden.

You know it's real when the black Muslim dude is the advocate for peace and tolerance.

Very few of those people look anything like me, Marvin. Not even close. Unless you mean "the same skin color" ? However I don't define my exestince or anyone's for that matter by the color of their skin. Unlike you, the color of skin is not at the forefront of my every waking thought .

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Very few of those people look anything like me, Marvin. Not even close. Unless you mean "the same skin color" ? However I don't define my exestince or anyone's for that matter by the color of their skin. Unlike you, the color of skin is not at the forefront of my every waking thought .

But, isn't skin color the reason for this article? It seems to be the forefront for the folks here who have to contain their rage when they see someone with a bi-racial baby. Or to those who have to point out issues in communities they have no interest in, outside of making fun or talking down about.

Of course you don't define you existence by your skin color. It will never be used against you. But me? How many times do I have to take responsibility for "my people"? How many times do I have to hear "your boy" Obama? Why is he my boy?

Didn't you say you looked like Kevin James? I think you look like Ric Flare for some reason...

Edited July 22, 2014 by Su and Marvin

[SMOKE 1,426]

But, isn't skin color the reason for this article? It seems to be the forefront for the folks here who have to contain their rage when they see someone with a bi-racial baby. Or to those who have to point out issues in communities they have no interest in, outside of making fun or talking down about.

Of course you don't define you existence by your skin color. It will never be used against you. But me? How many times do I have to take responsibility for "my people"? How many times do I have to hear "your boy" Obama? Why is he my boy?

Didn't you say you looked like Kevin James? I think you look like Ric Flare for some reason...

incase you haven't noticed many here are in bi-racial marriages & have bi-racial children.

people call him 'your boy'. because it appears he can do no wrong in your eyes. another 'incase you haven't noticed'..'your boy' is used to refer to obama even when people are talking to white people here too.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

incase you haven't noticed many here are in bi-racial marriages & have bi-racial children.

people call him 'your boy'. because it appears he can do no wrong in your eyes. another 'incase you haven't noticed'..'your boy' is used to refer to obama even when people are talking to white people here too.

We're talking about the article, please try and keep up, respectfully:

A man calling himself William Lyon Mackenzie King, after a former prime minister of Canada who once suggested that “Canada should remain a white man’s country,” wrote in 2003 that he struggled to “contain” his “rage” after seeing a white woman “carrying around her half black ugly mongrel niglet.”

He can do plenty wrong in my eyes, but it seems here he can do no right by others here.

[SMOKE 1,426]

We're talking about the article, please try and keep up, respectfully:

A man calling himself William Lyon Mackenzie King, after a former prime minister of Canada who once suggested that “Canada should remain a white man’s country,” wrote in 2003 that he struggled to “contain” his “rage” after seeing a white woman “carrying around her half black ugly mongrel niglet.”

He can do plenty wrong in my eyes, but it seems here he can do no right by others here.

you don't get to go off on your usual racial tangent & expect people not to respond.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

you don't get to go off on your usual racial tangent & expect people not to respond.

You do realize most of the racial post don't come from me? It's other members who bring it up first. It's only when I respond that it's brought up.

[SMOKE 1,426]

You do realize most of the racial post don't come from me? It's other members who bring it up first. It's only when I respond that it's brought up.

have ever considered ignoring ignorant people that are just trying to get a reaction from you?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

That sounds nothing like VJ CEHST at all...

They often write about crimes committed by African-Americans against whites; they complain about an “invasion” of Mexicans; and they love to mock gays and feminists. But their main problem appears to be with Jewish people, who are often described as super-powerful and clever — the driving force, generally speaking, behind the societal changes they do not like. They sometimes call the Holocaust the “Holohoax.”

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

have ever considered ignoring ignorant people that are just trying to get a reaction from you?

I truly believe I can reach people if I can engage them in constructive dialogue. If I see that's not going to happen, I stay out of it.

[UncleBeer 244]

have ever considered ignoring ignorant people that are just trying to get a reaction from you?

He's only here to troll and race-bait. All the fun would instantly disappear.