Research & Analysis

June 27, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Companies like Patagonia, The North Face, Ben & Jerry’s, Eddie Bauer, Eileen Fisher and REI have joined the Stop Hate for Profit campaign organized by civil rights groups, calling on Facebook to rein in hateful content on the platform: The Ad Pause begins July 1. The Georgia Legislature on Tuesday passed a hate crimes bill that will now head to the desk of Gov. Brian Kemp. An Army private confessed to sharing secret information with a satanic…

June 22, 2020 Facebook has been claiming that it is effectively addressing hate on its platforms. ADL and others, however, have continued to expose egregious examples of online hate, misinformation and extremism across the company’s products, particularly on Facebook and Instagram. Whether or not these posts technically violate Facebook’s complicated guidelines around hate speech, as a result of the platform’s casual placement of ads, paid advertisements run a risk of being…

June 18, 2020 Amid the ongoing threat of the coronavirus, there are surging reports of xenophobic and racist incidents targeting members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in the U.S. Since January 2020, there have been a significant number of reports of AAPI individuals being threatened and harassed on the street. These incidents include being told to “Go back to China,” being blamed for “bringing the virus” to the United…

June 16, 2020 On June 15, 2020, a federal grand jury indicted Matthew Patrick Slatzer of Canton, Ohio, on weapons charges. Slatzer, a known neo-Nazi, was arrested in February after bringing a gun into a Canton bar, and was charged with possession of a firearm by a person with a domestic violence conviction. The investigation began after Slatzer -- who, according to police reports, was wearing a sword and hatchet on his belt -- entered a business in Stow, Ohio, on May 3, 2020. He allegedly…

June 15, 2020 On June 6, members of the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs department arrested Steven Carrillo, an anti-police boogalooer and active duty U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant from Ben Lomond, California, charging him with nineteen felonies including murder, multiple counts of attempted murder and explosives charges. Carrillo is accused of killing Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller and seriously wounding two other law enforcement officers during an ambush attack with…

June 12, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 A man who rammed his truck into a crowd of peaceful protesters in Virginia on Sunday, injuring one person, is a Ku Klux Klan leader, authorities said. NASCAR said Wednesday that it is banning the display of the Confederate flag at all of its events and properties. A video of a uniformed New York City police officer appearing to make a white power symbol at a George Floyd protest Saturday in New York City has prompted an internal review. Read on for…

June 10, 2020 Some vocal extremists are showing up at the ongoing protests over the murder of George Floyd and police brutality. The extremists, who subscribe to a range of right wing ideologies, do not appear to be following any overarching plan or strategy, and are turning up at protests of all sizes, nationwide. Some who share the protesters’ opposition to law enforcement and government are joining the demonstrations. Others, carrying weapons, are acting as self-appointed security…

June 05, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Protests were held across the nation this week following the murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers, who are all now in custody. Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists were arrested on terrorism-related charges for conspiring to spark violence during recent protests over Floyd’s death in Las Vegas. Twitter shut down multiple accounts it says were operated by a white supremacist group posing as…

June 03, 2020 A medida que continúan las protestas — en gran parte pacíficas, pero cada vez más marcadas por enfrentamientos violentos, saqueos y vandalismo — en respuesta al asesinato de George Floyd por la policía en Minneapolis, los expertos de derecha y un grupo ideológicamente diverso de teóricos de la conspiración han afirmado que George Soros ha fomentado el caos. El lenguaje agresivo contra Soros se ha disparado en los…

June 02, 2020 As protests – still largely peaceful, but increasingly marked by violent confrontations, looting and vandalism -- continue in response to the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, right-wing pundits and an ideologically diverse crew of conspiracy theorists have alleged that George Soros has played a role in fomenting the chaos. Aggressive language towards Soros has exploded on social media sites like Twitter, where a sample assessment showed that negative…

June 01, 2020 American cities are reeling after another night of clashes between protesters and law enforcement. Since Thursday, daily, peaceful demonstrations against police brutality, spurred in part by the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, have descended into overnight eruptions of violence and destruction. In some cases, peaceful protests have been met with excessive police force. There have also been widespread incidents of violence and property destruction. And…

May 22, 2020 On May 1, 2020, when boogaloo activists organized a protest against coronavirus public safety measures in Raleigh, North Carolina, many attendees carried firearms in defiance of state laws prohibiting guns at public demonstrations. It was a scene played out across the country in recent weeks, as boogalooers are energized by resistance to lockdown restrictions, which they view as tyrannical government overreach. Boogaloo adherents have shown up at numerous lockdown protests, waving…

May 22, 2020 At nationwide rallies against policies aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, highly visible protesters are comparing government officials to Nazis and their policies to the Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II. The tactic of employing Nazi- and Holocaust-related analogies is not new -- it has been used by protesters and pundits for decades. But these analogies, laden as they are with allusions to unqualified evil, tyranny and persecution, continue to provoke outrage…