Online Antisemitism: From Social Media to the Dark Web, From the Keyboard to the Streets

“Brenton Tarrant was a catalyst for me personally. He showed me that it could be done. And that it needed to be done.”

Those were the words of the 19-year-old John Timothy Earnest who went out for a murderous shooting campaign on 27 April 2019 and opened fire inside the ‘Chabad of Poway’ Synagogue near San Diego. As it appears, Earnest was radicalized on the online domain, specifically by the white supremacist Brenton Tarrant who murdered 51 people in two New Zealand Mosques on 15 March 2019. Tarrant live-streamed his attack on ‘Facebook Live’ – an act which radicalized many worldwide. The El Paso Walmart shooting on 3 August 2019 was also inspired by Tarrant’s live stream. In fact, Brenton Tarrant’s online actions have inspired and radicalized a significant amount of online and real-world actions. This perpetrator even has his own dedicated support websites, pages, posts and discussions on the dark web.

The question examined in this article is – How does antisemitism, and racism in general, shift from the online to the real domain and vice versa? And more importantly, how can this vicious circle be stopped? Methodologically, to answer these questions in a way which would reflect reality best, a comparative qualitative analysis of several significant case studies is done. The concept of process tracing is also utilized to understand how certain actions led to more actions of violence. In terms of structure, there are three main parts in this presentation. The first part explains the background of online antisemitism and racism. The second part explains the process of online radicalization including the use and abuse of social networks and the dark web by radicals, mainly by white supremacists. The third part presents three significant case studies in which the online domain served as a significant agent of influence. Lastly, I want to posit some policy suggestions as by now the internet has become a utilitarian tool for spreading radical propaganda, endorsing terrorism and neo-Nazism, radicalizing, and recruiting people worldwide with a click of a mouse.