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A widespread digital network is calling for people to carry out more terrorist attacks after Poway
PACK ANIMALS
America Under Attack by White Supremacists Acting Like ISIS
A widespread digital network is calling for people to carry out more terrorist attacks after Poway and Christchurch.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/poway-synagogue-shooting-america-under-attack-by-white-supremacists-acting-like-isis?ref=wrap
Kelly Weill
04.30.19 4:59 AM ET
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast/Photos Getty
The alleged killer at a Southern California synagogue this weekend worked alone, according to law enforcement, but behind him is a sprawling, digital network of white supremacists spurring each other on to murder.
Moments before allegedly opening fire at worshippers in Chabad of Poway on Saturday, white supremacist John Earnest previewed his plans on 8chan, just as his supposed inspiration did. Last month, a white supremacist in Christchurch, New Zealand used 8chan to share a link to a livestream of him killing 50 Muslims at a mosque. In between the attacks, the anonymous forum with a large fascist presence called for people to carry out more shootings. The calls for violence also spread across fringe platforms like Gab, and messaging apps like Telegram. It’s reminiscent of calls online for followers of ISIS and al Qaeda to strike out at the enemy, counter-terrorism experts said.
After the New Zealand shooting, 8chan users decorated the alleged killer as a “saint” and encouraged each other to commit shootings of their own, including against synagogues, to prepare for the “third world war” against Jews, or to kill a journalist critical of the forum.
“As a lot of people have noted over the past few days, 8chan is an awful cesspool of encouraging violence and hatred,” said Sam Jackson, an assistant professor focusing on online extremism at the University of Albany. “That hate and encouragement of violence might be a sort of baseline, background noise, but periodically someone moves from participating in this online awfulness to committing offline actions.”
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The first response to his 8chan post urged him to “get the high score,” investigative outlet Bellingcat noted. (When only one person, 60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye, was murdered, some 8chan users lamented the attack’s “low score.”)........................................................
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