{"id":97941,"date":"2016-06-02T08:10:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T16:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=97941"},"modified":"2016-06-02T08:10:04","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T16:10:04","slug":"4chan-isnt-sure-whether-its-excited-the-times-wrote-up-its-anti-semitism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=97941","title":{"rendered":"4chan Isn\u2019t Sure Whether It\u2019s Excited the Times Wrote Up Its Anti-Semitism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesse Singal writes<\/a>: <\/p>\n

In an article that appeared in Sunday\u2019s New York Times<\/em>, Jonathan Weisman, deputy editor in the Times<\/em>\u2019 Washington bureau, explains what it\u2019s like<\/a> to be targeted by a swarm of (ostensibly) Trump-supporting anti-Semitic <\/span>Twitter-goons:<\/p>\n

The anti-Semitic hate, much of it from self-identified Donald J. Trump supporters, hasn\u2019t stopped since. Trump God Emperor sent me the Nazi iconography of the shiftless, hooknosed Jew. I was served an image of the gates of Auschwitz, the famous words \u201cArbeit Macht Frei\u201d replaced without irony with \u201cMachen Amerika Great.\u201d Holocaust taunts, like a path of dollar bills leading into an oven, were followed by Holocaust denial. The Jew as leftist puppet master from @DonaldTrumpLA was joined by the Jew as conservative fifth columnist, orchestrating war for Israel. That one came from someone who tagged himself a proud future member of the Trump Deportation <\/span>Squad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s a good read, and one of the interesting things about Weisman\u2019s story is his ambivalence about telling it. \u201cI retweeted the choicest attacks for all to see, and with each retweet, more attacks followed, their authors gleefully seeking the exposure,\u201d he writes. \u201cSome people criticized me for offering it, but I argued, perhaps wrongly, that such hate needed airing, that Americans needed to see the darkest currents in the politics of exclusion animating the presidential election.\u201d Then, a bit later: \u201c\u2018Thanks to @jonathanweisman for redpilling at least 1.5k normies today by retweeting premium content. Epitome of useful idiot,\u2019 responded one tormentor whose Twitter handle is too vulgar to repeat, even if I wanted to. Maybe he was <\/span>right.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words: When you\u2019re caught in a maelstrom of that sort of internet hate, you can\u2019t win. Either you sit there and mute and block an endless cavalcade of idiots proudly announcing their desire to send you to the ovens, or you draw attention to their awfulness and give them exactly the attention they covet. These are the cases that stretch the logic of \u201cDon\u2019t feed the trolls\u201d to the breaking <\/span>point.<\/p>\n

Weismen doesn\u2019t mention 4chan by name, but it and the other chanboards are a major source of this sort of Twitter garbage, and they are the birthplaces of many of the memes most eagerly and obsessively embraced by alt-right Trumpkins. And if this thread<\/a> on \/pol\/, the \u201cpolitically incorrect\u201d board that serves as one of the unofficial headquarters for Trump\u2019s anti-Semitic online army, is any indication, some channers are in fact thrilled to have gotten coverage in the pages of the nation\u2019s top newspaper, even if their home base wasn\u2019t mentioned by name in the article (the thread appeared shortly after the article went online last <\/span>week).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesse Singal writes: In an article that appeared in Sunday\u2019s New York Times, Jonathan Weisman, deputy editor in the Times\u2019 Washington bureau, explains what it\u2019s like to be targeted by a swarm of (ostensibly) Trump-supporting anti-Semitic Twitter-goons: The anti-Semitic hate, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[605],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-semitism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t