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Friday, October 28, 2016

Trump's anti-immigration remarks fueling traffic for white supremacist websites, says researcher

Donald Trump's anti-immigration, anti-Muslim remarks have caused a spike in traffic to websites of white supremacists, says a Vanderbilt University researcher who tracks white-nationalist internet groups, Jim Patterson reports for Vanderbilt. Sophie Bjork-James, a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer of anthropology at the Nashville university, said Jewish journalists have been particularly targeted with a rise in anti-Semitic language.

Bjork-James told Patterson, "The Trump campaign has given the white nationalist movement a long-awaited opportunity to spread its message to a national audience. Trump’s messages about limiting immigration and banning Muslims from the U.S. have given the movement one of its largest membership boosts in decades, which will have impact long after this election cycle."

Bjork-James said that Don Black, founder of the white nationalist website Stormfront, "claims a 30 to 40 percent spike in web traffic in 2015 after Trump’s anti-immigration and ban Muslim speeches," Patterson writes. The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website created in 2013, averages 1.9 million visitors per month, up from 1.2 million in 2015. (Read more)

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