#HitlerDidNothingWrong – Holocaust denial in social networks and mobile applications.
By Arnon Dukeman
One of the infamous effects of social networks and mobile applications is the ease it gives to spreading hate speech, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
The internet has always been a paradise for hatred groups, conspiracy theories advocates as the mix of the two reflects in Holocaust deniers. The emergence of social networks into our lives brought these materials to the mass of online users without even having the need to search for it (let’s assume that someone who searches for those is interested in the first place so the exposed population does not necessarily increase). The user is exposed to it via Viral Memes, likes and favorites etc. Within the big social networks the most popular way to link a post to a common interest is the #hashtag.
The hashtag became very popular in social networks as a way for consolidating common interest of different users via a mark # before any word, which makes it a link to all other places where this hashtag appears.
For example we shall take a look at the hashtag from the headline, #HitlerDidNothingWrong. Currently this hashtag as more than 1800 posts. One would expect that only a scholar or a hater will be exposed to it but the (virtual) reality is very different. As in the screenshots here it seems as a very popular way of tagging pictures that sometimes has nothing to do with the issue:
The other tags on the images are #sports and #meme so probably the tagger just wanted someone interested in other things to look in his picture, a sort of honey trap. Once the user will click the tag itself he will find his way to the “real stuff” and be sure it is already there and it seems creative and cool, No wonder this tag has thousands of mentions already.
Another emerging tag in Instagram which is the most popular image sharing mobile app owned by facebook is #theholocaustwasalie. I think it has a “promising future”.
#theholocaustneverhappened, #theholocaustindustry just created recently as in a race between hashtags. All those hashtags appear as an option when the user types #holocaust.
Have no mistake! It starts with cool pics with but it will end up with exposure to the worst examples of Holocaust denial in the network, and once someone clicks on the hashtag, it is inevitable.
Arnon Dukeman has a M.A. in Communication & PR. Loves Politics, Diplomacy and Social Media. A copywriter by heart.
[The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Jewish Media Agency.]
