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(Photo: Nationalists on the march.)How fast is the white nationalist movement in the United States growing? Does its enhanced social media activity aid recruitment or is it more evidence of unhinged disgruntlement? A report from George Washington University's Program on Extremism comparing the use of social media by ISIS and white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups found that despite ISIS's command over social media, with Twitter as its "preferred social platform, American white nationalist movements have seen their followers grow by more than 600% since 2012. Today, they outperform ISIS in nearly every social metric, from follower counts to tweets per day."

Twitter accounts of groups such as the American Nazi Party, the National Socialist Movement and other groups, have seen "a sharp increase in followers, from about 3,500 in 2012 to 22,000 in 2016," an Alternative Media Syndicate report pointed out.

AMS also noted that "Donald Trump is a prominent subject among white nationalists on Twitter. According to the study, white nationalist users are 'heavily invested' in the Republican's candidacy. Tweets mentioned Mr. Trump more than other popular topics among the groups." The GWU report also notes that a six-and-a-half hour biographical video on Adolf Hitler, titled "Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told," was one of the most popular pieces of content among white nationalists.

Despite its growing presence on social media, the report points out that "White nationalist communities online are less cohesive than ISIS networks, and less concentrated on Twitter."

With its notable social media presence, ISIS may have provided a template for other extremist groups, including white nationalists in the U.S. And while ISIS's intention is to provide a "welcoming environment" for potential recruits, white nationalist groups tend to be more disparate in its focus and less goal oriented.

The GWU report by J.M. Berger, a fellow with GWU's Program on Extremism, is titled "Nazis vs. ISIS on Twitter: A Comparative Study of White Nationalist and ISIS Online Social Media Networks"

"While the extreme violence of ISIS has understandably elevated concerns about the threat the organization presents, other extremist groups are able to watch its success and learn from its tactics, both on social media and offline," Berger writes. "Studies of ISIS activity, while useful, examine only a fraction of the violent extremist landscape. White nationalist terrorism has increasingly been tied to online activity, as seen in cases such as Dylann Roof, a white nationalist who is charged with killing nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina in June 2015, and Anders Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who promoted an anti-Muslim manifesto on Twitter and Facebook."

Berger pointed out the report's major findings:

Major American white nationalist movements on Twitter added about 22,000 followers since 2012, an increase of about 600%. The increase was driven in part by organized social media activism, organic growth in the adoption of social media by people interested in white nationalism, and, to some extent, the rise of organized trolling communities seeking to flood social media platforms with negative content, regardless of participants' actual beliefs. The most popular theme among white nationalists on Twitter was the concept of "white genocide," the notion that the "white race" is directly endangered by the increasing diversity of society. Social media activists tweeted hundreds of times per day using repetitive hashtags and slogans associated with this trope. Followers of white nationalists on Twitter were heavily invested in Donald Trump's presidential campaign. White nationalist users referenced Trump more than almost any other topic, and Trump-related hashtags outperformed every white nationalist hashtag except for #whitegenocide within the sets of users examined. White nationalism is highly factionalized, and includes a number of competing movements. On Twitter, accounts focused on Nazi sympathies were more prevalent than any other white nationalist movement, and pro-Nazi propaganda was tweeted more often than any other content. Within the broader community of white nationalists, organized recruitment, proselytization, and social media activism were primarily carried out by a highly interconnected network of users drawing on common themes/ Activity with a Nazi slant was more organic and less organized. Recruitment focused on the theme of white genocide and used terminology drawn from popular entertainment. The white nationalist datasets examined outperformed ISIS in most current metrics and many historical metrics. White nationalists and Nazis had substantially higher follower counts than ISIS supporters, and tweeted more often. ISIS supporters had better discipline regarding consistent use of the movement's hashtags, but trailed in virtually every other respect. The clear advantage enjoyed by white nationalists was attributable in part to the effects of aggressive suspensions of accounts associated with ISIS networks. Small groups of users tweeting in concert at high volumes can amplify their effect, causing hashtags and content to trend in numbers significant enough to prompt mainstream media coverage. White nationalist sympathizers used this strategy in October 2015 with calls to boycott Star Wars: The Force Awakens as "anti-white." Media coverage can lead to increased curiosity about extremist groups, feeding their social media success.In general, these findings suggest that the battle against ISIS on social media is only the first of many challenges to mainstream, normative values, some of which are ongoing, but most of which lie ahead.

Berger, co-author of ISIS: The State of Terror with Jessica Stern and author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, points out that "ISIS operates under dramatically different conditions than white nationalists and Nazi sympathizers on Twitter. First, ISIS social media strategies are more centralized, providing significant guidelines to users who make a meaningful attempt to follow them. Second, ISIS accounts are subjected to heavy pressure from suspensions due to large-scale efforts to report their content and drive their supporters off the platform. It should be noted that the performance of the ISIS network varies dramatically from day to day because of these factors, and these results represent only a snapshot of a given moment."

At the same time, it appears that "White nationalist accounts suffered relatively little suspension pressure, with only a few being suspended while nearly 1,100 ISIS accounts "were suspended during and immediately after collection."

He described the report's methodology in detail, and allows that "The total number of users analyzed is only a fraction of the total white nationalist presence on Twitter. The data collected was inadequate to create an accurate estimate of the overall size of the movement." Graph and chart lovers will have plenty to chew on in Berger's report.

Berger also acknowledges that there are deep splits within the white nationalist movement, splits that date back over several decades. "Going back as far as the 1970s, splits emerged between the American Nazi Party and neo-Nazi groups such as the National Alliance over the use of symbols and language (such as the overt display of swastikas and dressing in Nazi uniforms) that complicated efforts to recruit 'normal' people. Recently, some adherents have pushed for more collaboration and reconciliation among Nazi-sympathetic and other white nationalist strains. The data in this study suggests that while white nationalists have been more aggressive about adopting new technologies to spread their message, Nazi-sympathetic users saw more meaningful gains."

It is difficult to separate "ugly pranking" or "general harassment" on social media" from active recruiting, but, "regardless of motivation, this online activity is one of several factors energizing and emboldening sincere white nationalists in the United States, with serious consequences in the offline world."