Othering Practice in a Right-Wing Extremist Online Forum Nicole Baumgarten University of Southern Denmark urn:nbn:de:0009-7-45218 Abstract This article investigates the linguistic-discursive construction of others in one international right-wing extremist online discussion forum. By means of a positioning analysis and an appraisal analysis, the article shows how reference to absent third parties is used to establish others as outgroups in forum posts aimed at an international audience. The analysis reveals an othering practice that links the online extremist discourse world with international and local as well as with political, social, and personal concerns, providing various opportunities for user affiliation. The results of this investigation contribute to understanding of the linguistic-discursive construction of online hate speech in multicultural virtual (rhetorical) communities; the study also highlights how social media and the use of English as a lingua franca combine to connect geographically and linguistically separate individuals and facilitate the globalization of extremist discourse through the construction of a shared discourse world online. Introduction This article investigates the construction of an international, right-wing, white supremacist community in one extremist online discussion forum (discussion board), focusing on users' discriminatory practices as one means of constructing a group-specific right-wing extremist discourse world. The basis for this investigation is a set of forum posts on the topic of Europe taken from one of the international discussion forums hosted on the largest, oldest, and most popular US-American-based right-wing extremist website. In this forum, users from various countries and linguistic and cultural backgrounds discuss current social and political developments in Europe. English is used as the primary means of communication because of its maximum reach among the international user group. In addition, the use of just one language simplifies the task of the forum moderators, who act as gatekeepers, scanning the incoming posts for appropriateness with respect to the forums' policy. Discriminatory discursive practices such as othering (Spivak, 1996) are, thus, not accidental but an integral part of forum practice. Despite the fact that extremist groups have been using internet communication technology for the dissemination of their views since the 1980s (Levin, 2002), it is only since the late 1990s that the socially non-benevolent forms of online communication, such as hate speech, have been addressed in research. Most of the available investigations of extremist online communication are either content analyses of US American-based extremist groups' websites (e.g., Bostdorff, 2004; Burris, Smith, & Strahm, 2000; Douglas et al., 2005; Gerstenfeld, Grant, & Chiang, 2003; Schafer, 2002; Zickmund, 1997) or describe the development of text mining approaches to online communication (e.g., Chau & Xu, 2006; Xu & Chau, 2006; Cohen et al., 2014; Zhou et al., 2005; Zhou et al., 2006) to be employed in anti-terror monitoring and law enforcement. Beyond the description of hate sites and reliable identification of instances of aggression and hostility in online communication, however, it is important to be able to determine and understand extremist groups' online community-building, especially when the community-building has a globalizing aim. This includes understanding group-internal patterns for singling out specific objects for discrimination through hate speech. The discursive practices adopted by extremist groups online include mechanisms of ideological regulation that have already been described in existing research on antagonistic online discourse and online hate speech in general. These include, for example, delimiting and strengthening the belief system through citation of 'evidence' (intertextuality, Hodsdon-Champeon, 2010), offering belonging by presenting the forum space as a safe haven in what is perceived as an adverse offline environment (Douglas, 2008), discouraging dissenting points of view (Perry & Olsson, 2009) through alignment and disalignment with individual posts and their authors, and creating inequality and social competition between in- and outgroups through othering of third parties (Brindle, 2016; Douglas et al., 2005; Josey, 2010; Zickmund, 1997). Two particular aspects of online hate speech, however, remain to be addressed. First, there is little insight into how discriminatory views and ideas are linguistically constructed and discursively promoted in right-wing extremist virtual rhetorical communities (see, however, Brindle’s [2016] study of the construction of masculinities)1 and how particular views and attitudes are framed in order to be understood as legitimate parts of the discourse world (Edmondson, 1985) of the group. Second, despite the fact that the use of the English language allows extremist groups and individuals to forge international connections online (Burris et al., 2000; Gerstenfeld et al., 2003; Perry & Olsson, 2009), the nature of this global outreach via the English language as a lingua franca is for the most part unclear, as is whether or how it can serve to establish a globally shared right-wing extremist online discourse world. This article aims to address these two aspects with an exploratory study of English-language international online right-wing extremist hate speech. Linguistic discourse analysis – specifically, appraisal analysis (Martin & White, 2005) and positioning analysis (Lucius-Hoene & Deppermann, 2002) – are used to show which others are established in online forum discourse and how they are constructed as targets for discrimination. The study highlights how social media and the use of English as a lingua franca combine to connect formerly geographically and linguistically separate individuals and provide them with the means to unite, consolidate, and distribute belief systems. The results of this investigation contribute to understanding of the linguistic-discursive construction of online hate speech and its role both in online community building and for the potential globalization of right-wing extremist discourse online. The following section defines the term hate speech as it is used in this study and characterizes USA-based right-wing extremist groups' use of the internet as a means of communication, as well as its role in the global dissemination of right-wing extremist discourse. Section 3 presents the data for this study, which were sampled from an online discussion forum on the US American-based, white supremacists' website stormfront.org, and summarizes the main aspects of positioning and appraisal analysis as applied to the data. Section 4 presents the third parties that are established as others in the international right-wing extremist forum discourse and the main patterns of othering through evaluative language use. Section 5 concludes the article with a discussion of the study's results regarding the globalization of right-wing extremist discourse by means of the establishment of a shared repertoire of discriminatory language use, both global and local realizations of others as outgroups, and offline effects of online content. Definition of Key Terms Hate Speech Online hate speech is a type of antisocial internet communication that belongs to the larger phenomenon of cyberhate. Hate speech has been defined to various degrees of specificity both in and outside the law.2 One definition of hate speech frequently used in research outside the law is the one by the former HateWatch watchdog organization, which defines hate speech as advocating violence or unreasonable hostility toward persons or organizations identified by their race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability [including the] dissemination of historically inaccurate information with regards to these persons or organizations for the purpose of vilification. (HateWatch, as cited in Duffy, 2003, p. 292) On this view, hate speech constitutes the expression of hateful and prejudicial messages intentionally targeted at socially-defined groups of people and at individuals who are or are claimed to belong to these groups.3 Hate speech occurs in both offline and online contexts. The nature of internet-based communication, e.g., involving users' anonymity, the possibility of remaining personally unidentifiable, and reduced accountability for one's actions, allows individuals to express views that would be socially unacceptable in offline settings. Still, online hate speech does not constitute a different type of hatefulness, hostility, and aggression; rather, the conditions of the internet allow individuals to express their views in an amplified and exaggerated fashion (Kiesler, Siegel, & McGuire, 1984). Online hate speech is, thus, a reflection of sentiments and attitudes present in offline social life and not the expression of stances specific or restricted to the internet (Douglas, 2008). Perry and Olsson (2009) distinguish between direct and indirect hate speech. Direct hate speech targets individuals and groups with attacks and threats in text messages, blogs, or emails. Indirect hate speech, by contrast, tends to occur in topic- or community-specific discussion forums or chat rooms. With indirect hate speech, post authors attempt to reach a larger audience of like-minded people in order to seek solidarity and establish and reinforce group identity.4 It is indirect hate speech which is investigated in the present study. Both types of hate speech occur with both overt and covert expressions of hostility (Douglas et al., 2005; Josey, 2010; Thiesmeyer, 1999). Overt hate speech includes advocating, promoting, and justifying violence against target groups. Douglas et al. (2005), however, find only little evidence for advocated violence on publicly accessible websites of organized extremist groups, which, they claim, is due partly to the threat of legal prosecution of the post author and to an overall reduced aggressiveness on extremist websites. Reduced aggressiveness helps to avoid alienating first-time users and sympathizers with moderate views, to lend credibility to the groups' views, and to facilitate recruitment into the organization (Douglas et al., 2005; Kim, 2005; Lennings et al., 2010). Reduced aggressiveness can be the result of covert hate speech, which is characterized by a toned down discriminatory rhetoric (Josey, 2010; Thiesmeyer, 1999). Writers make use of strategic essentialism (Bucholtz, 2003; Spivak, 1996), which involves enactment and indexing of seemingly authentic identities for both the in- and the outgroup ("authentication of identity", Bucholtz, 2003, p. 385) by othering social groups and their purported members.5

US-American Right-Wing Extremist Groups Online Hate speech is a central tool and tactic in the community-building of American right-wing extremist groups (Duffy, 2003; Gerstenfeld et al., 2003; Thompson, 2001; Waltman & Haas, 2011; Whillock, 1995). Extremist groups employ hate speech for the construction and maintenance of adversarial group relations. Adversarial group relations are discursively created by fostering doubt about the social relationships between the ingroup and selected outgroups and/or by postulating social competition and long-term social conflict between these groups (Adams & Roscigno, 2005; Douglas et al., 2005). Outgroups are typically social groups based on race, religion, or sexual orientation; however, ideological and political beliefs are also drawn upon in assigning people outgroup status (Gerstenfeld et al., 2003; Ministry of Justice, Sweden and Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2012). Engaging in hate speech serves to delineate the ingroup clearly and render it cohesive. This is accomplished through a process of constructing contrast and difference by means of the expression of opposition to outgroups. For extremist groups, hate speech is a means of self-enhancement and building of a collective identity and group consciousness. At the same time, extremist groups' language use in publicly accessible online communication tends to be determined by the groups' desire to establish and maintain a positive group image. For this reason, extremist groups often deny "hate" (Schafer, 2002, p. 84) and often explicitly label themselves as "non-violent" and "non-hate" (Gerstenfeld et al., 2003, pp. 40-41). These self-identity claims are reflected in their hate speech tactics, e.g., in constructions of outgroups as being aggressors on the ingroup (Douglas et al., 2005; Schafer, 2002), so that hateful expressions by the ingroup targeted at outgroups can be interpreted as a measure of self-defense against external threats and attacks. Further, instances of hate speech are framed with reference to positively associated mainstream Western-European and US-American values such as freedom of speech, intellectual freedom, solidarity, justice, and equal rights (Duffy, 2003; Gerstenfeld et al., 2003) in order to resonate with a larger public. The internet has been described as an especially powerful tool for extremist groups (Gerstenfeld et al., 2003; Kim, 2005; Perry & Olson, 2009; Thompson, 2001). In the USA, right-wing extremists have been using the internet as a communication channel since the 1980s, with the first websites appearing in the 1990s (Levin, 2002). The web services offered on these websites (mailing lists, streaming, podcasts, discussion forums, chat rooms, FAQs, web shops, members-only access sites, international sites, donation sites, etc.) have dual functions: On the one hand, these services facilitate communication with members and sympathizers, recruitment of new members, fundraising, international outreach, and information provision to an unlimited audience. On the other hand, the web services fulfill at least five additional functions in the community-building of extremist groups, which are especially noteworthy because of the socially non-benevolent nature of the groups and their promotion of views that are controversial or socially unacceptable. First, through gatekeeping mechanisms such as moderation and scaffolded user rights, the websites allow the groups maximum image control. Second, as the public front-ends of the groups, the websites constitute a low-threshold port of entry into the organization. They proffer interfaces which facilitate easy access to information and networking for users. Third, the kinds of content made available and the kinds of interaction facilitated on the websites support and promote the creation of shared knowledge and a coherent discourse world among users. Fourth, through their web services, extremist groups provide, foster, and feed a virtual community which is typically claimed to exist as real community in the offline world as well (Burris et al., 2000). The virtual community can, thus, compensate for the potential lack of real community in users' local, offline lives and offer a sense of double community affiliation: first, in the virtual community, and, second, remote affiliation in the alleged offline community. Lastly, web services that explicitly address international users enable the global spread and re-construction of knowledge with a view to creating an international virtual extremist community and discourse world. The creation of an international right-wing extremist community is seen as particularly relevant in the context of one type of US-American right-wing extremist group, namely white racial supremacists (e.g., White Supremacists or White Nationalists; white supremacists hereafter) (Burris et al., 2000; Gerstenfeld et al., 2003; Kaplan & Weinberg, 1998; Perry & Olsson, 2009). For these groups, trans-Atlantic Euro-American connections are especially ideologically desirable: Followers of these groups typically claim descendance from and allegiance to the "white Aryan" cultures of Europe and see the current status of the "white race" as that of the "new embattled […] minority" (Stormfront, 2015). Their concern is with the "white race" in total, i.e., independent of particular nation states (Kaplan & Weinberg, 1998). It is for this aggregate of reasons that US-American white supremacists' websites include multilingual web services and English-language sections targeted at audiences in specific countries or regions outside the USA. As a collateral effect on the internet user who accesses these international web services, evidence of an international user group and posting activity conveys the impression of the existence of a pervasive, coherent undercurrent of white supremacist activity across Europe and the USA ("Euro-American radical right subculture", Kaplan & Weinberg, 1998, p. 87). An important feature of white supremacists' international outreach and exchange online is the potential heterogeneity of worldviews in the international user group. Considered from an international perspective, both white supremacism and the larger phenomenon of right-wing extremism are historically, geographically, ideologically, and linguistically diverse. International contact and exchange online, therefore, must in some fashion involve the construction of shared (ideological) common ground from potentially diverse input, by means of English as a vehicular language. One question raised by this diversity at the base of international hate speech is how ingroup commonalities on an international level can be forged in online interaction. The present study addresses this question with an investigation of online talk about absent third parties as reference to outgroups in posts to an international, English-language white supremacist discussion forum. The establishment of third parties as others is the keystone of creating and maintaining adversarial group relations, which, in turn, are central to extremist groups' community-building and the development of a shared discourse world, fostering ingroup cohesion and ideological coherence. Accordingly, the research questions for this investigation are: Who are the outgroups of an international white supremacist hate group?, and How is the status as other encoded?

Data The data for this study come from the website stromfront.org. Stormfront.org is a US-American-based white supremacist website. It is considered to be the oldest (online since 1995) and largest of its kind (Levin, 2002), and one which "has used tact and political savvy to grow a thriving neo-Nazi community" (Kim, 2005, para. 1). The website identifies itself as the hub of a white supremacist online community – "the voice of the new, embattled White minority" (Stormfront, 2016a). In addition to radio streaming and audio archives, the website hosts various interactive web services featuring user-generated content. Its most prominent feature is the over 100 topical discussion forums, boasting "over ten million posts" (Stormfront, 2016a). According to the website owner, the discussion forums' "mission is to provide information not available in the controlled mass media and to build a community of White activists working for the survival of our people" (Black, 2001). The forums are asynchronous, moderated discussion boards open to registered members of stromfront.org. Forum interaction can be viewed, however, without registering, which corresponds with the purpose of the website to provide information accessible to the general public. Through the discussion forums, stormfront.org is able to provide a full alternative worldview. There are forums on virtually all aspects of daily life, ranging from indoctrination to finance advice, education, health and fitness, "women's concerns", homemaking, and dating. The site also features a number of international forums addressing and convening users from specific – predominantly European – countries and users with interest in those countries. Of these forums, the forum European discussion was investigated for the present study. It is the forum with the most explicit international outlook and agenda on the website. European discussion is devoted to the "discussion of nationalism in all European nations" (Stormfront, 2016b). The forum follows an English-only policy. This decision was taken, according to the website owners, to simplify forum moderation. At the same time, the requirement to post exclusively in English forces users to phrase their contributions with a view to a delocalized, international audience that transcends national and cultural boundaries. This is a task that requires the construction of common ground and affirmation of shared knowledge in order to be able to link one’s post to an assumed virtual discourse world. For this study, we selected all so-called "hot threads" – measured by the number of views and posting activity as recorded on the website – which were started between March 2013 and April 2014. In total, 113 English-language threads were initiated by 78 different users during that time.6 Judging from the number of posts associated with each user ID, the vast majority of these users can be described as experienced and regular post authors: 39 users have more than 1000 and 17 others have more than 100 posts on their record. As far as can be determined from the user IDs and the posts' contents, the thread starters come from continental Europe, the UK, and the US.7 For the present study, the focus is on talk about absent third parties in first posts (i.e., thread-initiating posts), in order to identify which third parties are presumed by users to be established others in the international white supremacist forum community. The investigation starts from the assumption that reference to a third party in a thread-initiating post either must reflect what the post author takes as given information and shared knowledge about a third party, or requires the post author to introduce new information and anchor that in the assumed knowledge framework of in- and outgroups in the forum public. Examples (1)–(4) illustrate this difficulty of emically (i.e., ingroup) relevant and appropriate in- and outgroup construction for post authors in the present data. (1) […] Explain it all to me plz

Main reason is I got banned from Nationalistic website for antisemitic remarks, and want to understand if there is a semitic/zionist plan in all this8 (2) Are Romanian welcome here?

Hello people from StormFront,I am new here,I was looking for a forum like this one and I finally found it. I started to search a bit about Romanian threads etc, and I wanted to know if we Romanians are actually welcome here? (3) Should Albanians be accepted into European/White community and community of this forum?

Let's make a final statement about Albanians on this thread/poll once and for all. (4) OUR WORST ENEMY

Who are our worst enemies? These posts enquire into the status of third parties as outgroups and can be read as attempts at probing into the conception of the repertoire of outgroups in the nationally and culturally diverse forum public in order to identify common affinities and to further a shared worldview. In this study, reference to third parties is conceptualized broadly in order to be able to detect the potentially diverse entities constructed as others: It can take the form of reference to specific individuals, nations, cultures, organizations, institutions, as well as to cultural constructs and practices (e.g., nationalities, value systems, norms, behaviour patterns).

Positioning Analysis and Appraisal Analysis A combination of positioning and appraisal analysis was used to identify how third parties are established as others in discourse. This method has been described in detail elsewhere (Baumgarten & Du Bois, 2012) and is only summarized here with reference to the data of the present study. The analytical method is based on a simplified version of the model of positioning in discourse proposed by Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann (2002, 2004), complemented by the model for analyzing evaluation in language and language use put forth in appraisal analysis (Martin & White, 2005). Davies and Harré (1990) define positioning as the "discursive process whereby [speakers', listeners', and third parties'] selves are located in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced story lines" (p. 48). Positioning constructs speakers and others in discourse as socially identifiable persons in that it shows how speakers see themselves in relation to others and which attributes, roles, and characteristics they claim for themselves and assign to others. This self- and other-identity construction is realized by speakers' self- and other-positioning in discourse. Self-positioning refers to discursive practices which convey to the addressees that the speaker claims a particular social position, role, or identity. Other-positioning refers to the construction of a social position, role, or identity for entities other than the speaker. These other persons include the addressees as well as absent third parties. Positioning analysis is concerned with the linguistic9 and extralinguistic devices that realize self- and other-positioning acts, i.e., the individual propositions that express an identity claim or ascription. Reference to third parties is realized predominantly through two types of other-positioning: TYPE 1: Other-positioning of the third party by the post author (5) […] this is not an attractive country for the social support seeking barbarian scum, but as they are taking over the rest of Europe I'm afraid they will leak here too. TYPE 2: Other-positioning of the post author and/or the group they claim affiliation with by the third party (6) Not content in invading our countries, they are intent on destroying them. A third type of third party reference that occurred only once in the present data is self-positioning of the third party through reported speech by the third party. In (7), the third party "muslim mother" presents herself in the post author's account as raging and over-reacting to the ham sandwich lunch offered at her child's day care center. (7) One of the muslim-mothers […] shouting all the time … 'YOU TRY TO KILL MY KID, We will meet in court!!!' Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann (2004) point out that speakers' positioning practice usually concerns both the actualization of an identity that existed before the interaction (transportable identities (Zimmerman, 1998) – and the construction of a situated identity, which emerges in and through discourse. In this way, positioning acts are dependent on post authors' assumptions about their addressees' knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, interests, and needs in relation to the transportable and situated identities that are instantiated in discourse. In particular in asynchronous online discourse, a thread-initiating post must be designed to actualize the addressees' knowledge and belief systems in a manner that ensures alignment, rapport, and positive uptake (reply-posts) in spite of spatio-temporal distance. The other-positioning of third parties in discourse typically includes an expression of post author alignment or disalignment with the third party so that each other-positioning act includes a self-positioning of the post author. Alignment and disalignment with third parties creates an ingroup for the post author and an outgroup of others. The framework of appraisal analysis (Martin & White, 2005) was used to investigate post authors' alignment and disalignment with third parties through evaluation. Appraisal analysis was developed in the framework of Systemic Functional Grammar to account for evaluation in language, and it has recently begun to be used to investigate strategies of writer-reader alignment in public online discourse (Derewianka, 2008; Drasovean & Tagg, 2015; Zappavigna, 2011). Appraisal analysis is concerned with the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positioning and relationships. It explores how attitudes, judgements and emotive responses are explicitly presented in texts and how they may be more indirectly implied, presupposed or assumed. (White, 2005, para. 1) The term appraisal acts as cover term for the linguistic means by which speakers and writers positively or negatively evaluate persons, events, things, states-of-affairs, and propositions in order to "express, negotiate and naturalize particular intersubjective and […] ideological positions" (White, 2005, para. 1). The concept is interaction-oriented: It is assumed that all acts of evaluating in discourse aim at constructing relations of alignment and rapport between the text producer and actual or potential addresses along shared values and attitudes (Martin & White, 2005). An appraisal analysis works along system networks of functional categories. The appraisal system is shown in Figure 1 below. In an appraisal analysis, evaluative features in individual propositions are categorized according to the type of evaluation they express in their context of occurrence. For the present purposes, the focus is on the system of attitude, which encompasses the expression of affect and emotivity, i.e., the evaluation of something or somebody through the expression of different types of positive and negative feelings (Figure 1). Figure 1. Appraisal system network: Attitude (adapted from Martin & White, 2005) Within the appraisal model the expression of an attitude can be categorized as an expression of affect, judgement, or appreciation. Affect refers to the text producers' expression of a positive or negative feeling toward a person, thing, event, or proposition. Judgement refers to the expression of admiration or criticism toward persons and their behaviour. Judgments are normative assessments based on implicit or explicit socially sanctioned norms of conventional and expectable behaviour. Judgements of normality, capability, and tenacity assess people’s behavior, competences, and psychological dispositions in terms of their social esteem in the community; judgements of propriety and veracity are assessments of behavior in terms of social sanction, i.e., its (il-)legality, (im)morality, or (im)politeness. Appreciation refers to positive or negative assessments of things, phenomena, and ideas. Examples (8)-(10) illustrate the categories (appraisal item underlined, attitudinal target in bold). (8) I hate to see these people here. [neg. affect] (9) […] barbarians vandalizing Europe. [neg. judgement; neg. propriety] (10) […] homosexuality, abortion and other such plagues on our society. [neg. appreciation] The analysis was carried out using MAXQDA (Kuckarzt, 2013) coding software for qualitative text analysis and proceeded as follows: First, all third party tokens realized through nominal expressions and pronoun reference in the forum posts were identified. The second step identified the outgroups among the third parties in the discourse by isolating those references to third parties which included an act of other-positioning through negative appraisal. The authorial evaluations were categorized according to the appraisal attitude system10 to arrive at a closer characterization of the features attributed to third parties and selected as the target of othering.

Results

General Frequencies and Evaluation Patterns

One hundred of the 113 posts in the dataset introduce a total of 617 third parties into forum discourse. In 517 instances (in a total of 72 posts), third party reference includes a negative evaluation of the third party, i.e., an other-positioning that constructs the third party as an outgroup through an expression of disalignment. Table 1 shows the types of negative authorial evaluation expressed in the other-positioning acts.

Table 1. Negative evaluation in other-positioning: Attitude types

Disalignment with third parties rests predominantly on expressions of negative judgement and negative appreciation. Most salient in forum discourse are evaluations that proclaim flaws and faulty behavior in social actors, including persons (e.g., Muslims) as well as institutions and organizations (e.g., EU; the media), and that deny or call into question the value of social phenomena and states of affairs (e.g., multiculturalism; feminism). Within judgement, othering relies mainly on assertions of impropriety, i.e., social actors' moral deviance and non-conformity to an implied set of social conventions. Second most frequent is othering through ascriptions of deceitful behaviour (neg. veracity). The fact that negative appreciation is the second most frequent evaluation type overall shows that in addition to social actors, social processes, social conditions, and belief systems are utilized to construct other-'phenomena,' enabling outgroup construction at abstract and conceptual levels of social life. Negative affect, by contrast, plays only a comparatively minor role in outgroup construction. Negative evaluations of third parties are, thus, to a lesser extent constructed via negative emotions such as fear, dislike, dissatisfaction, or unhappiness. Rather, it is claims about their difference from an assumed standard set of sanctioned social norms and their inherent lack of value that are used to construct outgroups. Examples (11)–(14) illustrate the categories in the data (third party in bold; evaluation underlined; type of positioning in brackets).

(11) Gypsies messed up our country [neg. propriety], everything, made us look bad [neg. propriety] in countries of Europe. (TYPE 2: other-positioning of the ingroup by the third party, T6)

(12) Many of those foreigners reading this letter won't be able to understand it because of the way the mass media twists language [neg. veracity] (TYPE 1: other-positioning of the third party, T3)

(13) Maybe moving to Eastern Europe is a better option– feminism hasn't taken it's toll . [neg. appreciation] (TYPE 1: other-positioning of the third party, T113)

(14) I was terrified [insecurity] how much money government in my country is giving to left wing anti-fascist organizations, newpapers and media, (TYPE 2: other-positioning of the ingroup by the third party, T19)

In each of the examples, the post author's subjective evaluation is unequivocally proclaimed and essentialized as a trait of the outgroup:

(11)' gyspies: mess up countries

(12)' mass media: twists language

(13)' feminism: has a bad effect

(14)' government: affiliated with left-wing, antifascist organizations

These evaluations position others in hostile and aggressive opposition to the ingroup so that each outgroup is presented as adversely affecting the ingroup.