49 Spring 2023 who should have carried the blame and borne the punishment were able to escape. The authors claim that AfD’s posts are sometimes very similar in nature. Since the AfD utilizes dedicated strategies to propagate its message and create effectivity, the danger of such propaganda, they conclude, is that it has enabled the AfD to circulate an “alternative memory” that is, in its nature, populist, and more appealing to the right-wing sphere. Chapter 4 presents the case of antisemitism on Facebook pages related to and supportive of the British Labour Party. As the author Jakob Guhl notes, left-wing antisemitism can be counterintuitive, as the left is often an opponent of racism. Yet, antisemitism exists among leftist partisans as well. Guhl bases his research on dozens of keywords that he searched on public Facebook pages. Guhl notes that while no posts fell under common definitions of antisemitism, he nevertheless suggests that “there may be a connection between the length of the comment section and the likelihood that they will contain antisemitic comments” (p. 63) – a problematic statement with no statistical support. He also notes that in any case, 41% of antisemitic comments were challenged by other users. Since some Facebook groups are public, non-followers can also comment on posts, and since such semi-official Facebook groups are often aware of social correctness, this raises the question of the need to investigate open Facebook groups in the first place. Overt racism and antisemitism are often less prevalent among leftist or mainstream communities. As Guhl discovered, most posts were related to the State of Israel, adding further complexity to the understanding of what constitutes antisemitism. The greatest contribution of Guhl’s analysis is the verification of social manners – fortunately, both semi-official and official Facebook groups online understand the need to avoid explicit antisemitism. This is probably because they not only understand the reasoning behind avoiding antisemitism, but because they also do not embrace those beliefs. Furthermore, administrators of these pages could have deleted antisemitic comments to their non-antisemitic posts, something that was not dealt with in this chapter. In Chapter 5, Monika Hübscher and Vanessa Walter explore the phenomenon of trolling attacks on social media, specifically on YouTube, using qualitative examples of comments to a livestream YouTube event and quantitative analysis (by a textual-analysis tool – Voyant). Their findings confirm the traditional definition of the phenomenon of internet trolling, according to which trolls disrupt organized discourse whether on textual, vocal, or visual levels. In the case presented by Hübscher and Walter, trolls managed to disrupt a YouTube event associated with Jewishness by publishing a significant number of antisemitic comments. The authors argue that trolling is a deliberate attack on democracy. I agree with them. Yet, preventing participation from factions of society we do not “like” can also be perceived as a nondemocratic act. This could have been further developed by the authors as no suggestions for countermeasures were provided. However, it is important to mention that such countermeasures were raised by Hübscher and von Mering in Chapter 1, with the example of counter-speech. In Chapter 6, Cassie Miller presents the development, growth and significance of neo-Nazi movements using “alt-tech,” that is, alternative and often more private, secure, and anonymous social media platforms. By analyzing several cases of neo-Nazi individuals using such alt-tech (i.e., Iron March forum, Atomwaffen Division on Discord, groups on Gab and channels on Telegram of The Base movement), Miller suggests that these secluded groups are dangerous for several reasons. First, such groups use alternative platforms of communication and develop their own methods and language that is meant to avoid regular social media moderation. They are therefore avoiding not only AI-based moderation but also counter-speech, as these secluded platforms are often not frequented by mainstream users. Second, Miller importantly suggests that the migration of both users and their extreme antisemitic propaganda from mainstream social media to secluded social media has de facto created a radical community that is greater than its members. That is, even if members are banned or arrested, as in the case of “The Base movement,” the “spirit” of the radical community lives on in other, similar groups. Miller’s observation, with which I completely agree, raises a question about the benefits of regulation and moderation on social media by censoring antisemites – are we encouraging them to find more convenient platforms to spread their hatred? As a disclaimer, I also argue this in my research about antisemitism on the dark web and on Telegram. In Chapter 7, Navras J. Aafreedi introduces an interesting and often overlooked subject: antisemitic posts in languages other than English, German, Russian or Arabic and Persian. The focus of this chapter is on the Urdu language spoken by many Muslims in South Asian countries like India and Pakistan. As Aafreedi suggests, YouTube has failed both to offer guidelines and policies, as well as to monitor antisemitism in uploaded content, since most of the platforms’ efforts are aimed at the English-speaking public. This monitoring failure should
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