Anti-Defamation League says Adidas CEO apologizes for misstatement about Kanye West
The head of the Anti-Defamation League said in a post on X on Thursday that he was in touch with Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden who apologized for his remarks about Kanye West and reiterated the sportswear company’s fight to end antisemitism.
FBI report shows high hate crime levels, but data missing
Hate crimes in the U.S. remained relatively high last year after a surge not seen in nearly two decades, according to a new FBI report that experts say is actually an undercount because thousands of police departments didn’t report their data.
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White supremacist propaganda surged in 2020, report says
White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels across the U.S. in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League shared with The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)NEW YORK – White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels across the U.S. in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League provided to The Associated Press. The ADL, which was founded more than a century ago, said that last year marked the highest level of white supremacist propaganda seen in at least a decade. A neo-Nazi group known as Folks Front distributed stickers that include the words “White Lives Matter.”According to the report, at least 30 known white supremacist groups were behind hate propaganda. Despite the overall increase, the ADL reported a steep decline in distribution of white supremacist propaganda at colleges and universities, due in large part to the coronavirus pandemic and the lack of students living and studying on campus.
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Social platforms flex their power, lock down Trump accounts
Facebook and Instagram said Thursday they will bar Trump from posting at least until the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. Zuckerberg said Trump’s account will be locked “for at least the next two weeks” and possibly indefinitely. Trump has repeatedly harnessed the power of social media to spread falsehoods about election integrity and the results of the presidential race. Snapchat on Wednesday locked Trump’s account “indefinitely.”Twitch, the live-streaming site owned by Amazon and used by Trump's campaign to stream speeches, disabled Trump’s account until he leaves office, saying it didn't want to be used “to incite further violence." Trump more than a decade ago embraced the platform's immediacy and scale to rally loyalists, castigate enemies and spread false rumors.
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Experts: Capitol riot product of years of hateful rhetoric
Supporters of President Donald Trump are confronted by Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber at the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington. – The storming of the U.S. Capitol is a jarring but natural product of years of violence and hateful rhetoric stoked by disinformation and conspiracy theories, experts on far-right extremism said as they pored over images of Wednesday's riot. Online forums popular with Trump supporters lit up with gleeful posts about the chaotic scenes broadcast from the Capitol. Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet posted video that showed Trump supporters in “Make America Great Again” and “God Bless Trump” hats milling around and taking selfies with officers who calmly asked them to leave the premises. The storming of the Capitol is the “logical conclusion to extremism and hate going unchecked” during Trump’s presidency, Segal said.
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Hate crimes in US reach highest level in more than a decade
There were 7,314 hate crimes last year, up from 7,120 the year before — and approaching the 7,783 of 2008. The FBI’s annual report defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on a person’s race, religion or sexual orientation, among other categories. The FBI said the number of hate crimes against African Americans dropped slightly to 1,930, from 1,943. Anti-Hispanic hate crimes, however, rose to 527 in 2019, from 485 in 2018. And while the number of agencies reporting hate crimes increased, the number of agencies participating in the program actually dropped from the year before.
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Civil rights groups denounce Facebook over hate speech
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg met with civil rights leaders, Tuesday, July 7, 2020, including the organizers of a widespread advertising boycott of the social network over hate speech on its platform. On Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg met with a group of civil rights leaders, including the organizers of a growing advertising boycott over hate speech on Facebook. Those included hiring a civil rights executive; banning private groups that promote white supremacy, vaccine misinformation or violent conspiracy theories; and ending an exemption that allows politicians to post voting misinformation. President Donald Trump frequently skirts Facebook's posting rules, yet faces no consequences, dismaying both civil rights leaders and some of Facebook's own employees. On Wednesday, Facebook will release the final results of its own civil rights audit of its U.S. practices.