The Music of Hatred is Alive and Well on the Web
A look at fascist and white supremacist music on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, and SoundCloud.
The Internet was a game-changer for white supremacist and pro-fascist musicians. They went from occupying the fringes of subcultures such as punk and heavy metal to publishing and interacting with new followers with the click of the button. Not too long ago, you could find some of the most hateful bands plugging their music on the web. If you wanted to jam to Peste Noire telling viewers to create carnage in retribution for an increasingly diverse world or buy tickets for the Militant Black Metal band M8l8th [pronounced mo-lot-kh], then you could do so on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Years of escalating conflicts have prompted the major platforms to kick these offenders off of their sites. White supremacist music, however, is still accessible to anyone willing to search for it. “Where thought and action synthesize into victory,” reads the description of one Spotify playlist. Its title has the phrase the ThirdPosition in it, which directly references neo-fascist ideology.
The music of the web is bristling with pro-fascist and white supremacist music and musicians, and its prevalence speaks to larger issues of content moderation and censorship.
