In the tiny liberal town of Altena, Germany, an extra allotment of refugees appeared to be welcomed with open arms. But local Facebook pages tell a different story.
Racist content permeates the town's online ecosystem in ways residents just don't see in real life — until it breaks out into anti-refugee violence. And a new study suggests Facebook is to blame, The New York Times reports.
Two researchers at the University of Warwick examined every incident of anti-refugee violence in Germany over a two-year period, breaking down the 3,335 attacks by wealth, far-right political support, and other relevant demographics. But the strongest correlation to violence appeared when towns had above-average Facebook use, per the Times. When a town's Facebook usage was a standard deviation above Germany's national average, anti-refugee attacks went up 50 percent. Across Germany, Facebook accounted for an estimated one-tenth of anti-refugee violence — or more than 300 attacks.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Altena locals could've told you about the Facebook factor without a study. When asked why seemingly harmless firefighter Dirk Denkhaus tried to burn down a refugee group house, residents mentioned a surge of racist Facebook posts on Altena pages to the Times. Nazi memes permeated event pages for food drives benefiting refugees and Denkhaus' own page, even though refugees wouldn't sense racism walking through the town square.
But in Germany and far beyond, the vitriol spewed on Facebook keeps bubbling over into the real world, the study suggests. Read more at The New York Times.
-
Home Depots are the new epicenters of ICE raidsIn the Spotlight The chain has not provided many comments on the ongoing raids
-
Why does Trump keep interfering in the NYC mayoral race?Today's Big Question The president has seemingly taken an outsized interest in his hometown elections, but are his efforts to block Zohran Mamdani about political expediency or something deeper?
-
The pros and cons of banning cellphones in classroomsPros and cons The devices could be major distractions
-
Google avoids the worst in antitrust rulingSpeed Read A federal judge rejected the government's request to break up Google
-
Supreme Court allows social media age check lawSpeed Read The court refused to intervene in a decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring social media users to verify their ages
-
Nvidia hits $4 trillion milestoneSpeed Read The success of the chipmaker has been buoyed by demand for artificial intelligence
-
X CEO Yaccarino quits after two yearsSpeed Read Elon Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to run X in 2023
-
Musk chatbot Grok praises Hitler on XSpeed Read Grok made antisemitic comments and referred to itself as 'MechaHitler'
-
Disney, Universal sue AI firm over 'plagiarism'Speed Read The studios say that Midjourney copied characters from their most famous franchises
-
Amazon launches 1st Kuiper internet satellitesSpeed Read The battle of billionaires continues in space
-
Test flight of orbital rocket from Europe explodesSpeed Read Isar Aerospace conducted the first test flight of the Spectrum orbital rocket, which crashed after takeoff
