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.
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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.
