How the 'Alt-Right' Came to Dominate the Comments on Trump's Facebook Page - The Atlantic

The alt-right is a radicalized subculture. While it most likely does not represent the values of most Trump supporters, let alone most Americans, this relatively small, hyperactive extremist group has effectively exploited the social mechanics of platforms like Facebook and Twitter to amplify its message, influence voters, and normalize its radical ideology. Over the course of the campaign the alt-right succeeded in spreading divisive rhetoric--and the comments section of Trump’s official Facebook page increasingly resembled the hateful views it promoted.

We can measure the degree to which the alt-right’s radical ideology has been normalized amongst Trump supporters on Facebook by taking language from their comments and comparing it to language of suspected white nationalists online.

For an earlier investigation into far-right radicalism on Twitter for The Washington Post, we used machine learning to identify 3,500 possible white nationalists based on the language in Twitter users’ profile descriptions and pro-Nazi symbols in their avatars. We then dissected the racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and often violent language used by these accounts. (Many have since been suspended by Twitter.)

Analyzing the context in which these accounts used keywords relevant to hate speech, and comparing that context to mainstream language found in a dataset of over 100 billion words published on Google News, makes it possible to identify distinctive patterns. Other bodies of text—for example, the comments left on Trump’s Facebook page—can then be compared to these two benchmarks, to assess the extent to which they resemble one more than the other.

For example, in most newspaper articles, the word “Jewish” is used in a similar way to words like “Muslim” and “Christian,” to describe religion.

In tweets by white nationalists, the word “Jewish” is used in a similar way to words like “communist,” “homosexual,” and “leftist.” In other words, “Jewish” often appears in contexts similar to words for other groups of people white nationalists don’t like.

The language used in the comments section of Trump’s Facebook page initially resembled that used by newspapers.  For example, here is a typical comment from early 2016. Its author uses the word “Jewish” to describe his religion.

“I love Pope Frances [sic]! He took on a very Holy Name and I love Him! But once again I am Jewish but the Pope is still Blessed!”

By October, that changed. Facebook commenters on Trump’s page began to use words like “Jew” and “Jewish” to describe the mainstream media, Hillary Clinton, and other common punching bags for Trump’s campaign. They used “Jewish” in the same way white nationalists use the word “Jewish” — as an epithet.

For example, one commenter writes, “The Rothschild Jewish owned main stream [sic] media will begin to die tonight when Trump only speaks with honest journalists online after the debate. Best way to end corrupted media, ignore them.”