Neo-Nazis online

Blatant racism, homophobia and promotion of violence are on the increase in the German-speaking cyber world, finds the latest annual report published by Jugendschutz.net, Germany's state-sponsored child protection service in matters relating to the Internet.

The report, titled "Right-wing extremism online 2013" ("Rechtsextremismus online 2013") finds that the more offensive and provocative the content, the more quickly and broadly it is circulated.

"While in the past the propaganda was more subtle, today we regularly see blatant portrayals of Jews, Muslims, Sinti and Roma and homosexuals as second-class citizens," Stefan Glaser, deputy head of Jugendschutz.net, said in a statement.

Not new, only worse

This general finding reflects the overall trend identified in the reports from previous years.

"The first neo-Nazi websites appeared in the 1990s, and right-wing Internet content has increased dramatically over the years," Christiane Schneider, head of the political extremism department at Jugendschutz.net, told DW. "With the rise of social networking, hate propagators have also grown smarter. They know how to present themselves in a friendly and appealing way to attract young followers."

Methods such as humor and satire are used, which help disguise hate speech. "In addition, a widespread climate of hate online makes this kind of behavior look increasingly normal, which only attracts more people," said Schneider.

Beyond national borders

While the study focused on Internet content accessed by German youth, its findings extend beyond Internet platforms hosted in Germany. An increasing amount of young people are networking internationally or simply using foreign websites for sharing extremist content.

An example is the Russian social networking site VK. Previously known as VKontakte, the platform has been described as a safe haven for right-wing extremists from countries like Germany, where the laws controlling Internet content are stricter. The network has recently been used for disseminating videos published by the Okkupay Pedofilyay group, an anti-gay movement started in Russia. The videos feature neo-Nazis attacking, beating, torturing and humiliating gay people.

So far, according to Jugendschutz.net, VK operators have not given a sufficient response. They rarely delete hate-inciting content or block access for German users.

"It's hard to control the activities of web portals based abroad," said Schneider. However, there have also been some examples of success.

"There is a Latvian question-and-answer site called Ask.fm, which has been quite popular among young German users," explained Schneider. "When we noticed right-wing activity there we notified the operators. At first they didn't react, but through various international contacts and organizations we managed to put pressure on them and today they react much more quickly to complaints."

Jugendschutz.net representatives hope to have more influence of this kind in the future. According to Glaser, sites like VK and US microblogging and social networking site Tumblr do very little do ban extremist content.

A double goal

While it's hard to pinpoint the exact consequences of an individual piece of right-wing propaganda online, there are obvious dangers when one particular group is labeled as inferior. Jugendschutz.net aims to prevent young people from becoming both perpetrators and victims of online extremism.

"Hate propagators take advantage of the latest technology and popular social networking sites to influence young people," said Schneider. "Some of these people then cause emotional or physical harm to their peers, but young Internet users can also be harmed simply by what they read online."