International Journal of Psychoanalysis and Education, 2016 Vol. VIII, No. 2, 14-23

The Dark Side of the Internet*

La parte oscura di internet

Claudia Gina Hassan1

Abstract The relation of anti-semitism to the media has always been intense. This theme has always been pervad- ed by an “ontological” virality. With the rise of the web – viral by definition – the post-WWII democrat- ic taboo against anti-semitism has been weakened due to its entering a no man’s land free of all controls and restrictions. The antisemitic galaxy on the web exhibits the traits of a closed self-referential, sectari- an group. The code words, the commonplaces and usual clichés of anti-semitic prejudice, however, make deep inroads within the web and contribute to re-legitimize those themes beyond sectarian audi- ences. What was once considered an abhorrent prejudice can now be easily found in the guise of one opinion alongside others. After a rapid birdeye view of the far-right in Europe, this paper examines a number of diverse websites which share the same anti-semitic prejudice disguised in various ways.

Key words: web; anti-semitism 2.0; negationism

Riassunto La relazione tra media e antisemtismo è sempre stata molto forte e caratterizzata da un’intrinseca virali- tà. Con la nascita del web, virale per definizione, i tabù democratici contro l’antisemitismo si sono al- lentati in questa terra senza controllo e restrizioni. La galassia antisemita sul web assume i tratti di un mondo chiuso e autoreferenziale di gruppi settari. Ma le parole chiave, i luoghi comuni e i soliti cliché del pregiudizio antisemita stanno creando un ambiente dove possono essere potenzialmente rilegittimati e normalizzati al di là delle audience settarie e chiuse. Tutto ciò che una volta era considerato un orren- do pregiudizio viene oggi riconsiderato come una delle tante idee, un’opinione come un’altra .Dopo una panoramica sull’estrema destra europea, l’articolo esamina una serie di differenti siti web che condivi- dono però lo stesso pregiudizio anti-semita declinato in vari modi.

Parole chiave: web; anti-semitismo 2.0; negazionismo

* Paper presented at the International Conference: “Civil society, democracy and contestation” Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 24-27/11/2014.

1 Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata. (Per la corrispondenza: [email protected])

2016 IJPE. Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License, as cur- rently displayed at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by‐nc‐sa/4.0/legalcode (the “CC BY‐ NC‐SA”). The Au- thor acknowledges and agrees that the Publisher is the exclusive “Licensor”, as defined in the CC BY‐NC‐SA, of the Work and that the Publisher may make the Work freely available to all users under the terms of the CC BY‐NC‐SA.

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While on the one hand the web has opened the Internet police, but actually even now, up new possibilities for rethinking democra- every month or so, it reappears in a different cy, on the other hand it has also exerted a form and on a different site. From 2008 until gravitational pull towards anti-semite, xeno- today, the same list appeared on many dif- phobic and neo-nazi movements. The rela- ferent sites and in many different places. For tion of anti-semitism and the media is noth- example, in 2014 the list appeared in a multi- ing new, if only one thinks of the late 19th lingual website by the name radioislam.org.1 century pamphlets and of the massive use of The first name on the list is that of an Italian radio and cinema in fascist and nazi propa- Muslim born in Tunisia, and there is also the ganda. After WWII, however, violent anti- name of the director of a project and a jour- semitic themes and code words have been nal open to dialogue with the Muslim world. ostracized insofar as a moral stigma and a So, even though the list was cancelled from democratic condemnation have come to pre- the first neo-Nazi site, we find it again today vail. on another completely different site. It has This predicament has come to change dra- spread without control, in a viral way and matically when the rise of the Web has at- many of the once listed distinguished col- tracted the xenophobic galaxy. Where taboo leagues remained on the blacklist. and problems of access used to block the way, now an unpatrolled and unpatrollable On the site one can read: “this Site is owned open-ended territory opened up. Before ad- by a group of freedom fighters from different dressing this crucial seachange, an example countries in support of Ahmed Rami’s global of this virality worth considering is provided struggle. Radio Islam is working to promote by an episode of 2008. better relations between the West and the In 2008 a blacklist appeared on a website, Muslim World. Radio Islam is against racism with a list of many Italian university profes- of all forms, against all kinds of discrimina- sors. These professors were Jewish, Catholic, tion of people based on their colour of skin, Waldensian, Muslim, believers and non- faith or ethnic background”. believers. But the Internet site where our This little story exemplifies in a very clear names had all ended up defined us all as way the pervasive, far-reaching nature and Jewish and belonging to a powerful and ob- the virality of the web. scure lobby which wanted to dominate the The positive aspects of this pervasiveness world. and virality are often emphasized in the de- The lobby originated from the university, bate. However, it is also important to look at preying on young minds and there was the the darker side of the question. added danger that this lobby could even go as far as defending a foreign state against the The European picture: xenophobic interests of the Italian state. parties and the European elections This case ended up on the front pages of the of 2014 national newspapers and in the news head- lines on television. The site was then report- Before examining the first results of this re- ed to the police and it was blocked. At this search on anti-semitism 2.0, a brief overview point my colleagues and I tried to figure out of the situation in Europe after the last Euro- where this list had come from and we no- pean elections in May 2014 is in order. The- ticed that the names they had published were se elections highlighted the institutionalisa- the same names as a group of professors who tion, throughout the EU, of right-wing had met a few times over a couple of years and who had appealed against the diffusion of Holocaust denial within university cours- 1 See es. The list disappeared thanks to the work of http://www.radioislam.org/islam/italiano/potere/l ista-ebraice.htm, accessed on 10 October 2014.

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movements and parties with nationalist, anti- tionalist, populist and xenophobic and has semitic, racist, populist and anti-European declared itself to be against the Euro; and the tendencies. A real dark wave, which owes its Finnish party of the “Real Finns”, strongly success to the austerity policies that Europe nationalist, anti-communist, pro-Israel and has adopted in order to confront the econom- Euro-sceptic but which has never expressed ic and employment crisis (Caiani & Parenti, any anti-semitic positions. 2013). These movements addressed the big As far the Benelux countries are concerned, issues of the real economy, immigration and in the Netherlands, the Dutch Pvv, the anti- the safeguarding of local traditions and cap- Europe and xenophobic Freedom party, tured over 20% of the vote, with over seven guided by Geert Wilders, has made its fight hundred representatives elected to the EU against Islamic fundamentalism its symbol; Parliament in Brussels: a rather disturbing the Belgium Vlaams Belang, “Flemish Inter- success, which could result in these extreme- est” party, is an ethno-nationalist party which right parties holding the balance of democra- calls for the independence of Flanders and cy. The issues, which seem to have made the the strict control and regulation of immigra- greatest impression with the electorate, are tion. those related to immigration policies. It is Furthermore, Tshe Npd, the German Nation- clear that these parties chose the easy route al Democratic Party led by Udo Voigt, open- of populism, blaming the crisis on the many ly advocates racism, Nazism, nationalism diverse people who live in our countries: and economic protectionism and unleashes a Muslims, Jews, Roma people, blacks and new strategy of terror above all thanks to ag- immigrants from Eastern Europe. Despite the gressive propaganda aimed at young people; common denominator of xenophobic hatred, the Fpo, the Austrian party of freedom, pro- this wave has far more different nuances than pounds policies in line with those of Le Pen can be covered here. Within this wide range both regarding its aversion to the Euro and of parties we find the National Front of Ma- its profound nationalism and highly restric- rine Le Pen, which won 25% of the vote in tive policies on migration. France, placing no fewer than 24 deputies in the Strasburg Parliament, thus becoming the The two cases which have raised most con- biggest of the Euro-sceptic parties thanks to cern among democratic publics are the Hun- a mixture of nationalism, conservativism, garian Jobbik and the Greek party Golden and an anti-semitism of sorts, apparently “re- Dawn. The former, inspired by fascism and furbished” and given a modern language. ultra-nationalist, often accused of homopho- bia, xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism, Furthemore, we find the Ukip, the Party for has often incited violence against the Roma Independence in the UK, led by Nigel Far- people and accused Jews of attempting to age, which won the European elections with buy Hungary. The latter exemplifies one of 31% of the vote beating both the Labour and the most dangerous kinds of euro-sceptic Conservative parties, which promotes an parties, with neo-Nazi ascendance. It advo- economic programme mid-way between lib- cates violence against immigrants, denies the eralism and nationalism, and calls for the ex- Holocaust and supports the paradoxical theo- it of the UK from the EU. Even though it ry of the Zionist plot. It has as its symbol a does not declare itself as anti-semitic, this kind of swastika and adopts a Nazi-style sa- party has a social programme clearly in- lute. In a Greece badly hit by the economic spired by xenophobia and homophobia. crisis it obtained a surprising 9.3% of the In the context of Scandinavian countries, vote, winning 3 seats in the European par- noteworthy are also the Dansk Folkeparti liament. (DF), the conservative and anti-European In Italy the Northern League shares with Le Danish people’s party, which won the elec- Pen a strong aversion towards the European tions with 26.6% of the vote; the Sd, the Union and fights against immigration, mani- Democratic party of Sweden, which is na-

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festing a racist and xenophobic nature. Fur- The opening up of a world of new possibili- themore, even though it cannot be counted ties of information sources for a better in- amongst these other extreme-right parties, formed citizenship and of increasing partici- the 5 Star Movement founded by Beppe Gril- pation for a fuller democracy through the lo and Gianroberto Casaleggio, has a very web has been widely studied in both its posi- rigid position on immigration and with its tive and negative aspects. anti-Europe position gained a surprising 21% Ideologies of the cyber-democracy establish of the vote. In the wake of the constitutional a very strong cause-effect relationship be- referendum of 4 December 2016, they have tween new digital technologies and a superi- announced that they intend to promote an- or quality of democracy. But even though the other referendum, on continuing adhesion to Internet is definitely a tool for giving free- the euro. dom to individuals, it is also, at the same In the heart of European civil society, which time, a tool to control. Just as it is a tool for saw the trauma of the Holocaust, today re- information, it is also one of disinformation membered through public rituals but at the and for the spreading of prejudices and sim- same time not fully metabolyzed, (Berger, plistic ways of thinking. From the dream of 2013, pp.1-27) these movements grow and the agorà, to the nightmare of Orwell and the succeed. Of course, it can be objected that information-overload. they are a minority. They are few and present This issue has also been discussed at a Par- no danger. But when xenophobic and at liamentary level in Italy. An information times also anti-semitic movements gain elec- gathering survey on anti-semitism conducted toral representation within political institu- by a Joint Parliamentary Committee showed tions such as Parliaments, above all within a significant increase in racist sites: from 836 the European Parliament, a slow process of in 2008 the figure reached 1,172 in 2009, an normalisation of their themes and rallying- increase of 40%. As for the “sites devoted to cries gets underway. hatred against Jews” the number went from 50 in 2010 to over 100 in 2012. These fig- On-line anti-semitism ures do not include the thousands of forums, profiles, pages and posts of an anti-semitic nature published and shared via social net- When speaking of anti-Semitism 2.0, at issue works. is the normalisation, the indifference, the trivialisation, the return of rhetorical figures Analysing the on-line anti-semitic contents, a and clichés that come from a past that seems difference between traditional anti-semitism dramatically, if only latently, present (Arden- and that of the contemporary age is immedi- iz, 2009, pp.35-46). ately evident. Whereas in the past there was an attempt to convert people to anti-semitism A recent survey run by the European Union through slogans, speeches, discussions, car- Agency for Fundamental Rights demon- toons, historical and scientific theses, today strates, in fact, that where the forces of the Internet sites, forums and blogs attempt to extreme right are gaining ground, forms of make anti-semitism “socially acceptable” to anti-semitism are on the rise thanks to the the online public, eliminating the equation ever-increasing spread of technologies and that anti-semitism equals racism. global communications networks and in forms that still remain to be fully deciphered. What can here be observed is a form of so- cial “normalisation” by which online users The EU remains helpless for the moment, are persuaded to see the anti-semitic content unable to distinguish between the different as a point of view on which they can either levels of discourse, whilst these new terrains agree or disagree, but not as content whose of communication risk generating clashes of diffusion should be opposed. Thus, the web civilisation and violence between communi- is legitimising anti-semitism. ties.

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Whereas in a mainstream newspaper it On these neo-Nazi and/or Catholic funda- would always be taboo to publish an anti- mentalist sites many and very extreme types semitic headline, on the web there is no such of anti-semitic material can be found: car- “sacred” respect. toon strips, classic texts of anti-semitic po- The repercussion on the real world, above all lemic, documents that accuse the Jews of for the categories of people who are less cul- practising ritual murder, Nazi-rock songs, turally informed and for young people, is quotes and catalogues of anti-semitic and frightening. One survey carried out by the negationist films and documentaries. IARD, the Political and Economic Research As for the Catholic fundamentalist sites, all Institute based in Italy, showed that 22% of the anti-semitic themes of the Pre-conciliar young people between 18 and 29 years of Catholic Church can be found, i.e., conspira- age expressed a dislike of Jews. 80% of these cy theories, allegations of immorality and young people have no direct knowledge of perversion directed at Jews. The sites of this the Jewish world. kind often produce proscription lists, which Rather than, or in addition to, enforcement detail the collaborators and the “servants” of by the postal police, this anti-semitic behav- Israel in every walk of life, from politics to iour could be contained and contrasted with journalism, to education. These sites aim to on-line counter-information operations, fo- infect as many people as possible with their cussed school projects and educational initia- anti-semitism, to transmit misleading, false tives. or manipulated information through the web. In light of the effect that the anti-semitic Often taken down and at the center of vari- sites have on the normalisation of hatred, it ous court battles, they are quite easy to iden- would be natural to think that following the tify through their aggressive and crude lan- reporting of a site or forum as anti-semitic, guage. The best known amongst them are the site should be immediately taken down. Holy War, Stormfront and ElleDiEffe. But there are many problems in containing Holywar.org was one of the most active in this phenomenon: often anti-semitic sites are the anti-semitic campaigns. It was taken reported and not shut down. down, but it survives and still exerts a great Because even though it is clear that these on- impact through some Facebook groups line conduct can be punished by law in the which are continuing their legal battle to al- same way as traditional communication low it to reopen. Their blacklists, on which the names of people accused of being “ac- abuse, it is not so simple to react in a world where anonymity and the uncertain location complices” of Israel appear, have attracted a of a site work as an insurmountable wall lot of media attention, a factor which con- both due to obsolete laws and to the tech- tributed to the reason why the site was nical difficulties for those who enforce the blocked so quickly. law. Stormfront was a forum which was active between 2011 and 2012 and was closed after a lawsuit which culminated in the conviction Italian anti-semitic websites of the four founders. It was based on the na- tional socialist ideology of the extreme right There are various types of anti-semitic inter- and worked by posting up ideas about the net sites in Italy. superiority of the white race and about racial Stefano Gatti, in an unpublished research re- hatred, inciting people to commit acts of dis- port, distinguishes five types of anti-semitic crimination and violence. Both the modera- websites: neo-Nazi, Catholic fundamentalist, tors and the users gave vent to their anger anti-Zionist, negationist, and conspiracy- towards immigrants, Jews and gypsies. activist sites (Gatti, 2013). Just like Holywar, Stormfront also drew up Neo-Nazi and Catholic fundamentalist sites blacklists of “Italian criminals”, guilty of be-

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ing Jewish or of supporting the Jewish com- press agency InfoPal.it, Arcipelago, the munity. After being reported daily to the communist Aginform Foglio di Corre- postal police, Stormfront ended up under the spondenza, Arabcomint, Bocche Scucite, the scrutiny of the prosecutors after having post- blog of Claudio Moffa, and the Writing of Is- ed up the organisation of acts of violence rael Shamir. The majority of these sites refer against Roma camps and immigrants in Italy. to ideologies of the extreme left, which sup- It is therefore clear how venting these and port the Palestinian cause, or are of Islamic similar feelings can instigate violent demon- influence. These sites usually start out with strations. Over and beyond being naturalised complex and articulate arguments but end up and legitimised, online anti-semitism creates by repeating the clichés typical of traditional networks that go beyond barriers and enable anti-semitism. powerful and threatening organisations to operate, if left undisturbed, over an extreme- Negationist sites ly wide territory.

The most important anti-Jewish site active at These are the sites which promote a nega- the moment in Italy is EffeDiEffe, a daily tionist or strongly reductionist interpretation news site of the publisher EffeDiEffe, edited of the Holocaust which often uses aggressive by the journalist Maurizio Blondet. From a and vulgar language. Amongst the most im- clearly Catholic fundamentalist perspective, portant are: the Blog of Andrea Caracini, the every day it posts up articles with conspira- blog of Antonio Caracciolo, Olodogma, cy-activist and historical revisionist focus. Studies by Carlo Mattogno, Aaargh e Codoh. Underlying these articles is the suggestion that behind the biggest historical events op- All these sites exalt freedom of expression erates the “long hand” of the Zionist masons and the right to criticise and revise the testi- and the State of Israel. This outlook reflects monies of the Holocaust, which in their opin- the anti-semitism of the Pre-Conciliar Catho- ion are partial, subjective and exaggerated lic Church and often attacks the current (Vercelli, 2016, pp.44-49). Pope. Without providing any evidence in their fa- The communication technique of EffeDiEffe vour based on historical fact, they quote pa- is diametrically opposed to that of Holy War pers of authors both from Italy and abroad. and Stormfront: to an un-informed user it can Their claims about the scientific basis for look like a respectable site, where even the their information aims to discredit traditional images which appear together with the arti- historiography as ideological and politicised. cles are mainly neutral and informative. Only However, it is important to understand that every now and then do the editors of we do not have in front of us a simple inter- EffeDiEffe post up photos and drawings in- pretation or manipulation of information for spired by anti-Jewish feeling. ideological purposes: in these cases, history is denied through the deliberate use of lies,

and these lies are all the more serious given Anti-Zionist sites the enormity of the Holocaust and the evi- dence of its reality. In this category we have sites linked with the The communication strategy and rhetoric of radical rejection of the State of Israel and Zi- the deniers aims in fact to destroy the collec- onism, which produce stereotypical and neg- tive perception of the Holocaust, the human ative images to support their ideas (Me- heritage of solidarity towards the victims: a ghnagi, 2010, pp. 57-66). form of action that deeply undermines the This particular form of anti-semitism is the democratic fabric of our civilization. most comprehensive and legitimised form of Civium libertas is one of the blogs of Anto- anti-semitism. Amongst the sites are the nio Caracciolo (he boasts of having 33), a re-

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searcher in the Philosophy of Law at the Sa- economic-political institutions of the West pienza University of Rome. Caracciolo de- and aimed at the domination of the world. clares that he wants to defend the rights of In this category we have: Disinformazione - Holocaust deniers to express their own ideas Oltre la verità ufficiale (Disinformation - without ending up in prison and also that he Beyond the Official Truth) the site of the San never understood the meaning of the word Giorgio Cultural Centre, ComeDonChis- “anti-semitism”. ciotte, Nuovo Ordine Mondiale (new World On his online pages we find repeated insults Order). to the memories of Jews who died in the The site Disinformazione.it is a sort of huge concentration camps. Taking advantage of a archive of current news articles, divided into sober and academic style, Caracciolo dis- macro-categories: from health conspiracies tances himself from the blogs managed by hatched by the pharmaceutical companies to neo-nazis. But the violence of the negationist those linked with the international Freema- theories is entirely present in all the stances sonry lobby, up until news articles re-read that trivialise and chip away at the memory through the interpretation of the “Israel lob- of the Shoah. by”, marked with the flag of the Israeli state. Many groups from the extreme right base A current example is the article by Maurizio their violent actions on Caracciolo’s nega- Blondet of 6 September 2014 entitled “The tionist ideologies. atrocities of Califfo Al-Mossad: be careful of The blog Aaargh adopts a completely differ- lies”, where the great media attention to- ent tone, with ungrammatical, vulgar, street wards ISIS and the Iraqi-based Califate’s ex- language. Here we are faced with a mix of termination of the Christians and local peo- the entire gamut of Italian negationist posi- ple is interpreted as a favour to blot out Is- tions and aggression against those who pub- raeli wickedness. licly oppose these positions. The official site of the San Giorgio cultural If Google is the search engine which has the centre (www.centrosangiorgio.com), a Cath- greatest number of clicks in the world, olod- olic association formed by lay people in Fer- ogma.com is the equivalent in the world of rara in 1990, aims to bring to light politically negationism: it is not a blog or an infor- incorrect topics or topics which are too “hot” mation site but an archive divided into cate- and are therefore hidden by the media. It gories which provides links to everything deals with the occult and satanism and has present on the web on this topic. one section dedicated to “mondialism” It is updated thanks to user feedback directly (globalism), meaning global conspiracies. In via email to the managers of the site, who this context, the editors of the website advo- then enter the content. cate re-interpretations of 9/11 in the light of conspiracy theories which maintain that the Ultimately, it would seem that negationism CIA and Mossad were accomplices in the at- on the web can fall even below the already tacks, with the goal of justifying a war low level of the one spread through tradi- against Islamic terrorism. In essence, this site tional communication channels. tries to “unmask” the plots of enemies of the Church such as the freemasons, the Jews, Conspiracy-activist sites communists, satanists, and Jehovah’s wit- nesses. The peculiarity of these sites consists of their The same is true for the sites New World Or- reading the major historical events and news der www.nwo.it and through the lens of the “great Jewish con- www.comedonchisciotte.org spiracy” – pursued by an “Israeli lobby” or a The same rudimental graphics, the same way Jewish Freemasonry – subtly influencing the of presenting the news through the lens of a conspiracy, posting up articles which appear

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here and there on the web or which are occa- makes their violation of the anti- sionally rewritten specifically for these sites. discriminatory clauses difficult to prove and There is no danger of these virtual spaces therefore difficult to close them down on the reaching the wider public as they cater for a basis of the law. The path indicated by the niche public who already tends towards the Parliamentary Commission in 2011 was sim- conspiracy theories. ilar to that which led to enacting a law to The conspiracy is a topos typical of many combat online paedophilia. This anti- forms of anti-semitism (Wistrich, 2012 paedophilia statute allows the Italian police pp.195-200). Even though it is true that not to interact directly with the service provider all conspiracy-activist versions of history are to call their attention to criminal sites and anti-semitic, we can however state that anti- close them down. The only law which can Semitism is conspiracy-activist. Anti- help the police in their work given this par- semitism in this way becomes a comprehen- ticular gap in the regulations is the “Buda- sive conception of the world, a real ideologi- pest Convention” of 2001 on IT crimes, cal system which allows believers to explain adopted by the Council of Europe, which the whole of history as the fruit of a dark was signed and ratified by Italy in 2008 and plan of the Jews, as well as to find a simple which came into full force in 2011, when the explanation for everything (Germinario, Government ratified the additional Protocol 2007). to the Budapest convention for crimes of rac- ism and xenophobia committed through the It is not by chance that in all the various con- internet. By ratifying the Protocol, Italy also temporary forms of anti-Semitism, from the made a commitment to adopt the laws for the socialist-leaning ones to those of the Catho- repression of negationism towards all geno- lic fundamentalists, to the biological Hitleri- cides. ans, the conspiracy activist vision plays a crucial role. History is not governed by class In addition to the numerous sites on the in- struggle or by the unfolding of Spirit, but by ternet, another dangerous channel for the dis- the Jewish plan to conquer the world and en- semination of anti-semitic ideas is constitut- slave the people - the true power is always ed by the social networks Facebook, hidden. The Jews are therefore a deceitful Youtube and Twitter. The web 2.0 has ex- race. ploded in the last few years with the number of users reaching staggering figures. In Eu- rope the estimated number of active users is Conclusion 293 million, of which 26 million are Italian. About 40% of the Italian population actively Combatting online anti-semitism, as we have uses a social network and spends an average seen, is very difficult. Despite the fact that of 2 hours a day connected. In 2009 the total the postal police in Italy are amongst the number of readers of the 10 best-selling most efficient in the world, in the Italian le- newspapers in America was less than 2% of gal system there is no ad hoc law targeting the audience of YouTube and Facebook. online anti-semitism. Very often the sites are These impressive figures cast light on an im- closed down with the formal accusation of portant phenomenon: an all-pervasive virtual racism and not of anti-semitism. space has emerged in society and has be- come for many the main means of communi- cation and information, a cyberspace where The law relevant in this case is the Mancino opinions of professionals and everyday users law of 1993 which regulates crimes of dis- are mixed up in a vast sea where everything crimination and hate or violence for racial, can be considered at the same level. This vir- ethnic, national or religious reasons. tual space is anything but free of the phe- This statute can also be applied to internet, nomenon of anti-semitism. Once again, the but the inherent ambiguity of many websites most vulnerable are young people who, over

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and beyond spending more time on the social and requires adequate agreements between networks, are less well-informed about the States on a common and unambiguous poli- Jewish question. cy, but the most urgent need is now for us to The difficulties encountered to contain this move in this direction using appropriate widespread phenomenon strengthen online means in order to prevent devastating social groups which (ab)use the web convinced of effects. being above the law. The road to the effec- tive prevention of anti-semitism 2.0 is long

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Riferimenti bibliografici

Ardeniz, Y. (2009). Racism on The Internet. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing. Berger, R. (2013). Holocaust, Religion and the Politics of Collective Memory: Beyond Sociology. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publisher. Caiani, M., & Parenti, L. (2013). European and American extreme right groups and the internet. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Gatti, S. (2013). Milan Observatory on Anti-Semitism, Milan. Cdec. Unpublished manuscript. Germinario, F. (2007). Negazionismo, antisemitismo, rimozionismo. In G. D’Amico (Ed.), Razzismo, antisemitismo, negazionismo (pp. 65-77). Asti: Istituto per la storia della Resistenza e della società contemporanea. Meghnagi, D. (2010). Le sfide di Israele: Lo Stato ponte tra Occidente e Oriente. Venezia: Marsilio. Vercelli, C. (2016). Il negazionismo: Storia di una vergogna. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Wistrich, R. S. (Ed.) (2012). Holocaust Denial: The politics of Perfidy. Berlin: De Gruyter.

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