Abstract- The Far Right on Facebook: A Canadian Perspective

The far right is active in Canada and has increasingly emerged on social media platforms. On platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, groups such as the Soldiers of Odin-BC have created online pages in order to spread their anti-immigration messages. I argue that these platforms which are heavily visited and used by many people in Canada allow Canadian far right groups to easily spread their nationalist populist message of exclusion while attempting to dodge accusations of hate speech. Canadian far right groups do so by utilizing mundane language that is not altogether uncommon in everyday Canadian communities or media. For example, by using terms such as “aliens” to describe immigrants, far right Canadian groups make their claims about immigrants less contentious while simultaneously dehumanizing immigrant populations in Canada. To conclude I ask, how have bans on white supremacist and white nationalist content on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube impacted these groups and their online messages?