BRUSSELS: It’s the premier martial arts group in Europe for right-wing extremists. German authorities have twice banned their signature tournament. But Kampf der Nibelungen, or Battle of the Nibelungs, still thrives on Facebook, where organizers maintain multiple pages, as well as on Instagram and YouTube, which they use to spread their ideology, draw in recruits and make money through ticket sales and branded merchandise.
The Battle of the Nibelungs — a reference to a classic heroic epic much loved by the Nazis — is one of dozens of far-right groups that continue to leverage mainstream social media for profit, despite Facebook’s and other platforms’ repeated pledges to purge themselves of extremism.
All told, there are at least 54 Facebook profiles belonging to 39 entities that the German government and civil society groups have flagged as extremist, according to research shared with The Associated Press by the Counter Extremism Project, a non-profit policy and advocacy group formed to combat extremism. The groups have nearly 268,000 subscribers and friends on Facebook alone.
CEP also found 39 related Instagram profiles, 16 Twitter profiles and 34 YouTube channels, which have gotten over 9.5 million views. Nearly 60 percent of the profiles were explicitly aimed at making money, displaying prominent links to online shops or photos promoting merchandise.
Click on the big blue “view shop” button on the Erik & Sons Facebook page and you can buy a T-shirt that says, “My favorite color is white,” for 20 euros ($23). Deutsches Warenhaus offers “Refugees not welcome” stickers for just 2.50 euros ($3) and Aryan Brotherhood tube scarves with skull faces for 5.88 euros ($7). The Facebook feed of OPOS Records promotes new music and merchandise, including “True Aggression,” “Pride & Dignity,” and “One Family” T-shirts. The brand, which stands for “One People One Struggle,” also links to its online shop from Twitter and Instagram.
The people and organizations in CEP’s dataset are a who’s who of Germany’s far-right music and combat sports scenes. “They are the ones who build the infrastructure where people meet, make money, enjoy music and recruit,” said Alexander Ritzmann, the lead researcher on the project. “It’s most likely not the guys I’ve highlighted who will commit violent crimes. They’re too smart. They build the narratives and foster the activities of this milieu where violence then appears.”
CEP said it focused on groups that want to overthrow liberal democratic institutions and norms such as freedom of the press, protection of minorities and universal human dignity, and believe that the white race is under siege and needs to be preserved, with violence if necessary. None has been banned, but almost all have been described in German intelligence reports as extremist, CEP said.
On Facebook the groups seem harmless. They avoid blatant violations of platform rules, such as using hate speech or posting swastikas, which is generally illegal in Germany.
By carefully toeing the line of propriety, these key architects of Germany’s far-right use the power of mainstream social media to promote festivals, fashion brands, music labels and mixed martial arts tournaments that can generate millions in sales and connect like-minded thinkers from around the world.
But simply cutting off such groups could have unintended, damaging consequences.
“We don’t want to head down a path where we are telling sites they should remove people based on who they are but not what they do on the site,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
Giving platforms wide latitude to sanction organizations deemed undesirable could give repressive governments leverage to eliminate their critics. “That can have really serious human rights concerns,” he said. “The history of content moderation has shown us that it’s almost always to the disadvantage of marginalized and powerless people.”
German authorities banned the Battle of the Nibelungs event in 2019, on the grounds that it was not actually about sports, but instead was grooming fighters with combat skills for political struggle.
In 2020, as the coronavirus raged, organizers planned to stream the event online — using Instagram, among other places, to promote the webcast. A few weeks before the planned event, however, over a hundred black-clad police in balaclavas broke up a gathering at a motorcycle club in Magdeburg, where fights were being filmed for the broadcast, and hauled off the boxing ring, according to local media reports.
The Battle of the Nibelungs is a “central point of contact” for right-wing extremists, according to German government intelligence reports. The organization has been explicit about its political goals — namely to fight against the “rotting” liberal democratic order — and has drawn adherents from across Europe as well as the United States.
Members of a California white supremacist street fighting club called the Rise Above Movement, and its founder, Robert Rundo, have attended the Nibelungs tournament. In 2018 at least four Rise Above members were arrested on rioting charges for taking their combat training to the streets at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. A number of Battle of Nibelungs alums have landed in prison, including for manslaughter, assault and attacks on migrants.
National Socialism Today, which describes itself as a “magazine by nationalists for nationalists” has praised Battle of the Nibelungs and other groups for fostering a will to fight and motivating “activists to improve their readiness for combat.”
But there are no references to professionalized, anti-government violence on the group’s social media feeds. Instead, it’s positioned as a health-conscious lifestyle brand, which sells branded tea mugs and shoulder bags.
“Exploring nature. Enjoying home!” gushes one Facebook post above a photo of a musclebound guy on a mountaintop wearing Resistend-branded sportswear, one of the Nibelung tournament’s sponsors. All the men in the photos are pumped and white, and they are portrayed enjoying wholesome activities such as long runs and alpine treks.
Elsewhere on Facebook, Thorsten Heise – who has been convicted of incitement to hatred and called “one of the most prominent German neo-Nazis” by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the German state of Thuringia — also maintains multiple pages.
Frank Kraemer, who the German government has described as a “right-wing extremist musician,” uses his Facebook page to direct people to his blog and his Sonnenkreuz online store, which sells white nationalist and coronavirus conspiracy books as well as sports nutrition products and “vaccine rebel” T-shirts for girls.
Battle of the Nibelungs declined to comment. Resistend, Heise and Kraemer didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Facebook told AP it employs 350 people whose primary job is to counter terrorism and organized hate, and that it is investigating the pages and accounts flagged in this reporting.
“We ban organizations and individuals that proclaim a violent mission, or are engaged in violence,” said a company spokesperson, who added that Facebook had banned more than 250 white supremacist organizations, including groups and individuals in Germany. The spokesperson said the company had removed over 6 million pieces of content tied to organized hate globally between April and June and is working to move even faster.
Google said it has no interest in giving visibility to hateful content on YouTube and was looking into the accounts identified in this reporting. The company said it worked with dozens of experts to update its policies on supremacist content in 2019, resulting in a five-fold spike in the number of channels and videos removed.
Twitter says it’s committed to ensuring that public conversation is “safe and healthy” on its platform and that it doesn’t tolerate violent extremist groups. “Threatening or promoting violent extremism is against our rules,” a spokesperson told AP, but did not comment on the specific accounts flagged in this reporting.
Robert Claus, who wrote a book on the extreme right martial arts scene, said that the sports brands in CEP’s data set are “all rooted in the militant far-right neo-Nazi scene in Germany and Europe.” One of the founders of the Battle of the Nibelungs, for example, is part of the violent Hammerskin network and another early supporter, the Russian neo-Nazi Denis Kapustin, also known as Denis Nikitin, has been barred from entering the European Union for ten years, he said.
Banning such groups from Facebook and other major platforms would potentially limit their access to new audiences, but it could also drive them deeper underground, making it more difficult to monitor their activities, he said.
“It’s dangerous because they can recruit people,” he said. “Prohibiting those accounts would interrupt their contact with their audience, but the key figures and their ideology won’t be gone.”
Thorsten Hindrichs, an expert in Germany’s far-right music scene who teaches at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, said there’s a danger that the apparently harmless appearance of Germany’s right-wing music heavyweights on Facebook and Twitter, which they mostly use to promote their brands, could help normalize the image of extremists.
Extreme right concerts in Germany were drawing around 2 million euros ($2.3 million) a year in revenue before the coronavirus pandemic, he estimated, not counting sales of CDs and branded merchandise. He said kicking extremist music groups off Facebook is unlikely to hit sales too hard, as there are other platforms they can turn to, like Telegram and Gab, to reach their followers. “Right-wing extremists aren’t stupid. They will always find ways to promote their stuff,” he said.
None of these groups’ activity on mainstream platforms is obviously illegal, though it may violate Facebook guidelines that bar “dangerous individuals and organizations” that advocate or engage in violence online or offline. Facebook says it doesn’t allow praise or support of Nazism, white supremacy, white nationalism or white separatism and bars people and groups that adhere to such “hate ideologies.”
Last week, Facebook removed almost 150 accounts and pages linked to the German anti-lockdown Querdenken movement, under a new “social harm” policy, which targets groups that spread misinformation or incite violence but didn’t fit into the platform’s existing categories of bad actors.
But how these evolving rules will be applied remains murky and contested.
“If you do something wrong on the platform, it’s easier for a platform to justify an account suspension than to just throw someone out because of their ideology. That would be more difficult with respect to human rights,” said Daniel Holznagel, a Berlin judge who used to work for the German federal government on hate speech issues and also contributed to CEP’s report. “It’s a foundation of our Western society and human rights that our legal regimes do not sanction an idea, an ideology, a thought.”
In the meantime, there’s news from the folks at the Battle of the Nibelungs. “Starting today you can also dress your smallest ones with us,” reads a June post on their Facebook feed. The new line of kids wear includes a shell-pink T-shirt for girls, priced at 13.90 euros ($16). A child pictured wearing the boy version, in black, already has boxing gloves on.
Neo-Nazis are still on Facebook. And they’re making money
https://arab.news/yagnq
Neo-Nazis are still on Facebook. And they’re making money
- By carefully toeing the line of propriety, these key architects of Germany’s far-right use the power of mainstream social media to promote festivals, fashion brands, music labels and mixed martial arts tournaments that can generate millions in sales
- Dozens of far-right groups that continue to leverage mainstream social media for profit, despite Facebook’s and other platforms’ repeated pledges to purge themselves of extremism
Doctors Without Borders rejects Israeli army claim of ‘terror activity’ at site of deadly attack in Gaza
- 2 family members of staff member killed and 7 others injured by Israeli forces in February
- Likely a tank shell ‘fired directly into the building,’ according to a media probe
DUBAI: Israeli forces have been accused of intentionally, and without provocation, attacking a Doctors Without Borders aid shelter housing 64 people in Al-Mawasi, Gaza, on Feb. 20 killing two relatives of a staff member and injuring seven others.
The attack came despite Israeli forces being informed of the precise location of the shelter, Doctors Without Borders, or the MSF, reportedly said. The Israeli army has claimed that there was “terror activity” at the site, which the MSF has rejected.
Sky News revealed the findings of its investigation into the incident on Wednesday, prompting the Israeli Defense Forces to initiate its own “examination” into the incident.
The news organization said it visited the site, and used on-the-ground footage, open-source techniques and interviews with witnesses and weapons experts to understand how the incident unfolded.
Witnesses told Sky News they heard loud noises that seemed to come from a tank track, while some also heard gunshots.
The evidence suggests the attack was initiated by a tank shell that entered through a window. “It’s difficult to draw definitive conclusions merely from imagery however I believe the damage is the result of a tank round being fired directly into the building,” said former British army artillery officer and director of Chiron Resources, Chris Cobb-Smith.
He dispelled any notions about it being an attack by Hamas, saying he was “unaware of any direct fire weapons of this caliber being operated by Hamas” and is “doubtful that anything of this size would have been able to be deployed and fired with the amount of IDF activity in the area.”
Witnesses and MSF members said they also heard gunfire before the building was hit.
Meinie Nicolai, general director of the aid organization, who visited the site soon after the attack, said bullets were fired at the front of the shelter.
The investigation further revealed that on the day of the attack, the Israeli army said on its Telegram channel that its forces were operating in northern, central and southern Gaza Strip and continuing “intensive operations in western Khan Younis,” but it did not mention the immediate area around the shelter.
Moreover, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee published an evacuation map on the same day of two neighborhoods further north in and around Gaza City, which did not cover the area where the shelter is located.
Emergency services arrived at the scene at least two-and-a-half hours after the attack due to security concerns, according to the investigation.
The injured were taken to the International Medical Corps Field hospital in Rafah, said the MSF.
“We are outraged and deeply saddened by these killings,” said Nicolai in February.
“These killings underscore the grim reality that nowhere in Gaza is safe, that promises of safe areas are empty and deconfliction mechanisms unreliable,” she added.
The IDF, which has launched its own investigation, said that it “fired at a building that was identified as a building where terror activity is occurring,” but did not provide any evidence.
The MSF said in a statement on Wednesday it “refutes any allegations of terror activity occurring in MSF-run structures.
“The shelter was used by humanitarian personnel and their family members, identified by an MSF flag, and notified to the Israeli authorities.”
In a statement, the IDF added: “After the incident, reports were received of the death of two uninvolved civilians in the area. The IDF regrets any harm to civilians and does everything in its power to operate in a precise and accurate manner.”
Under international humanitarian law, medical facilities and units must be respected and protected in all circumstances.
Oona Hathaway, an international law professor at Yale Law School, told Sky News that medical facilities are “presumed to be civilian objects and not subject to targeting during armed conflict.”
She added that if the IDF intentionally targets a civilian object, it counts as “potentially a war crime.”
Last week, the IDF launched an operation in and around Al-Shifa, saying senior Hamas operatives were based at the sprawling compound. Days of heavy fighting have followed, with the military reporting about 170 Palestinian militants killed and hundreds more arrested or questioned.
US, UK sanction Gaza Now media channel over Hamas fundraising
- “Treasury remains committed to degrading Hamas’ ability to finance its terrorist activities,” US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Brian Nelson said
- “The UK Government has announced a full asset freeze against two individuals suspected of providing financial support for Gaza Now,” the UK Treasury said
WASHINGTON: US and UK authorities unveiled sanctions Wednesday against two people and three companies related to the popular media channel Gaza Now over its fundraising efforts in support of Hamas.
The Treasury Department said in a statement that Gaza Now, whose popular Telegram channel has more than 1.8 million followers, and its founder Mustafa Ayash, started fundraising for Hamas after its unprecedented attack on October 7.
That attack resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, and the capture of around 250 hostages, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,414 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
“Treasury remains committed to degrading Hamas’ ability to finance its terrorist activities, including through online fundraising campaigns that seek to funnel money directly to the group,” US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement.
The Treasury Department accused the group of “having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Hamas.”
The US also unveiled sanctions against Aozma Sultana, the director of two companies that allegedly gave “thousands of dollars to Gaza Now and advertised Gaza Now as a partner during a joint fundraiser shortly after the October 7 terrorist attack.”
The Treasury Department’s actions are being carried out alongside similar actions by the UK authorities.
“The UK Government has announced a full asset freeze against two individuals suspected of providing financial support for Gaza Now — a news agency that promotes the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups,” the UK Treasury said in a statement.
“All funds and economic resources in the UK belonging to or controlled by Sultana and Ayash have been frozen,” they added.
Australia’s ABC staff raise concerns over alleged Israeli bias in Gaza reporting
- Memo from staff meeting indicated network’s over-reliance on Israeli sources, distrust of Palestinian ones
- In January, staff threatened walkout after Antoinette Lattouf dismissed for sharing social media post critical of Israel
LONDON: Staff at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have voiced concerns about what they perceive as biased coverage of the Gaza conflict in favor of Israel.
In a document obtained by Al Jazeera through a freedom-of-information request, staff indicated “an over-reliance on Israeli sources and explicit distrust of Palestinian sources,” as well as language that “favored the Israeli narrative over objective reporting.”
The three-page summary detailed a November meeting involving 200 staff members who expressed concerns about the broadcaster’s coverage.
The document said: “We’re worried the language we’re using in our coverage is askew, favoring the Israeli narrative over objective reporting.
“This is evident in our reluctance to use words such as war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and occupation to describe various aspects of Israeli practices in Gaza and the West Bank, even when the words are attributed to respectable organizations and sources.”
While ABC acknowledged that it could not make accusations of genocide or war crimes, staff argued that the broadcaster “should be more proactive in reporting them to properly contextualize the conflict,” adding that the correct language to describe Israeli aggression in the region was still lacking.
In response, an ABC spokesperson said: “All major stories are subject to robust internal discussion, and we listen to and respect staff input.”
The spokesperson declined to comment further on internal matters but affirmed that the ABC Ombudsman’s Office had reviewed the coverage of the Gaza conflict and found it to be “professional, wide ranging, and reflective of newsworthy events.”
The latest development followed previous controversies at ABC, including the allegedly unlawful dismissal of Lebanese-Australian journalist Antoinette Lattouf after she shared a report on social media from Human Rights Watch alleging that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.
Staff threatened to stage a walkout unless the organization’s leadership addressed concerns about outside interference.
According to reports, tensions persist at ABC over the Gaza conflict months after the initial staff meeting.
Iraqi minister proposes TikTok ban over societal concerns
- Unclear if banning option has Iraq parliamentary support
- TikTok has strong base in Iraq with nearly 32m users
LONDON: Iraq’s communications minister has formally requested the country’s Cabinet to block Chinese-owned app TikTok over worries about its societal impact.
Hiyam Al-Yasiri’s concerns, expressed during a recent press conference, have sparked a nationwide debate on the issue.
The minister told reporters: “I have submitted the request to the Council of Ministers to block TikTok, and I hope it will be considered soon.”
She highlighted what she described as TikTok’s role in “eroding Iraq’s social fabric” and noted a “lack of educational value in the app,” branding it as “purely entertainment focused.”
While it remained uncertain whether the request would be approved or rejected by the Cabinet or when deliberations would commence, any decision would necessitate action from the Iraqi Parliament or Cabinet as it surpassed the authority of the Ministry of Communications.
Al-Yasiri pointed out the need for cooperation from parliamentarians to support the prohibition of apps such as TikTok.
The popular short-form video app has a significant user base in Iraq. According to figures from Chinese tech company ByteDance’s advertising resources, TikTok had 31.95 million users aged 18 and over in Iraq early this year.
Some of Iraq’s more conservative religious factions have accused the platform of undermining societal norms and raised concerns about its impact on youth.
Al-Yasiri’s ban request came after well-known Iraqi Tiktokers, Hussein and his wife Shahinda, were recently assaulted on their way home from work and shot multiple times. While they survived the attack, Shahinda lost an eye.
However, some people have expressed their concerns about the economic implications of banning the app and its potential impact on freedom of expression.
Any ban would likely damage Iraq’s advertising market, especially for small businesses, as many rely on TikTok influencers and other advertising methods on the platform.
Several other countries are already considering banning the platform. Earlier this month, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would compel TikTok owner ByteDance to divest the social media platform or face a complete ban in America.
Meta oversight board urges company to end ban on Arabic word ‘shaheed’
- Year-long review found Facebook approach was “overbroad,” unnecessarily suppressed speech of millions of users
- The ruling comes after years of criticism of the company’s handling of content involving the Middle East
NEW YORK: Meta’s oversight board on Tuesday called on the company to end its blanket ban on a common usage of the Arabic word “shaheed,” or “martyr” in English, after a year-long review found the Facebook owner’s approach was “overbroad” and had unnecessarily suppressed the speech of millions of users.
The board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, said the social media giant should remove posts containing the word “shaheed” only when they are linked to clear signs of violence or if they separately break other Meta rules.
The ruling comes after years of criticism of the company’s handling of content involving the Middle East, including in a 2021 study Meta itself commissioned that found its approach had an “adverse human rights impact” on Palestinians and other Arabic-speaking users of its services.
Those criticisms have escalated since the onset of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in October. Rights groups have accused Meta of suppressing content supportive of Palestinians on Facebook and Instagram against the backdrop of a war that has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza following Hamas’ deadly raids into Israel on Oct 7.
The Meta Oversight Board reached similar conclusions in its report on Tuesday, finding Meta’s rules on “shaheed” failed to account for the word’s variety of meanings and resulted in the removal of content not aimed at praising violent actions.
“Meta has been operating under the assumption that censorship can and will improve safety, but the evidence suggests that censorship can marginalize whole populations while not improving safety at all,” Oversight Board co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt said in a statement.
Meta currently removes any posts using “shaheed” in referring to people it designates on its list of “dangerous organizations and individuals,” which includes members of Islamist militant groups, drug cartels and white supremacist organizations.
The company says the word constitutes praise for those entities, which it bans, according to the board’s report. Hamas is among the groups the company designates as a “dangerous organization.”
Meta sought the board’s input on the topic last year, after starting a reassessment of the policy in 2020 but failing to reach consensus internally, the board said. It revealed in its request that “shaheed” accounted for more content removals on its platforms on than any other single word or phrase.
A Meta spokesperson said in a statement that the company would review the board’s feedback and respond within 60 days.