2019-04-17

The Evil Rises — Muslims, the New Witches

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Since posting the vicious response of fundamentalist Christian to the Notre Dame Cathedral fire (the Triablogue post below) I have learned that the medieval inquisition is resurfacing in Europe, too.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/this-is-their-world-trade-center-moment-conspiracy-theorists-and-far-right-extremists-are-spreading-bogus-stories-about-the-notre-dame-blaze/

And just about everywhere else, too, where we can expect to find “defenders” against some sort of “Islamic invasion” against Christian societies:

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/04/16/study-notre-dame-burned-anti-muslim-content-thrived-online/223467

Direct from the seventeenth century! Brought to you by Steve of Triablogue

Of course he has “grounds” for suspicion. Five tweets from three authors, each of whom is quickly identifiable as Islamophobic simply by skimming the first pages of their accounts.

Meanwhile, some compassionate sanity from the refreshingly godless Ophelia Benson:

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5 thoughts on “The Evil Rises — Muslims, the New Witches”

Amer says:

2019-04-17 05:40:28 GMT+0000 at 05:40

Yeah but the Contractors could have been Muslim !!! sarc

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Neil Godfrey says:

2019-04-17 08:32:09 GMT+0000 at 08:32

Oh my god, how can this be happening? When we read of this sort of thing in history books we thought it was, well, history…. I have since updated the post with a link to https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/this-is-their-world-trade-center-moment-conspiracy-theorists-and-far-right-extremists-are-spreading-bogus-stories-about-the-notre-dame-blaze/

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1. Neil Godfrey says:
  
  2019-04-17 09:45:33 GMT+0000 at 09:45
  
  And again: https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/04/16/study-notre-dame-burned-anti-muslim-content-thrived-online/223467
  
  Anti-Muslim content surged online as the tragic news broke on Monday of a fire engulfing Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, with far-right figures weaponizing news of the seemingly accidental fire to link it to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and to scapegoat Muslims and Islam. A Media Matters analysis found that anti-Muslim sentiment spiked on 4chan and 8chan on April 15, while the story containing the words “Muslim” or “Islam” that got the most engagements on Facebook was from an anti-Muslim bigot and claimed, “Jihadis reveled in the fire engulfing the Notre Dame Cathedral.”
  
  . . . .
  
  Media Matters also analyzed Spike data for Facebook posts containing the search terms “Muslim” or “Islam,” which showed that the post that earned the most interactions on April 15 came from anti-Muslim bigot Pamela Geller, who linked to a story on her site accusing Muslims of laughing at the sight of Notre Dame burning. (The story was based on a far-right hoax that baselessly claimed people who reacted with laughing emojis to a Facebook livestream of Notre Dame burning were Muslim). The post earned almost 38,000 interactions — well over twice the 16,506 interactions of the next highest search result, a HuffPost story unrelated to the burning cathedral. Geller’s Facebook post overperformed her usual content by 15.71 times, a metric which Spike calculates “by comparing a story or post’s performance to the publisher’s historical average.”
  
  French prosecutors have reportedly ruled out arson as a cause for the tragic fire. This is not the first time news cycle events have triggered waves of bigotry on anonymous message boards: A study by the Anti-Defamation League found that there was a spike in posts containing racist terms on 4chan following President Donald Trump’s election.
  
  Reply
Aragorn says:

2019-04-21 05:51:31 GMT+0000 at 05:51

Muslims have been attacking and desecrating numerous christian Churches and other sacred sites in France over past two years. After Notre Dame attack, numerous Muslims could be seen online reacting to it in glee. Muslim religious leaders released statements praising this fire as an act against Satan’s power(aka the West). The Anti-Muslim content is not unwarranted. Besides, if France investigation department is impartial, what difference do online discussions make?

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1. Neil Godfrey says:
  
  2019-04-24 22:33:10 GMT+0000 at 22:33
  
  I think you need to learn to critically evaluate your sources of information.
  
  Reply

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