X (formerly known as Twitter) has long-standing issues with hate speech on the platform. These issues have intensified since Elon Musk’s takeover in 2022, after which the platform faced renewed criticism about its ability and willingness to moderate hate speech. The Online Hate Prevention Institute has covered a range of these issues, including the apparent inability of X to enforce its own policies on hateful conduct.
While racism is prevalent on X, much of this racism is covert. Users who post racist content develop ways of staying under the radar and avoiding detection. This includes using “dog whistles”; racist jargon that is designed to be understood only by those within the community. Other users ask pointed questions to imply (without explicitly stating) a racist position. Others prefer to cloak their inflammatory and hateful ideas in neutral-sounding lingo, in the hope that the inoffensive presentation of these ideas will help them to stay online.
But, recently, we have observed a number of openly and explicitly white supremacist accounts that seem to make no attempt to hide their racism under a veneer of apparent neutrality. In fact, promoting white supremacy appears to be the point of these accounts, with some of them actually saying as much in their bio. Some of these accounts are also fairly popular, with tens of thousands of followers. Given that these accounts brazenly and explicitly endorse white supremacy, it is disturbing that they can remain on the platform as long as they have. This suggests there is something deeply wrong with the way that X is moderating hate speech.
The following account has nearly 50,000 followers. The bio reads simply “Content Creator. Race First. White Excellence.” Promoting “white excellence” and having a “race first” ideology coheres with the white supremacist perspective according to which the white race is superior to all others.
The pinned post from this account, captured below, has the caption “Imagine a World with Only White People in it”, followed by a fire emoji. The implication is that the world would be better if people of colour did not exist.
The following image, from the same account, shows a video of a woman holding a baby, with the caption: “This is the TRUE beauty of White Women, especially when she is pregnant with a White baby and ProCreating the next White generations to carry on our Pro White Legacies.” The idea that white people have an obligation to procreate in order to further “Pro White Legacies” is another common feature of white supremacist ideologies.
The next account, with over 5000 followers, has a bio that reads: “Love my European Race, cultures & lands! English Lass. Whites Only Forever.” The proceeding post is from the same account, and shows an image of a number of famous white men. The caption reads: “White Men are Gods. Creators of the better life! Best genes, most intelligent! White men have & are everything!”. The idea that white people have superior genetics is textbook white supremacy, and here we see it being openly propagated on X.
The following image is from a group with the description: “A community by and for people who support white heritage and ethnonations in Europe and North America”. An “ethnonation” is a state composed entirely of one race. Establishing an enthnonation for white people is a typical goal of white supremacist movements.
The following two posts are from this group. In the first, a user claims that “racism is natural”, and says that “multi-culturalism and multi-racialism” were “forced on us at gunpoint”. The second user posts a picture of Heinrich Himmler (a leading member of the German Nazi party who was a key figure in planning and implementing the Holocaust) and his daughter, Gudrun Burwitz. The caption claims that Burwitz remained “unrepentant” throughout her life, and supported former members of the Nazi Party that were “unjustly convicted”. The post ends with a hand emoji, and “14/HH”. The 14 here refers to a white supremacist slogan, and the HH refers to “Heil Hitler”. Sympathy with the Nazi party is another common feature of white supremacy.
The next X account has the bio: “14 goals, with one of them being to radicalize you back to decency, just as they radicalized you into degeneracy”. The “14” here refers again to the aforementioned white supremacist slogan. The X user’s reference to “degeneracy” also points to their allignment with Nazi ideology. The Nazis sought to control Germany culturally as well as politically. The Nazi Reich Culture Chamber regulated all aspects of German cultural life and removed Jewish, “foreign”, and “degenerate” influences.
The following image, from the same user, shows a clip from a colourised Adolf Hitler speech, with the caption “The youth is our future. Protect them from the brainwash, and lead them right”. Once again we see open sympathy towards Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.
This final account has the following bio: “If you’re White and not a full-blown patriotic White Nationalist at this stage in the Great Awakening then you’re a faggot. Mass deportation enthusiast.” As well as using homophobic language, this user openly endorses “white nationalism”; a term sometimes used as a euphemism for white supremacy and which has a number of overlapping features. The bio also endorses “mass deportation”, with the implication being that people of colour should be deported from this user’s country.
The first post from this account, featured below, claims that “muslims and blacks” are the biggest threat facing the west. The second post espouses a similar idea, claiming that “Muslims and blacks shouldn’t even live close to Whites, Latinos and Asians”. This is another expression of the white supremacist goal of establishing an ethnostate, expressed plainly by this user on X.
Conclusion
The ongoing presence of openly white supremacist accounts on X is highly disturbing. On the one hand, it speaks to the increased normalisation of dangerous extremist ideas in mainstream discourse. But it also speaks to the incompetence of X’s efforts to moderate hateful content. These accounts feel safe openly endorsing white supremacy, and evidently feel no need to mask their racism in order to remain on the platform. X’s radar for hateful content must be pretty weak if these accounts can avoid detection and remain at large. These accounts therefore serve as a stark illustration of the inadequacy of X’s current methods for policing hateful content. X, therefore, needs to improve its policies and mechanisms for dealing with hateful content to stop the platform from becoming a refuge for openly white supremacist communities.