WEBVTT - Is there any stopping the spread of hate online? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.280 Next Question with Katie Curic is a production of I 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.200 Heart Radio and Katie Couric Media. Hi, everyone, welcome to 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:11.440 Next Question. I'm Katie Couric. About two and a half 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.280 years ago, a white nationalist by the name of James 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:18.119 Fields Jr. Plowed his car into a crowd protesting the 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:26.880 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. This rally, close 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.080 to thirty people were injured. Thirty two year old Heather 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:33.279 Higher was killed. What did what did you think of 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.360 what you saw today here in Charlotte's Ville. I've never 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.160 seen so much hatred in the eyes of my fellow 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.880 human beings in my life. We are in very deep trouble. 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.199 This country is in deep trill. I was there that 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.279 day and since then, at least seventy three murders can 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.640 be tied to the radical right wing extremist movement James 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.560 Fields Jr. Embraced That includes, of course, they hate fuel 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:05.679 shootings in Pittsburgh, Poway, California, and El Paso, Texas. In 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:10.240 many of these cases, the perpetrators adopted the disturbing views 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.720 of a broad Internet savvy movement made up of different 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.200 misogynistic and white nationalist groups. In online forums and on 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:22.679 social media. The suspect in today's mass shooting at the 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.520 Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh had an extensive anti Semitic, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.720 anti Jewish digital footprint. Law enforcement officials in Texas say 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.800 they believe he wrote a roughly six hundred word essay 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.520 on the Internet and posted it an hour or so 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.039 before the shooting that says the attack was motivated by 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:43.240 anti immigrant hatred. Today, that's where hate spreads, not through 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.880 top secret word of mouth meetings, but out in the open, 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.760 on places like four chant and Reddit, and even YouTube 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.960 and Facebook. People who feel lost or left behind, or 0:01:55.360 --> 0:02:00.560 maybe just looking to rebel are radicalized almost exclusively online, 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:05.480 often without ever meeting anyone face to face. The technology 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.840 itself is a big part of the problem. The algorithms 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.680 on sites like YouTube encourage users to stick around by 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.520 serving up ever more extreme examples of whatever topic they're 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.080 engaged with. To be clear, not everyone who spends time 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:24.000 in these virtual spaces will go on to commit horrific acts, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.480 but the marching orders for many of these groups are 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.639 usually pretty explicit. True believers are encouraged to bring people 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.640 with mainstream views so called norm e s, into the fold. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.160 And to ultimately take real world action against the groups 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.280 they believe are threatening their way of life. That means 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.640 people of color, women, lgbt Q individuals, and members of 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:50.080 other marginalized communities, which brings me to my next question, 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.080 how can we stop the spread of radical extremism online 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.840 and keep people from becoming radicalized in the first place. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.920 My first guest knows from experience just how easy it 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.200 can be to get sucked into this world. Three years ago, 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.160 when he was just thirteen years old, he turned to 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.120 the Internet as a way to escape a lonely stressful 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.400 time at school. The community he found there gave him 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.840 some dangerous ideas about who was actually to blame for 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.840 his problems. In a jaw dropping anonymous account for Washingtonian Magazine, 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.400 his mom opened up about forums where her son, who 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:31.400 she calls Sam, spent countless hours and the toll his 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:38.320 newfound beliefs took on the entire family. Sam, I knew 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.520 you were having a pretty tough time emotionally when you 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.800 were thirteen years old. What was going on back then? 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:47.960 I had a kind of traumatic experience in eighth grade, 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.800 and uh, my parents didn't really like how the school 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.440 handled it, so they ended up pulling me out of 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.240 the school, um, which just led to a lot of 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.280 like confusion on my part, and it just made me upset. 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:02.080 You know, I had to find new friends. I had 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.040 to you know, kind of remake my mark on my 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.760 new school. What happened exactly that made you feel this way? 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.120 My friend and I were joking around and some people 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.640 took it out of context and went to the school, 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:16.760 and the school handled it really poorly, said you were 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.880 sexually harassing. Yeah. They said I was sexually harassing these 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.039 two girls, which wasn't the case, and the girls didn't 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.040 even think it was the case. Um, and the school 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.800 kind of they just had their sexual harassment training, so 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:29.720 they were really on edge about that kind of stuff, 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.600 and they handled it pretty poorly. They said that I 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.440 was bullying the girls. And then eventually it just got 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:37.839 to a point where I said, okay, like it's time 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.320 to go. And so you changed schools and you were 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:47.800 feeling pretty isolated, lonely, I guess a little angry. Yeah, 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.039 I was upset with the school. I was upset that 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:51.960 I had to leave. I was, you know, angry that 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.360 you know, my old friends weren't you know, in I 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:57.600 wasn't in as much contact with my old friends as 0:04:57.600 --> 0:04:59.840 I like as I'd like to be. So you turn 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.440 to the internet. What was the process that opened this 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:09.720 door to the people you got involved with at least online. 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.560 One of my friends at my at my new school 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.720 UM decided to show me Reddit, which I had never known, 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.080 so he was showing me some subredits, like there's one 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.080 called r slash dank Memes that he was showing me, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.320 which was just a subredit for like internet jokes and memes. 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.840 Um harmless enough, yeah, harmless enough. Seemingly the memes on there, 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:31.600 I didn't really understand a lot of them. A lot 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.040 of them were talking about right wing politics or um, 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.159 you know, race issues or gender issues, you know, about 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.880 women lying about rape, or about just in general, like 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.680 like gender politics, about gay people, and you know, at first, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:47.800 I had come from a friend group that was pretty liberal, 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.600 so I didn't really understand the memes or get them. 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.960 But I started to look them up. And the more 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.359 and more that I started to see the memes and 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.400 I started to relate to them, the more I wanted 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.240 to be part of that community since I didn't have 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.719 friends to fall back on. So did you get involved 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.960 in these chat rooms. I guess that's a very unequated 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.200 way of describing it. Well, um, I decided to apply 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.000 for a moderator position on our slashdanc memes, and a 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.279 moderator is just someone who controls content that goes on 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:22.200 the subredituh, deletes posts, you know, flags them. So I 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.600 started getting in with the moderator community and a lot 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.600 of the moderators that were there, there's like a group 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.359 chat basically something called discord where you can talk to 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.760 them about everything, talk to them about posts, and a 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:33.760 lot of them were, you know, members of the alt 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.680 right or at least believed in the philosophy. So you know, 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.320 these people were basically my friends for a little bit, 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.599 or at least they convinced me that friends. So what 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.040 kinds of things would they say and what kinds of 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.919 things would you say? They would say like on our 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.080 group chat they would say like these liberal snowflakes can't 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.159 handle the fact that science says they're only two genders 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.080 and just stuff like that. Or they'd say like, you know, 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.320 gay people, you know, aren't they aren't like genetically okay, 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.120 Like it's not okay to be gay, It's not right 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.440 with the Bible. They'd say, you know, immigrants are fighting 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.440 or fighting to get Donald Trump out of office, and 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.400 that you know, immigrants are killing people and immigrants are 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.320 raping people. They would say that black people commit crimes 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.120 at a higher rate than white people. Do. They bring 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.320 up black crime statistics, which are obviously skewed and you know, biased, 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.200 but uh, you know, you want to agree with them, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.840 because if someone's your friend, or at least if someone 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:31.800 says that they're your friend, you want to be like 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:33.680 them and you want to have that friend. You want 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:35.520 to keep that friend. You don't want to be isolated. 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:42.960 What about women? How did misogyny play into their overall conversation. 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:45.400 A lot of the stuff they would say about women 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.800 was about how women would lie about rape and about 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.720 how women would lie about sexual harassment, which spoke to 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:52.480 me on a personal point because of the thing that 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.200 happened at my old school in eighth grade. So that 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.440 was kind of your I don't want to say sweet spot, 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:03.160 but their way into you. Yeah, definitely, it was the 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.360 topic that I had, you know, had to change my 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.480 whole life because of and because of that, I was 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.960 kind of like a claim mold. I could easily be manipulated. 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:17.360 And did you ever challenge initially some of the things 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.000 that were being set there, And did you ever say, 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:24.240 wait a second, that's not true, or that's racist or 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.440 anything like that. I would never audibly fight back because 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.800 I didn't want to lose my position as a moderator 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.200 and I didn't want to alienate myself from the rest 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.640 of them. So if they said something, I disagreed, and 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.840 I just wouldn't say anything back. You have been raised 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.800 in a progressive Jewish Yeah, so you must have thought, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:48.160 g these views do not swear with the values that 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:52.360 have been taught by my parents. I mean, how did 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.920 you kind of wrap your head around that? For me, 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:58.000 I think a lot of it was just resentment from 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.120 my parents, and resentment that made me leave my old 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.240 school and they made me leave my friends, and you know, 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.320 I couldn't see that they were, you know, right in 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.360 the long run. You know, it was just I'm gonna 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.360 be different than you guys. I'm gonna be the black 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:13.319 sheep of the family, you know that kind of the thing. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:15.840 So you're sort of proud that you were being a 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.880 nonconformist in a way. Yeah, it became like a part 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.000 of my identity, that I was different than the rest 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.920 of my family. Did your parents challenge you when you 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:28.600 started sharing these newfound beliefs with them? Definitely, Yeah, there 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.680 was a lot of um. I'd say it became pretty 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.120 tense in our household because I would keep learning new 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:37.960 stuff and then something on the news would come on 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.040 that would say it would be Trump saying they were 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:41.640 fine people on both sides of the charts to about 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.319 and he was said, I would say, you know, he's right, 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.200 you know, not everyone was bad, not everyone was violent, 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.199 and you know, it was basically defending neo Nazis, or 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.240 I would say Jews basically run the world, which my 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.440 parents were horrified by because I was Jewish and I 0:09:56.520 --> 0:10:00.560 was propagating anti Semitism as a teenager and as a Jew. 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:05.319 But to hear this blatant anti semitism as someone who's 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.719 Jewish himself, was there a disconnect there? I mean at 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.720 first there was, but then you bought into it, bought 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.760 into it somehow. Yeah. I became so receptive that kind 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:17.600 of talk that I would basically believe anything that they 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.319 told me. And that was the case with the anti Semitism. 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.559 Who were these people? Did they reveal, say what they 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:25.760 did for a living. A lot of the people were 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.120 minimum wage workers, people who worked in restaurants, people who 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.679 worked in you know, hotels, and some people made money 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.200 off of Reddit. The only time people would talk about 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.080 their actual jobs is saying like, oh, work, it was 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:43.199 so hard today. You know. I think they're upset because 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:45.840 they don't have a great job, they don't have a 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:47.800 great life in general, and they need to blame it 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.120 on other people for their downfalls. So these were a 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.679 lot of aggrieved people. Yeah, definitely. I'd say no one 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.000 was truly happy within the alright community. I think these 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:03.880 people are disgruntled, upset, you know, men who really feel 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.240 like they have the worst. You know, they feel like 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:09.160 they have it the worst. They got the raw end 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:10.800 of the stay they got, the yeah they got, the 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.520 short they got, they pulled a short straw. And then, 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.640 on top of their preexisting anger, all the new things 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:21.200 that they're reading on the internet about immigration, about ethnic people. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:23.599 You know, all of that translates into real anger and 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.760 they internalize it and you know, their wires get crossed 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.040 and they're kind of like a powder keg. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.920 they're already primed and the alright, hatred is what light suffuse. 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:38.880 That's scary, It's terrifying. How much time would you spend online? 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:41.520 It depended on the day. I mean I would normally 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.920 get home from school and then spend about three or 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:48.080 four hours online. So you really did get sort of 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:53.280 sucked into a vortex. That's a lot of time. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.560 I mean it adds up to you know, after a 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.960 couple of weeks, you've spent days online on those subredit's already, 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.560 and that amount of time is already detrimental. How did 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:07.719 what you heard sam impact your your relationships or how 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.400 you acted with friends or at school? It alienated me 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.880 amongst friend groups because again, you know, my school was 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.640 fairly liberal, you know, my new school at least, and 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.880 then all my friends shared those viewpoints. So me saying, 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.560 you know, like immigration is out of control, that would 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:29.560 alienate me amongst my friends, amongst my teachers. Even so, 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:31.880 it would just drive me deeper and deeper and deeper 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.600 into isolation, which in turn led to more Internet time 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.680 because I wanted to talk to people because you you 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.320 were lonely, yeah, I mean, above everything else, lonely. Did 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.680 you feel you were targeted in some ways that once 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:50.200 you showed up in this place that people were enticing 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.600 you to kind of get deeper and deeper into it. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.080 Do you feel like your groom. Yeah, a little bit, honestly. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:00.280 I mean the people there were really, really, really insist 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.840 on their strict set of beliefs, which is immigration is bad, 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.920 women lie about rape. Uh, you know, black people commit 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.079 more crimes, black people are violent, that kind of stuff. There. 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.440 They were so insistent on those beliefs that it felt 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:17.839 like I was being brainwashed. And I liked it because 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.520 it meant that people, you know, I was able to talk. 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:22.679 I was able to tell them my beliefs and tell 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.360 them my take on these issues. I would say like, yeah, 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.400 you know, women do lie about rape because this happened 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.360 to me, and I'm proof that this is the truth. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:33.640 And then they would, you know, they would eat that 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:37.640 shipped up completely. They would love it, you know, just 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.120 to hear that. And so they felt like they had 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.480 a receptive audience. And you definitely they thought that I 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.760 was an adult for a while, which I loved. I 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.640 loved feeling like an adult and feeling like my voice mattered. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.120 Was there a turning point did you say these people 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:57.319 are assholes. Yeah, I mean it was gradual French Sam, Oh, 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.000 don't worry about it. You've heard it before, I'm sure, 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.560 especially on the internet. It was gradual, like I got 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.920 in gradually and kind of got out gradually as well. 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.760 In September two thousand seventeen, a little over a month 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.400 after Charlottesville, Sam convinced his mom to take him to 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.400 the so called Mother of All rallies in d C, 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.600 a gathering of right wing groups ranging from arden Trump 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:27.360 supporters to far right fascists. You'd think that finally meeting 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:32.680 his heroes offline would only reinforce Sam's views, but ironically 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.200 it was those face to face interactions that made him 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:40.680 have second thoughts. So he went and I was like 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:42.600 talking to some of the all right people, and a 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.320 lot of them were insane, like they were crazy people, 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.800 Like one guy had an iron cross on his lapel 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.080 and then had a like an anarchist cookbook and was 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.640 talking about how he was an anarchist but he supported Trump, 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.480 which it doesn't make sense. It's ridiculous, But he kept 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.080 trying to justify it with his own you know, with 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.200 his own reasoning that he made up. And it made 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.880 no sense. That was the first time I finally saw 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.160 that the people of the alt right had no idea 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.920 what the hell they were talking about. And then from 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:15.920 there on that kind of planted the seed in my 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.480 brain that grew, you know, to think like, hey, maybe 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.680 I should, you know, stop doing this. Maybe I should 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.520 focus more on school. Maybe I shouldn't try to isolate 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.400 myself among my friends, you know, maybe I should try 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.720 to make a name for myself. So I eventually got 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:33.200 out just through time. You just stopped going there. I 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.520 just gradually stopped going on the internet, you know. I 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:38.520 went on less and less and less every day until 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.480 it I was not on the hateful sub credits at 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.080 all anymore. I wanted to get Sam's mom's take on 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.960 what it was like watching her son go from a 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.080 carefree kid to an angering member of the growing far right, 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:54.680 so I asked her to join us for the second 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:59.920 part of our conversation. When you first realized that saying 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.080 Am was doing this, what was your reaction, I mean, 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.320 how did you process it? It was a really scary time. 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.040 Sam is someone who we had raised from day one 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.960 to be a very empathetic kid, and everyone had always 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.760 commented on how he seemed like an old soul. Hey, 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.240 even his kindergarten teacher couldn't believe how well he related 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.600 to other people and saw other perspectives. He was the 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.160 kid that every other kid went to in class when 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.520 they were hurt or when they needed a friend. He 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:35.040 was that person. And so to watch this transformation, I mean, 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.200 it was as if he had a total personality transplant. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.960 How did you realize that this was going on. We 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.520 have dinner together every night as a family, and do 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.120 you just have one child. We have a daughter as well, 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:49.760 who's younger than Sam, And and that actually is part 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.160 of the story, because we we had dinner every night 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.320 as a family, and we always talked through the day 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.320 and you know, little little things and big things. And 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:02.680 I noticed that Sam started to talk about really odd issues, 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.960 such as there is no wage gap between men and women. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.359 So he was thirteen years old. We're at the dinner 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.919 table talking about our day, and he's talking about how 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:16.160 the wage gap is a fallacy his words. And our daughter, 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.000 who's younger but it is already a very ardent feminist, 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.560 would argue with him about that. And we'd had such 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.200 a happy, peaceful family and the two of them are 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.560 were in our best friends, and so it would they 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.600 would fight about it, and we were just left scratching 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.480 our heads thinking where did this issue of the wage 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.840 gap fallacy even come from? It was never anything we 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.359 had talked about. So did you ask him where are 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.200 you getting these ideas? Well? Yeah, and he said, well 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.520 I read about it online and he wanted to talk 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.800 about it, and he felt like he was educating us. 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.719 He was really excited to be discovering all this new information, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.359 and I think because we had always been the people 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.399 to tell him things, he was thrilled now to have 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:01.720 new in for nation that we didn't have and to 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.000 be able to tell it to us. So, I mean, 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:05.960 it was the wage gap, it was stuff about the 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.000 Second Amendment. It was a ton of stuff about you know, 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:15.200 women lying about rape, and it was very jarring because 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.480 it was nothing we had ever been led to expect 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.960 that our kid would um parent. Do you think that 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:29.160 the people online saw an opening in because of Sam's 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.679 personal experience at his other school. Well, what what I 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.399 read about when I started finally looking into it and 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.760 seeing what a problem we really had is that, you know, 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:44.639 the people in these white supremacist communities prey on depressed, vulnerable, 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.679 isolated kids, and they knew what to look for um, 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.439 and they saw that in him. And we saw he 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.359 was lonely. He didn't say he was lonely, but we 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.199 saw he had no friends. We just figured it's going 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.840 to take time, you know. And when he complained about 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:01.639 the kids at his new school, we said, it's going 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:03.679 to take time, like over and over, because that's what 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.320 you say as a parent. It's going to be okay. 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:08.640 But that's not what the people online were telling him. 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:10.920 What were they say They were reacting in a much 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.520 more immediate way, saying, the people in your new school 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.879 don't have your back for whatever reason. That was what 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.400 they were implying. And they were also implying, we are 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.760 the ones who have your back, and we're your real friends. 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.520 And and that resonated with him. And they knew that 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.560 three or four hours a day he was online. It 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.399 was actually I heard him say that too. It was 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.480 more than that. It was more than that because he 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:38.879 came home. You were online when you came home, and 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.040 then you went back online after dinner anything. That's what 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:45.840 I remember, because it was do you have an exact 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.320 time frame? I don't have an exact time frame, but 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.679 I do remember that when you became a moderator, you 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.040 had a quota that you had to fill, and that 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.600 was one of the things that actually added to your 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.600 stress at that time. Becau as as a moderator, you 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.760 have to spend a certain amount of time online. It's 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:06.960 not about time. It's more like you have a certain 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.400 amount of posts you have to approve a day. Um 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.119 so it would be I would have to approve like 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.720 a hundred posts a day or remove. So there's moderator actions, 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.280 and an action is removing or approving a post. You 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.600 sound like you're an amazing mom. So could you not 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:28.959 have said, I'm sorry, you can't be online like this, 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.639 you can't be talking to these people. I mean, I 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.800 didn't understand at the time what was going on. I 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.000 mean when when he told me he was a moderator, 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:42.320 he was so excited and proud and proud, and things 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.800 had been so rocky for such a long time that 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.879 seeing him happy again made me happy. And I didn't 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.000 realize what this sub bread it was about. I hadn't 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.959 gone on it myself. Um, I thought it was just 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:00.720 about funny memes. In retrospect, there was so much that 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:04.480 I did that was wrong. When did you discover the 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:09.040 kind of hateful, horrible things that were being discussed. So 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.520 it started with the whole wage gap as a fallacy business, 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.840 and then it moved on to the Second Amendment. And 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.720 then when he started talking about women lying about rape, 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:23.520 obviously that was incredibly alarming. When he started parenting Jews 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:28.280 run all the financial networks in the world, that really 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.360 helped us see how far gone he was. I mean, 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.520 it's it's one thing to set out on his own 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.360 like political journey. And we did for a while think, well, 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.720 maybe he's just maybe he just has a conservative mindset, 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.440 like that's not a crime. He's not like us. But 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:48.600 that's okay. You know, there's merit to both sides. Maybe 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:52.960 he's sort of like an Alex P. Keaton conservative. That 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.440 was like my frame of reference, the Alex P. Keaton 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:00.240 of our family. Um. And but when he started, you know, 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.240 parroting anti Semitic statements, I realized it was it was 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:05.760 way more than that. And so that was when we 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.800 started taking things a lot more seriously and engaging on 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:14.800 a more serious level. I can't believe you went to 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.600 this mother of all rallies. It took a lot of convincing. 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.720 I mean, what did you think when you I got 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:28.520 there and you saw these people, these very fine people. 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.280 I was there for one reason and one reason alone, 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:36.359 and that was to try to show Sam, by actually 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.760 being there, that I I would be his partner in 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:44.080 this um not in in believing these beliefs, but in 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:48.440 having these discussions. And he saw for himself. I mean, 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.520 that was what was so amazing about this whole experience 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.359 is that he did see, by being there himself, that 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.200 that these people don't have a leg to stand on. 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:01.520 I always tried to get through to him that if 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:03.480 you're going to have an opinion, you need to meet 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:05.320 the people, You need to talk to the people, you 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:07.920 need to see things with your own eyes. And that's 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:10.760 what this was. He saw it with his own eyes, 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.679 and his mind was changed. You're lucky because I imagine 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:18.159 that there are a lot of young people who do 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:26.000 not have the wherewithal to reject this philosophy and to 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:32.080 basically see that it's wrong. I mean, do you ever 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:35.879 think about what would have happened if if Sam hadn't 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:38.600 had this epiphany. A lot of people wrote in both 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:41.640 to the WASHINGTONY and also on Twitter, and a lot 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:46.040 of the conversations were from parents whose kids had gone 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:49.800 all the way in terms of the white supremacy movement 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:54.800 and didn't come back and they were estranged and and 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:57.960 I saw that over and over again after my article 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:00.760 was published, and I just felt again how lucky we 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:03.080 were that it worked out the way it did. And 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:04.760 I think some of that has to do with the 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:08.040 fact that um Sam was so young when it all happened. 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:10.480 He didn't, for example, he couldn't like go out and 0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:13.480 get his own apartment, you know, he was under our roof, 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:16.439 and I think that helped bring him back into the fold. 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.200 I think that I couldn't go to events myself also right, 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:25.280 And also you had a mom who was learning but 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:28.720 also presenting a counterpoint. Definitely. I think a lot of 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:31.359 the parents that have kids like that, you know, immediately 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:33.800 go the your insane route like you did at first, 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:37.560 and never change that route. But they don't realize that 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:39.480 if you tell a kid no, they're just gonna want 0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:42.240 something more, I mean, more than anything else. I think 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:43.960 that's the case with a lot of things. What do 0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:46.679 you think should be done about this? If I already 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:48.600 given advice to a kid that was going through something 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:51.240 like this, I would say that no one ever tells 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:53.560 you something to be your friend, and that they only 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:55.760 or at least a lot of the times it's not 0:24:55.840 --> 0:24:58.560 the case, and that when you read something in the news, 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:03.040 there's a definitive yes, and you need to source your information. 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:05.399 You need to find out where it's coming from. The 0:25:05.440 --> 0:25:07.879 thing that I do now is I'll read something from 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:10.640 a conservative news site, and I'll read something from a 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:13.280 very liberal news site, and I'll compare facts and I'll 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:15.720 compile the information that has shared in both of those 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:17.679 and to me, that is the full story. That's a 0:25:17.720 --> 0:25:19.960 lot of work, isn't it. I feel like it's worth 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:22.560 it in the long run. I mean, even if it 0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:24.520 takes time, it's a good thing to find out the 0:25:24.640 --> 0:25:29.119 entire story. How scary is it to think that people 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:35.040 are being radicalized online and then they are going out 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:39.800 and in some cases, as we've seen, killing scores of 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:46.520 people as a result of this indoctrination. It's really scary 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:49.080 for me because, you know, over everything else, I could 0:25:49.119 --> 0:25:50.720 have been one of those people if I had gone 0:25:50.720 --> 0:25:53.679 down the path, if I had gone down further, you know, 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:57.920 anyone has the capability to be radicalized fully, and I'm 0:25:57.920 --> 0:25:59.840 no exception of that. No one's an exception of that. 0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:05.760 Sam's story was shocking. After all, If a kid from 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:09.200 a stable home and a progressive Jewish family at that 0:26:09.600 --> 0:26:14.640 could find himself identifying with white nationalists, what exactly does 0:26:14.680 --> 0:26:17.440 that say about the power of this movement to draw 0:26:17.600 --> 0:26:23.360 people in. Up next, an expert explains how widespread far 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:41.359 right online radicalization has become. I'm here with Keegan Hankus 0:26:41.359 --> 0:26:45.560 of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. Keegan and 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:50.520 his team closely monitor right wing extremists online. Again, I 0:26:50.600 --> 0:26:53.280 know that you keep a close eye on these communities 0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:56.720 and what's going on in these circles. So how and 0:26:56.800 --> 0:27:00.639 where exactly are these people congregating online and what is 0:27:00.640 --> 0:27:05.240 it about these spaces that makes them so appealing to them? Well, 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:08.560 the modern hate movement is really marked by a lot 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:11.439 of internet and online activity at this point. So we 0:27:11.520 --> 0:27:13.880 see a lot of these communities cropping up across all 0:27:13.920 --> 0:27:17.200 of the same major social media platforms that all of 0:27:17.200 --> 0:27:19.720 those us in our everyday lives, but we also see 0:27:19.760 --> 0:27:24.520 them trailing off into more disparate and more underground online 0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:27.520 spaces as well, especially as more pressure has been put 0:27:27.520 --> 0:27:30.480 on them in recent years. I know a huge part 0:27:30.520 --> 0:27:33.959 of the appeal I understand is the use of humor 0:27:34.040 --> 0:27:37.520 and irony and memes. How does that play into this? 0:27:38.280 --> 0:27:42.960 That's exactly right. Humor, irony, memes, other forms of visual propaganda, 0:27:43.240 --> 0:27:46.879 video and audio propaganda tremendously important. There's a whole cottage 0:27:46.920 --> 0:27:49.720 industry in the racist movement around this. I think a 0:27:49.760 --> 0:27:52.399 lot of this has to do with this culture that 0:27:52.440 --> 0:27:55.640 they're building for themselves. There's a very intentional project going 0:27:55.680 --> 0:27:58.840 on across these movements to build content that's going to 0:27:58.920 --> 0:28:01.879 keep people engaged, is going to keep pushing people towards 0:28:02.000 --> 0:28:06.439 more extreme beliefs. And they also then claim, you know, 0:28:06.560 --> 0:28:09.919 plausible deniability and say, oh, we were just kidding around, 0:28:10.000 --> 0:28:13.480 we thought this was funny. If they get busted, yeah, 0:28:13.560 --> 0:28:16.720 you frequently see people say, oh, I was just being 0:28:16.800 --> 0:28:19.760 quote edgy, or this was just humor that was taken 0:28:19.760 --> 0:28:22.159 out of context. I think what's notable is that a 0:28:22.200 --> 0:28:25.840 lot of these communities are built around these uh this activity. 0:28:25.960 --> 0:28:27.920 So if you think about a platform like h Chan, 0:28:28.520 --> 0:28:30.760 which we've seen a number of manifesto show up on 0:28:30.880 --> 0:28:34.680 in the last year or so. Um these communities, it's 0:28:34.680 --> 0:28:37.320 more common to see death threats and in a joking 0:28:37.359 --> 0:28:39.840 and almost presented as an ironic manner, than it is 0:28:39.880 --> 0:28:44.000 to not see them. I spoke with Keegan in September, 0:28:44.120 --> 0:28:48.240 about six weeks after the El Paso shooting. Following El 0:28:48.320 --> 0:28:52.080 Paso and christ Church and pow Way, there was talk 0:28:52.120 --> 0:28:55.360 of shutting down eight chan, the site where all three 0:28:55.360 --> 0:29:00.400 shooters posted violently racist manifestos. Ah Chan went dark for 0:29:00.480 --> 0:29:03.080 several months as it struggled to find a company willing 0:29:03.120 --> 0:29:06.280 to host it, but re emerged on the so called 0:29:06.520 --> 0:29:11.920 clearnet in November as the rebranded eight coon. Keegan told 0:29:12.000 --> 0:29:15.480 me more about how the site works h chan. I 0:29:15.480 --> 0:29:18.280 would first describe it as probably one of the darkest 0:29:18.520 --> 0:29:21.240 and grimmest places on the Internet, particularly some of the 0:29:21.280 --> 0:29:25.520 boards that are dedicated to politics and more specifically to extremism. 0:29:26.080 --> 0:29:28.600 It's an image board that has some text in it, 0:29:28.640 --> 0:29:31.960 and this is content that's basically organized in threads and 0:29:32.120 --> 0:29:35.520 is almost always dedicated to some form of extremism. There 0:29:35.520 --> 0:29:38.200 are participants from all across the world, especially in the 0:29:38.240 --> 0:29:41.400 last year, so what we've seen is basically cheerleading on 0:29:41.400 --> 0:29:45.000 this site around massive violence. What's the difference between eight 0:29:45.120 --> 0:29:48.000 chan and four chan? They're very very similar. H chan 0:29:48.120 --> 0:29:51.800 it was designed to be an even more extreme version 0:29:51.960 --> 0:29:54.680 of four chan. It's four Chan with even fewer rules 0:29:54.720 --> 0:29:59.520 around moderation. Almost no content at its inception was taken 0:29:59.560 --> 0:30:01.800 off of h N. We've seen that change a little bit, 0:30:01.880 --> 0:30:03.680 especially as there's been a lot of attention put on 0:30:03.720 --> 0:30:05.560 the site for the number of manifestoes that have been 0:30:05.600 --> 0:30:09.440 posted there. But it is very uncommon for content to 0:30:09.480 --> 0:30:12.280 be taken down no matter how extreme. Do you worry 0:30:12.320 --> 0:30:16.600 about shutting down these sites that they'll go further underground 0:30:17.320 --> 0:30:23.640 and be harder to monitor by law enforcement and other authorities. Well, 0:30:23.680 --> 0:30:26.040 the first thing I would point out is that sites 0:30:26.080 --> 0:30:28.880 like h N are already incredibly difficult for law enforcement 0:30:28.880 --> 0:30:32.960 to monitor. The posters are almost always anonymous. It requires 0:30:33.400 --> 0:30:37.080 a heavy investigative lift to go and unravel some of 0:30:37.080 --> 0:30:40.360 these threads as they're happening. Um, so it's already a 0:30:40.360 --> 0:30:43.440 really big problem. The bigger issue with the site like 0:30:43.680 --> 0:30:46.160 HN being online is that it's well known and it's 0:30:46.280 --> 0:30:49.120 very notorious, and that people know to go there to 0:30:49.160 --> 0:30:52.120 look for this type of content. It has a wide audience, 0:30:52.680 --> 0:30:55.000 so whenever I get asked about, you know, the danger 0:30:55.040 --> 0:30:58.720 of driving this content further underground, I actually propose an 0:30:58.760 --> 0:31:01.960 idea more akin to containment. Right, we should be striving 0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:04.600 to make this content as hard to find as possible, 0:31:04.640 --> 0:31:07.640 because you are then limiting the potential pool of people 0:31:07.640 --> 0:31:10.360 who may be susceptible to its messaging. So you'd be 0:31:10.440 --> 0:31:13.440 okay to have it go into sort of the darkest 0:31:13.520 --> 0:31:16.480 corner of the dark web. Absolutely. It also makes it 0:31:16.520 --> 0:31:18.840 easier for researchers like myself and my colleagues of the 0:31:19.000 --> 0:31:22.840 SPLC to track these communities. We follow these extremes wherever 0:31:22.880 --> 0:31:25.480 they go, and there's this interesting tension in the hate 0:31:25.520 --> 0:31:29.280 movement where they can never go entirely underground. So if 0:31:29.280 --> 0:31:32.120 your entire project is based around the idea that doing 0:31:32.160 --> 0:31:35.720 nothing or not bringing more followers into your movement means 0:31:35.760 --> 0:31:37.720 extinction for white people, which is what many of these 0:31:37.720 --> 0:31:41.800 individuals believe, then you necessarily have to have some entry 0:31:41.800 --> 0:31:44.560 points into it. Well, that brings me to the next question, 0:31:44.720 --> 0:31:48.120 how do they convert people and how easy is it 0:31:48.200 --> 0:31:52.760 for them to have access to vulnerable targets. Well, it 0:31:52.800 --> 0:31:56.280 has become disturbingly more easy to find vulnerable targets. With 0:31:56.320 --> 0:31:58.880 the rise of social media, in particular in the last 0:31:59.440 --> 0:32:01.680 decade or so, as we've seen a lot of these 0:32:01.680 --> 0:32:05.280 tech companies really drag their feet, uh to enact meaningful 0:32:05.320 --> 0:32:09.480 policies and to enforce them against hate and extremism. One 0:32:09.520 --> 0:32:11.920 of the things that they commonly do is go to 0:32:12.800 --> 0:32:15.600 online spaces, whether it be on social media or certain 0:32:15.800 --> 0:32:18.080 you know, right leaning news sites, where they know that 0:32:18.120 --> 0:32:21.160 there are people who are near their ideological beliefs but 0:32:21.240 --> 0:32:24.240 still part of the mainstream, and they will start using 0:32:24.360 --> 0:32:27.040 very targeted propaganda to try to push them further and 0:32:27.080 --> 0:32:30.120 further to the right. They call this red Heilene. Is 0:32:30.160 --> 0:32:33.880 that right? Yeah, So that's common vernacular on a lot 0:32:33.920 --> 0:32:35.640 of these sites and in a lot of these communities 0:32:35.680 --> 0:32:38.840 for uh, you know, bringing someone into this set of 0:32:38.840 --> 0:32:42.200 extremist beliefs. You know, it's it's reminiscent of the matrix 0:32:42.240 --> 0:32:44.080 of course, right where you take this red pill and 0:32:44.120 --> 0:32:46.840 suddenly you see reality for what it is. Do potential 0:32:46.920 --> 0:32:55.320 recruits share anything in terms of demographics, geographics, socio economic backgrounds. 0:32:55.520 --> 0:32:57.920 It's a really difficult question, and the reason for that 0:32:58.040 --> 0:33:00.560 is it's really difficult to know just how many people 0:33:00.560 --> 0:33:03.239 have been exposed to these beliefs. What we see, at 0:33:03.320 --> 0:33:06.200 least from monitoring the extremist groups themselves and their leaders, 0:33:06.240 --> 0:33:09.800 is a really concerted effort to recruit young white men 0:33:09.840 --> 0:33:13.000 into these movements. Uh. And there's a couple of mechanisms 0:33:13.000 --> 0:33:15.800 that they used to do that. So one of those 0:33:15.880 --> 0:33:19.480 is that they play up this narrative of basically declining 0:33:19.520 --> 0:33:21.840 prospects for young white men. You know, they make a 0:33:21.960 --> 0:33:24.560 narrative about you know, what's being taken from them, are 0:33:24.600 --> 0:33:27.440 deprived for them, and they ascribe that to you know, 0:33:27.520 --> 0:33:31.280 a target community, say it's this group's fault that you 0:33:31.280 --> 0:33:33.360 did not get what you were expected, or this is 0:33:33.400 --> 0:33:35.240 the group that took what you thought you were owned, 0:33:35.480 --> 0:33:39.360 and sort of grievance politics. Right, that's absolutely right. Do 0:33:39.400 --> 0:33:42.720 you think the number of people who are gravitating towards 0:33:43.040 --> 0:33:47.360 these groups has exploded? What role do you think external 0:33:47.400 --> 0:33:51.560 factors are playing into this? I e. Political rhetoric that 0:33:51.640 --> 0:33:56.200 we hear, the immigration debate, the whole focus on diversity 0:33:56.240 --> 0:34:00.280 and inclusion in kind of all aspects of society, and 0:34:00.920 --> 0:34:04.240 by the way, changing demographics. So it's interesting you actually 0:34:04.240 --> 0:34:07.160 just named the three largest drivers that we point to 0:34:07.240 --> 0:34:10.200 when we explain that we listed the largest number of 0:34:10.200 --> 0:34:12.320 hate groups that we've ever counted last year. You know, 0:34:12.360 --> 0:34:14.240 there were a thousand and twenty of them in the country. 0:34:14.360 --> 0:34:17.400 And in that number, we saw fifty rise in the 0:34:17.480 --> 0:34:20.480 number of white nationalist groups. And when you're explaining or 0:34:20.520 --> 0:34:22.800 when we are explaining how that happened, those are a 0:34:22.840 --> 0:34:25.600 lot of the factors we point to. Demographic change is 0:34:25.640 --> 0:34:28.480 absolutely the biggest driver of these groups and what is 0:34:28.520 --> 0:34:32.000 giving them so much energy this tremendous anxiety about the 0:34:32.040 --> 0:34:34.640 idea that you know, whites will no longer be an 0:34:34.640 --> 0:34:38.120 absolute majority in this country. This rhetoric has been very 0:34:38.160 --> 0:34:41.880 effective in driving people these movements, and it has coupled 0:34:41.960 --> 0:34:45.160 really dangerously with a lot of the toxic political rhetoric 0:34:45.200 --> 0:34:47.759 that we've seen from the halls of power, particularly the 0:34:47.760 --> 0:34:50.400 White House in recent years. A lot of this anxiety 0:34:50.400 --> 0:34:53.279 about immigration, for instances showing up in the manifestos of 0:34:53.320 --> 0:34:57.160 mass shooters. Uh. And it is almost indistinguishable from some 0:34:57.200 --> 0:34:59.440 of the statements we see from politicians when it comes 0:34:59.440 --> 0:35:01.640 to the pres it in do you think that he 0:35:01.800 --> 0:35:07.280 has made or sent implicit or explicit messages to these 0:35:07.640 --> 0:35:11.560 very groups by saying things like they're very fine people 0:35:11.600 --> 0:35:16.640 on both sides, or just failing to criticize and come 0:35:16.719 --> 0:35:19.279 out and say this is wrong. Well, he's done both. 0:35:19.280 --> 0:35:21.839 I mean it's been explicit and implicit, and this is 0:35:21.880 --> 0:35:24.799 obviously not lost on these communities. I mean they see 0:35:25.160 --> 0:35:27.840 the president's language, whether they agree with him on every 0:35:27.840 --> 0:35:31.239 issue or not, as the ultimate validation of their worldview. 0:35:31.560 --> 0:35:33.839 What can be done about this, Well, there's a number 0:35:33.840 --> 0:35:35.880 of things. I mean the first, at a high level, 0:35:35.960 --> 0:35:38.360 especially when we're talking about this issue of radicalization and 0:35:38.480 --> 0:35:41.440 online spaces, you know, we need to demand more of 0:35:41.480 --> 0:35:44.440 the technology companies that play such a large role in 0:35:44.440 --> 0:35:49.280 our lives. For instance, we should have meaningful policies banning 0:35:49.320 --> 0:35:53.280 all of this content on every major social media platform, 0:35:53.320 --> 0:35:56.320 and not only that, we expect them to enforce this stuff. 0:35:56.520 --> 0:35:58.680 That is an easy first step, you know. One of 0:35:58.719 --> 0:36:00.560 the other things that speaks to the drivers that you 0:36:00.600 --> 0:36:03.400 brought up earlier, because you know, we as citizens and 0:36:03.440 --> 0:36:07.640 voters need to be making forceful demands that politicians speak 0:36:07.680 --> 0:36:11.040 out against hate and extremism, and also candidates should be 0:36:11.120 --> 0:36:14.520 including these planks in their platforms. And the other piece 0:36:14.560 --> 0:36:16.200 of this is, you know, we need to find ways 0:36:16.200 --> 0:36:18.680 of a civil society level to break down these feelings 0:36:18.680 --> 0:36:22.200 of social isolation and really do more to counter what 0:36:22.360 --> 0:36:26.120 the racist hate groups have been so good at perpetuating, 0:36:26.120 --> 0:36:29.959 which is this narrative that you know, demographic change and 0:36:30.040 --> 0:36:33.120 diversity in this country and multiculturalism is somehow a threat 0:36:33.160 --> 0:36:36.960 to white people. What about the free speech argument? I 0:36:36.960 --> 0:36:41.799 know you mentioned social media and basically stopping this on 0:36:41.840 --> 0:36:46.759 all platforms. You often hear the free speech argument and 0:36:46.880 --> 0:36:49.680 this being a slippery slope, and I'm curious what your 0:36:49.719 --> 0:36:52.200 reaction would be to that. Well, whenever I have the 0:36:52.200 --> 0:36:54.080 free speech argument presented to me, I bring up a 0:36:54.080 --> 0:36:56.880 couple of different points. You know, there's no one stopping 0:36:57.280 --> 0:36:59.560 these individuals from going out on a street corner and 0:36:59.640 --> 0:37:03.080 yelling racist slogans or trying to convince random passer bys 0:37:03.200 --> 0:37:06.359 of their racism and you know, the truth in their 0:37:06.360 --> 0:37:09.440 worldview as they would see it. However, the difference when 0:37:09.440 --> 0:37:11.160 it comes to the social media companies, as these are 0:37:11.200 --> 0:37:16.080 megaphones that are directed in every direction. Right, this is 0:37:16.120 --> 0:37:19.239 just tremendous amplification for these ideas, and members of hate 0:37:19.280 --> 0:37:21.480 groups and their leaders have proven that they're very good 0:37:21.480 --> 0:37:25.480 at manipulating them. These companies have every right as private 0:37:25.520 --> 0:37:30.759 institutions to set codes of conduct and acceptable use policies 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:35.200 against these ideas, and I would argue that many of them, 0:37:35.239 --> 0:37:37.719 if not all of them, have a moral responsibility to 0:37:37.760 --> 0:37:40.399 do so, given the consequences that we've watched play out 0:37:40.480 --> 0:37:43.000 so many times. I would remind all of your listeners 0:37:43.000 --> 0:37:44.840 that you know, what happened in christ Church, New Zealand 0:37:44.880 --> 0:37:48.239 earlier this year is an absolute atrocity, and it's incredibly 0:37:48.280 --> 0:37:53.359 disheartening and was powered by Facebook's live broadcasting mechanisms. The 0:37:53.400 --> 0:37:55.400 fact that that was even allowed to happen and the 0:37:55.640 --> 0:37:59.280 devastating impact that we watched it have across the world, 0:37:59.800 --> 0:38:02.160 UH is a problem in and of itself. So there's 0:38:02.160 --> 0:38:03.640 a lot of work to be done. You know. One 0:38:03.680 --> 0:38:05.520 of the things that we would expect from these companies, 0:38:05.680 --> 0:38:08.920 and these are two concrete suggestions, is you know, we 0:38:08.960 --> 0:38:11.480 want them to be much more transparent about the activity 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:14.880 of extremists on their platforms, and especially making that data 0:38:14.920 --> 0:38:18.279 available to outside academics and researchers who study this so 0:38:18.280 --> 0:38:20.880 that they can try to find new ways to combat it. 0:38:21.640 --> 0:38:24.440 The other is, and this especially speaks to for instance, 0:38:24.480 --> 0:38:27.280 Facebook Live and the role it played in New Zealand. Um, 0:38:27.320 --> 0:38:30.000 whenever they're rolling out products, we should be testing them 0:38:30.000 --> 0:38:33.359 against civil rights concerns as opposed to just solely looking 0:38:33.360 --> 0:38:34.840 at how much money we can make from them in 0:38:34.840 --> 0:38:38.719 the consequences of not rolling them out quickly. You are 0:38:38.920 --> 0:38:43.960 offering some great suggestions, But when you really think about it, 0:38:44.920 --> 0:38:49.520 do you think, Hgan, that this can be controlled or 0:38:49.719 --> 0:38:52.640 is it just too hard to get a handle on this. 0:38:53.280 --> 0:38:55.880 I think it's too important and the consequences are too 0:38:55.960 --> 0:38:59.279 devastating not to try. And I think there's some obvious 0:38:59.800 --> 0:39:02.520 in easy steps for us to begin taking to go 0:39:02.600 --> 0:39:06.400 down this path. Um. Whether we ultimately succeed, we'll have 0:39:06.480 --> 0:39:10.120 to see. Um. But I just can't accept that the 0:39:10.600 --> 0:39:13.200 normal and regular pace of life is now going to 0:39:13.239 --> 0:39:15.480 be that we're going to see these violent actions taking 0:39:15.480 --> 0:39:17.960 place over and over again in our society. It's I mean, 0:39:18.000 --> 0:39:21.480 it's just devastating to watch and for you, just unacceptable, 0:39:21.640 --> 0:39:27.759 absolutely unacceptable, well should be for everyone. Up next, we'll 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:31.719 hear from someone who understands exactly what it takes to 0:39:32.000 --> 0:39:37.240 leave extremism behind, an ex neo Nazi who was able 0:39:37.280 --> 0:39:45.920 to turn her life around Angela Hi. It's Katie Curic. 0:39:45.960 --> 0:39:49.719 How are you, I'm well, thank you? How are you today? 0:39:49.760 --> 0:39:52.600 I'm good. Thing. We've talked a lot about how online 0:39:52.680 --> 0:39:56.799 radicalization works, but experts in this field also talk a 0:39:56.840 --> 0:39:59.919 lot about what it takes to do you radicalize someone. 0:40:00.680 --> 0:40:04.120 Angela King, a former neo Nazi, has devoted her life 0:40:04.360 --> 0:40:08.920 to doing just that. Her organization Life After Hate, helps 0:40:08.960 --> 0:40:15.040 people disavow far right extremism. Do you believe the radicalization 0:40:15.120 --> 0:40:19.200 process today is fundamentally different than it was when you 0:40:19.239 --> 0:40:26.520 were younger? Fundamentally no, just more streamlined, and individuals have 0:40:26.719 --> 0:40:31.160 the ability to now become radicalized completely online rather than 0:40:31.200 --> 0:40:35.799 in face to face meetings. How did your radicalization happen? Well? 0:40:36.760 --> 0:40:42.040 I was raised in South Florida in a household that 0:40:43.080 --> 0:40:45.400 there's no easy way to say it. I was taught 0:40:45.520 --> 0:40:49.480 racism and homophobia from as early as I can remember, 0:40:49.640 --> 0:40:53.800 from my parents and my family, and by the time 0:40:53.880 --> 0:40:58.719 I was an adolescent, I was angry. I had been bullied. 0:40:59.280 --> 0:41:04.800 I was very vulnerable, and when I ran into other 0:41:05.360 --> 0:41:08.560 UH kids my age who were already involved in the 0:41:08.640 --> 0:41:11.440 violence far right, it wasn't a great weak for me 0:41:11.560 --> 0:41:17.759 to become involved. I happen to have ingredients in my 0:41:17.840 --> 0:41:23.520 life and experiences that led to a very negative recipe. 0:41:23.640 --> 0:41:28.440 Let's call it so. You know, I had familial racism 0:41:28.480 --> 0:41:33.440 and homophobia that certainly socialized me in a way to 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:36.200 think that I was better than others and that that 0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:40.319 kind of behavior and thinking was acceptable. But I was 0:41:40.360 --> 0:41:45.920 also vulnerable. I went through um in acute identity crisis 0:41:46.000 --> 0:41:49.400 at a very young age because of what I was 0:41:49.440 --> 0:41:53.600 exposed to at home and some experiences. I was bullied 0:41:53.920 --> 0:41:59.640 both verbally and physically, and I buckled under that pressure. 0:42:00.120 --> 0:42:05.320 You know, I I honestly felt that my pain emotionally 0:42:05.400 --> 0:42:09.640 and mentally was so intense I could not hold it 0:42:09.760 --> 0:42:13.080 on my own. And it's only in retrospect that I'm 0:42:13.120 --> 0:42:18.160 able to see that as this vulnerable young person that 0:42:18.320 --> 0:42:21.560 was struggling and in so much pain, I tried to 0:42:22.200 --> 0:42:28.440 literally beat my pain into other people. That's really difficult 0:42:29.160 --> 0:42:32.759 to come to terms with. But it's even more difficult 0:42:32.840 --> 0:42:36.359 to see the very same things happening to an even 0:42:36.440 --> 0:42:39.319 larger scale to our young people today. There's a lot 0:42:39.360 --> 0:42:43.560 of fear, and I feel like anger has its roots 0:42:43.600 --> 0:42:46.799 and fear one of the big factors that I think 0:42:46.880 --> 0:42:52.239 is contributing to an increase in and extremism and far 0:42:52.360 --> 0:42:58.880 right extremism in particular, is changing demographics. It will be 0:42:58.960 --> 0:43:05.480 a majority minority population. Absolutely. Communities or groups who are 0:43:05.680 --> 0:43:10.120 used to being in positions of power and affluence are 0:43:10.360 --> 0:43:14.319 losing those positions or feeling like they're about to lose them. 0:43:14.680 --> 0:43:18.200 What is terrible is that we are a society that 0:43:18.360 --> 0:43:22.760 is so quick to say this is mine, I'm not sharing, 0:43:22.840 --> 0:43:26.280 you're not taking this from me, instead of sitting down 0:43:26.440 --> 0:43:31.240 and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and allowing ourselves to say, hey, 0:43:31.360 --> 0:43:34.680 I'm worried about this. There's nothing wrong with being worried 0:43:34.719 --> 0:43:39.919 about the future, but when we allow that to translate 0:43:40.040 --> 0:43:45.760 into violence or into dehumanization. We always talk about learning 0:43:45.880 --> 0:43:49.840 from the past and learning from history. It is becoming 0:43:49.960 --> 0:43:54.400 clear on a daily basis to me that those lessons 0:43:54.840 --> 0:43:58.719 are almost blocked. You know, I don't know if you 0:43:59.400 --> 0:44:03.600 have seen or heard about any of the polls asking 0:44:03.680 --> 0:44:08.440 something as simple as or measuring, you know, people's knowledge 0:44:08.440 --> 0:44:13.439 about something like the Holocaust. That history is slipping away. 0:44:13.560 --> 0:44:18.920 And that's terrifying. When you look back at your own journey, 0:44:19.160 --> 0:44:22.879 was there a turning point when did you say this 0:44:22.960 --> 0:44:26.759 is wrong, I can't do this anymore. This isn't me. 0:44:27.200 --> 0:44:32.879 It took me almost a decade before I had that epiphany. 0:44:33.400 --> 0:44:37.560 I was nineteen. Oh gosh, I just gave my age away. 0:44:37.920 --> 0:44:42.160 I was nineteen when the Oklahoma City bombing happened. I 0:44:42.200 --> 0:44:45.960 had already been involved in the violent far right for years, 0:44:46.160 --> 0:44:51.080 and that was the first thing that I really remember 0:44:51.400 --> 0:44:55.560 kind of shaking me a little bit and even um 0:44:55.640 --> 0:45:00.080 inspiring me to consider my beliefs or my actions. It 0:45:00.239 --> 0:45:03.840 that wasn't even enough. What I was involved with isn't 0:45:03.920 --> 0:45:06.759 something that you know, you just wake up from one 0:45:06.840 --> 0:45:09.960 day and say, hey, you know, nice knowing you have 0:45:10.040 --> 0:45:12.520 a nice life. I'm growing up now or moving on. 0:45:12.760 --> 0:45:16.160 So it was another few years when I was twenty 0:45:16.200 --> 0:45:19.360 three and I found myself sitting in a federal detention 0:45:19.400 --> 0:45:22.319 center because I took part in a hate crime. You 0:45:22.360 --> 0:45:26.000 were arrested for taking part in an armed robbery of 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:29.120 the Jewish owce store, and you were sent to prison 0:45:29.200 --> 0:45:34.279 for that. Yes, I was. And it was sitting in 0:45:34.280 --> 0:45:38.520 this federal detention center as a result of that that 0:45:38.640 --> 0:45:44.000 I really started to reconsider my life. There was a woman, um, 0:45:44.040 --> 0:45:47.560 a woman of color, who kept looking at me this 0:45:47.800 --> 0:45:50.960 one day and in my mind. I thought, she's going 0:45:51.000 --> 0:45:53.600 to do something to me, she's planning something, she's going 0:45:53.640 --> 0:45:56.960 to try to beat me up, or And she asked 0:45:56.960 --> 0:45:59.680 me if I knew how to play a game, and 0:45:59.760 --> 0:46:02.759 I didn't, So she picked this game up and came 0:46:02.800 --> 0:46:05.080 over and sat down next to me and taught me 0:46:05.120 --> 0:46:09.919 how to play. And she did that knowing why I 0:46:10.000 --> 0:46:14.360 was sitting in that detention center. She did that, knowing 0:46:14.760 --> 0:46:17.000 that I was there for a hate crime. She did 0:46:17.080 --> 0:46:21.440 that having to look at the racist tattoos I had 0:46:21.480 --> 0:46:25.239 on my body because I couldn't cover them all. And 0:46:25.600 --> 0:46:28.640 over the course of the time I spent in prison, 0:46:29.719 --> 0:46:34.359 I was treated with kindness and compassion by women who 0:46:34.440 --> 0:46:37.120 I never would have had the same respect for had 0:46:37.160 --> 0:46:42.920 I met them prior to entering prison. And it changed me. 0:46:43.080 --> 0:46:47.120 I mean I was changed at the core of who 0:46:47.200 --> 0:46:53.600 I was as a human being. Because I was expecting anger, aggression, hatred, 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:59.560 potentially violence, I wasn't expecting kindness. That just absolutely disarmed me. 0:47:00.280 --> 0:47:03.520 And it inspired me not only to change who I 0:47:03.680 --> 0:47:07.680 was and to take responsibility, but to come out and 0:47:07.800 --> 0:47:10.680 do something meaningful with my life and to make a 0:47:10.719 --> 0:47:14.479 difference with the unique knowledge and experiences that I had. 0:47:14.800 --> 0:47:17.960 How long did you spend in prison? Almost three years? 0:47:18.360 --> 0:47:22.480 When you got out, I know you started an organization, 0:47:22.600 --> 0:47:26.760 Life After Hate. What inspired you to do that? Well, 0:47:26.840 --> 0:47:29.799 I did not start it by myself. I am one 0:47:29.840 --> 0:47:34.200 of six co founders of Life After Hate UM, and 0:47:34.360 --> 0:47:39.759 essentially I did outreach and some consulting for about a 0:47:39.840 --> 0:47:43.839 decade before I met my fellow co founders. In two 0:47:43.880 --> 0:47:50.360 thousand eleven, I was invited to attend a summit in Dublin. 0:47:50.600 --> 0:47:55.120 It was at this conference that I first UM met 0:47:55.239 --> 0:47:59.400 face to face with others who were similar to me, 0:48:00.040 --> 0:48:04.080 and by that I mean other former violent far right extremists. 0:48:04.120 --> 0:48:07.839 On the last day, we talked about how inspired we 0:48:07.840 --> 0:48:10.960 were by you know, the individuals that we met and 0:48:11.040 --> 0:48:14.480 the things that we learned, the feelings, you know, the 0:48:14.520 --> 0:48:18.840 emotions that we had, and we all remembered what it 0:48:18.960 --> 0:48:22.560 was like to go through this disengagement from the violent 0:48:22.640 --> 0:48:26.640 far right on our own. And we also talked about 0:48:27.120 --> 0:48:30.720 UM coming back to the US and moving forward together 0:48:30.960 --> 0:48:34.520 as a group. And one of the men had an 0:48:34.560 --> 0:48:37.920 online journal called Life After Hate, and he said, I 0:48:38.000 --> 0:48:41.120 have the perfect name. Let's take the name of my 0:48:41.239 --> 0:48:43.880 journal and we'll go home and turn it into a 0:48:43.920 --> 0:48:48.320 nonprofit organization, and that's exactly what we did. What is 0:48:48.360 --> 0:48:53.440 the group's primary focus. Our primary program is called Exit USA, 0:48:53.680 --> 0:48:58.799 and Exit USA is a program that helps individuals to 0:48:59.000 --> 0:49:04.560 disengage from the violent far right. So there is UM 0:49:04.600 --> 0:49:10.000 an element of intervention that is involved. There is after 0:49:10.160 --> 0:49:13.799 care and support networks in place. UM. This is not 0:49:14.400 --> 0:49:18.719 a linear process. It is different for every individual and 0:49:18.800 --> 0:49:21.480 it can depend on so many different things. You know, 0:49:21.600 --> 0:49:25.279 why someone got involved, how long they were involved, what 0:49:25.520 --> 0:49:29.960 kind of violent far right group they were involved with them. 0:49:30.040 --> 0:49:34.719 We do not go out seeking UM. Individuals come to 0:49:34.840 --> 0:49:41.959 us concerned family loved ones. We get UM referrals, so 0:49:42.280 --> 0:49:46.400 it can be anyone from you know, a teacher, to 0:49:46.560 --> 0:49:50.760 a parent, to a sibling, to a spouse, to UM 0:49:51.000 --> 0:49:55.080 law enforcement to somebody from you know, a human rights group. 0:49:55.280 --> 0:49:59.799 We also get individuals who contact us directly and say, hey, 0:49:59.840 --> 0:50:02.920 I have been involved in this for this long, you know, 0:50:03.040 --> 0:50:06.080 and for whatever reason, I don't want to be involved, 0:50:06.120 --> 0:50:08.600 but I don't know exactly how to get out. What 0:50:08.760 --> 0:50:11.920 is the success rate? I mean, are you more often 0:50:11.920 --> 0:50:16.600 than not able to extricate people from this world? You know? 0:50:16.760 --> 0:50:21.080 It all depends, UM. There are so many factors involved. 0:50:21.719 --> 0:50:25.640 Part of it depends on the individual. It is not 0:50:25.840 --> 0:50:29.960 at all uncommon to see a certain level of recidivism 0:50:30.160 --> 0:50:34.480 with this when individuals get involved in these types of groups. 0:50:34.719 --> 0:50:41.000 It's not necessarily because someone wakes up one day and says, 0:50:41.520 --> 0:50:44.959 I decided I hate everyone who doesn't look like me today. 0:50:45.239 --> 0:50:50.120 A lot of times there are so many other mitigating factors. 0:50:50.480 --> 0:50:55.520 So maybe somebody has grievances, maybe somebody's looking for protection, 0:50:56.160 --> 0:51:01.520 maybe somebody's looking for acceptance, are belonging somewhere, so when 0:51:01.600 --> 0:51:06.120 they find these things, they gravitate to the group, and 0:51:06.360 --> 0:51:10.640 they're so grateful for having found or filled whatever was 0:51:10.760 --> 0:51:16.480 missing for them that they take on the entire identity 0:51:16.520 --> 0:51:20.080 of the group. This affects every aspect of life, the 0:51:20.200 --> 0:51:23.000 kind of clothes they wear, the kind of music they 0:51:23.080 --> 0:51:26.200 listen to, the kind of food they eat, the people 0:51:26.440 --> 0:51:30.520 that they associate with. So imagine having all of that 0:51:30.960 --> 0:51:34.880 and then disengaging. You lose all of that, So you 0:51:34.960 --> 0:51:39.160 lose your entire identity and need to reshape a completely 0:51:39.200 --> 0:51:43.120 new one. So a lot of times we see individuals 0:51:43.280 --> 0:51:48.480 who we call it, you know the difference between disengagement 0:51:48.560 --> 0:51:53.640 and de radicalization. So for someone to disengage. They can 0:51:53.680 --> 0:51:59.839 disengage from you know, physically being in proximity to the individuals. 0:52:00.120 --> 0:52:03.719 They're not going to events any longer. They're not you know, 0:52:03.800 --> 0:52:07.640 going to meetings or out you know, physically recruiting people. 0:52:08.080 --> 0:52:13.120 But that doesn't necessarily mean that they've left behind the ideology. 0:52:13.680 --> 0:52:17.840 De radicalization, on the other hand, that's at the cognitive level. 0:52:17.960 --> 0:52:21.800 So that's deconstructing the beliefs and the ideology and leaving 0:52:21.840 --> 0:52:26.920 that behind. Um So it's a very very complicated process. 0:52:27.080 --> 0:52:30.320 Like I said, it's not linear, and it's really hard 0:52:30.680 --> 0:52:33.680 to go into success and failure because then we have 0:52:33.760 --> 0:52:38.040 to stop and ask, how are we measuring success? How 0:52:38.080 --> 0:52:43.160 do we measure what was prevented? So, for instance, look 0:52:43.200 --> 0:52:45.040 at you know, we can look at things like the 0:52:45.120 --> 0:52:50.759 cost to society. What if we prevent people from committing 0:52:50.960 --> 0:52:54.840 mass violence, you know, like a mass shooting. Is it 0:52:54.960 --> 0:52:58.520 successful if we prevent someone from picking up a gun 0:52:59.560 --> 0:53:02.120 and going out and doing something like that, but they 0:53:02.160 --> 0:53:06.960 maybe still have the belief. It's very complicated and it's 0:53:07.040 --> 0:53:13.720 something that I think is going to remain complicated probably forever. 0:53:14.200 --> 0:53:18.080 Is there anything you would say to someone listening today 0:53:18.160 --> 0:53:21.640 who might be worried about a loved one who might 0:53:21.840 --> 0:53:26.120 be attracted. I can't imagine people attracted to these beliefs 0:53:26.160 --> 0:53:30.200 necessarily be listening to my podcast, honestly, but you never know. 0:53:30.920 --> 0:53:33.680 What would you say to those people if they're in 0:53:33.760 --> 0:53:36.600 fact out there listening right now. I would tell them 0:53:36.600 --> 0:53:42.440 that their novelone that you know, things don't have to 0:53:42.520 --> 0:53:47.719 be that difficult. We have a community of individuals who 0:53:48.640 --> 0:53:53.319 understand from having the experience there, and you know, we 0:53:53.360 --> 0:53:56.719 are individuals who have gone on and worked hard to 0:53:56.800 --> 0:54:00.480 be so much more than just former extreme you know, 0:54:00.560 --> 0:54:04.640 we're educated, we've worked on, you know, making amends, and 0:54:04.920 --> 0:54:09.759 you know, really going for personal and professional growth. So 0:54:09.800 --> 0:54:13.480 I would say, you know, to everyone, whether it's an 0:54:13.520 --> 0:54:16.800 individual who wants to come out or a concerned loved 0:54:16.800 --> 0:54:21.960 one or family member, change is possible. Transformation is possible. 0:54:23.239 --> 0:54:25.640 One of the hardest things that we have to do 0:54:25.880 --> 0:54:28.160 is to listen to each other and to try to 0:54:28.320 --> 0:54:33.719 understand one another's grievances, not to concede our own position 0:54:34.160 --> 0:54:39.120 that these beliefs are heinous and they're wrong, But we 0:54:39.200 --> 0:54:42.760 are not going to just right off the individual human 0:54:42.800 --> 0:54:46.839 being because their beliefs are ugly. People can come back 0:54:46.880 --> 0:54:50.600 from this. I know this is true. Um, probably you 0:54:50.600 --> 0:54:53.480 know more than I know anything else in this life, 0:54:54.120 --> 0:54:57.799 because I've I've gone through it myself. So I would 0:54:57.840 --> 0:55:00.520 just say, you know, there is help out there. We're 0:55:00.560 --> 0:55:03.840 here to listen. We're not, you know, going to judge, 0:55:04.280 --> 0:55:07.880 and it's possible we we can find a way to 0:55:07.880 --> 0:55:10.920 get through it. We've talked about earlier, you know, the 0:55:10.960 --> 0:55:14.960 Holocaust and the lessons of the past. I have in 0:55:15.000 --> 0:55:21.080 the past two years had experiences with survivors who have 0:55:21.320 --> 0:55:24.480 said things like, it was never supposed to happen again, 0:55:24.480 --> 0:55:27.640 and it's happening again. Why Why are we letting this happen. 0:55:27.719 --> 0:55:32.319 Why isn't anyone doing anything? Why don't people care? It's 0:55:32.360 --> 0:55:38.279 horrifying to me that we have individuals, an entire generation 0:55:38.840 --> 0:55:42.680 that they're almost gone, their voices are almost gone from 0:55:42.680 --> 0:55:46.080 this world. What they survived and what they went through 0:55:46.760 --> 0:55:49.239 no human beings should have to go through. And we 0:55:49.320 --> 0:55:53.600 are on the same path again. It sure is enough 0:55:53.640 --> 0:55:57.040 to motivate someone to keep going. Well, thank you for 0:55:57.120 --> 0:55:59.719 the work that you're doing, Angela, and thank you for 0:56:00.480 --> 0:56:05.640 having such a profoundly open and honest conversation with us 0:56:06.080 --> 0:56:11.040 about your own story and about the larger story that 0:56:11.520 --> 0:56:16.000 unfortunately is unfolding in this country. Thank you. I am 0:56:16.320 --> 0:56:20.839 one of the lucky ones. Angela is in fact one 0:56:20.840 --> 0:56:24.320 of the lucky ones. Clearly she had the strength, support 0:56:24.520 --> 0:56:28.880 and newfound empathy that opened her heart to understand others 0:56:29.040 --> 0:56:33.080 and ultimately herself. It seems to me people are attracted 0:56:33.120 --> 0:56:36.719 to these groups because they're lonely, isolated and want a 0:56:36.800 --> 0:56:39.879 sense of belonging. If you need help or know someone 0:56:39.960 --> 0:56:43.480 who does, you can go to Life After Hate dot org, 0:56:43.960 --> 0:56:49.040 or you can text or call six one two eight exit. 0:56:51.680 --> 0:56:53.880 Thank you so much for listening everyone. I hope you 0:56:54.000 --> 0:56:57.719 learned something from this episode. I certainly did. By the way, 0:56:57.800 --> 0:57:00.879 if you're feeling overwhelmed by news and ormation these days, 0:57:00.880 --> 0:57:03.359 and let's face it, who isn't, you can sign up 0:57:03.360 --> 0:57:06.239 for my daily newsletter, wake Up Call by going to 0:57:06.360 --> 0:57:09.240 Katie correct dot com. And of course I'm a social animal, 0:57:09.520 --> 0:57:12.680 so you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. 0:57:13.360 --> 0:57:17.840 Until next time and my next question, Thanks again for listening. 0:57:21.440 --> 0:57:23.560 Next Question with Katie Curic is a production of I 0:57:23.680 --> 0:57:26.880 Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media. The executive producers are 0:57:26.960 --> 0:57:30.440 Katie Curic Lauren Bright Pacheco, Julie Douglas, and Tyler Klang. 0:57:30.760 --> 0:57:34.440 Our show producers are Bethan Macaluso and Courtney Litz. The 0:57:34.480 --> 0:57:38.320 supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. Associate producers are Emily Pinto 0:57:38.440 --> 0:57:42.360 and Derek Clemens. Editing is by Dylan Fagan, Derek Clements, 0:57:42.400 --> 0:57:46.400 and Lowell Berlante. Our researcher is Barbara Keene. For more 0:57:46.440 --> 0:57:49.280 information on today's episode, go to Katie Currek dot com 0:57:49.320 --> 0:57:52.000 and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Katie currec 0:57:58.280 --> 0:58:00.640 For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i 0:58:00.720 --> 0:58:03.760 heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:58:03.800 --> 0:58:04.640 your favorite shows.