Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Southern Poverty Law Center’s ‘Hate Tracker’ Picks Up #Christmas as Trending Hashtag

Kristina Wong
"The Southern Poverty Law Center is tracking the hashtags #Christmas, #MerryChristmas, #Jesus, and #ChristmasEve, as part of “trends in a community of far-right Twitter users.”
Dorothy Haymer of Yazoo City, at podium, Indigo Williams, left and Precious Hughes, right. both of Jackson, explains the reasons as African-American mothers of children in public elementary schools, they are plaintiffs in a Mississippi education lawsuit filed on her behalf, by the Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, in Jackson, Miss. Mississippi is denying good schools to African American students and violating the federal law that enabled the state to rejoin the union after the Civil War, the Southern Poverty Law Center alleged Tuesday in a lawsuit trying to strengthen constitutional protections for education. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

"According to the SPLC, its “hate tracker” tracks accounts that represent a “range of extremists,” from “conspiratorial fringes of mainstream conservatism to outright white supremacists.”
"The hate tracker notes that #Christmas is the second highest trending hashtag it tracked on Christmas Eve, with @whitehouse and @potus being among the four top Twitter handles mentioned with the hashtag.
"For #MerryChristmas, the U.S. Marine Corps’ band at @marineband was one of the top mentioned, according to the hate tracker on Christmas Eve. One of the SPLC’s “top image” associated with #MerryChristmas is a photoshopped picture of marines hoisting a Christmas tree, instead of a flag, as depicted in the famous Iwo Jima picture.
"The SPLC includes disclaimers, however, such as that the accounts “are not necessarily part of the far-right population of accounts we monitor.” It also claims these “extremists” also participate in many “conversations and topics that are popular among more ‘mainstream’ communities.' ” . . .
One comment to this post read:
The other day our mailman left seemingly everyone else’s mail in our box. One neighbor received SPLCs Monthly newsletter. It was dedicated to ‘teaching tolerance’ by hating it seems any who disagreed with their world view.
Alas I simply delivered all my neighbors mail back to them. The question is... would the favor be returned if my NRA newsletter came to them??
I’d like to think so but the SPLC types are simply unapproachable in dialogue... I don’t know how that translates in other activities. Still, I’ll always be a civil neighbor, until I’m tread upon that is.

Hat tip to Weasel Zippers

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