From hope to hate: how the early internet fed the far right

Back in 1990, the American lawyer and author Mike Godwin proposed a law of early internet behaviour: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

In short, the more you talk online, the more likely you’ll be nasty. Godwin’s Law was in fact only half the story: it turns out talking online didn’t only make people think their opponents were Nazis. Some of them actually had become Nazis.

The apparent success of the “alt-right” and broader radical right movements in Europe and the US has plenty of analysts baffled. An incredulity that these nationalists are using the internet – supposedly the very essence of openness, progress and tolerance – to promote an agenda which agitates for the precise opposite. But the radical right has frequently been the most avid and enthusiastic adopters of shiny new technology, and have long found the internet a uniquely useful place.