Hate group

According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a hate group's "primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization.

[2] Two private American non-profit organizations that monitor intolerance and hate groups are the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)[3] and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The alt-right is described as being "a weird mix of old-school neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, anti-globalists, and young right-wing internet trolls—all united in the belief that white male identity is under attack by multicultural, "politically correct" forces.

The California Association for Human Relations Organizations (CAHRO) asserts that hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and White Aryan Resistance (WAR) preach violence against racial, religious, sexual and other minorities in the United States.

[17] Joseph E. Agne argues that hate-motivated violence is a result of the successes of the civil rights movement, and he asserts that the KKK has resurfaced and new hate groups have formed.

[20][21][22][23] After World War II and The Holocaust, Germany found it necessary to criminalize Volksverhetzung ("incitement to hatred") in order to prevent a resurgence of fascism.

Counter-terrorism expert Ehud Sprinzak argues that verbal violence is "the use of extreme language against an individual or a group that either implies a direct threat that physical force will be used against them, or is seen as an indirect call for others to use it."

Historian Daniel Goldhagen, discussing antisemitic hate groups, argues that we should view verbal violence as "an assault in its own right, having been intended to produce profound damage—emotional, psychological, and social—to the dignity and honor of the Jews.

"[26] In the mid-1990s, the popularity of the Internet brought new international exposure to many organizations, including groups with beliefs such as white supremacy, neo-Nazism, homophobia, Holocaust denial and Islamophobia.

In 1996, the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles asked Internet access providers to adopt a code of ethics that would prevent extremists from publishing their ideas online.

"[27] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has designated several Christian groups as hate groups, including the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, Abiding Truth Ministries, American Vision, the Chalcedon Foundation, the Dove World Outreach Center, the Traditional Values Coalition and the Westboro Baptist Church.

[42] The White supremacist religious group which is currently named the Creativity Movement (formerly the World Church of the Creator), led by Matthew F. Hale, is associated with violence and bigotry.

[43][44] The Westboro Baptist Church is considered a hate group by multiple sources[45] and the WBC is monitored as such by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

[54] The Proud Boys, which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center is known for its misogynistic rhetoric,[55] has been designated as a domestic terrorist group in Canada.

[56] Traditionally, hate groups recruited members and spread extremist messages by word of mouth, or through the distribution of flyers and pamphlets.

[57] The Internet has been a boon for hate groups in terms of promotion, recruitment and expansion of their base to include younger audiences.

Groups that work effectively towards these goals via an online presence tend to strengthen their sense of identity, decrease the threat levels from out-groups, and recruit more new members.

[57] United Patriots Front, an internet-based Australian far-right anti-immigration and neo-nazi organization formed in 2015[62] has been described as a hate group.

This partiality towards cooperative behavior suggests that intergroup conflict might decline if group members devoted more energy to positive in-group improvements than to out-group competition.

Perhaps most critical to combating group hate is to prevent the recruitment of new members by supporting those who are most susceptible, especially children and youth, in developing a positive self-esteem and a humanized understanding of out-groups.