A racist Australian Facebook group promotes memes ridiculing Indigenous people while comparing prominent Muslims to insects, excrement or rubbish.

More than 126,000 people follow it.

Another group with 8000 followers highlights the Jewish faith of an Australian politician while promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. A third, with 12,000 followers, uses Nazi imagery.

Fredrick Brennan regrets creating the forum 8Chan, which has spread racial hatred. Credit:Al Jazeera

The groups, which the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have chosen not to name, are examples of vile but popular subcultures that trade on memes and what they call “edgy” humour as they denigrate and dehumanise people in plain sight.

These subcultures are now under increased scrutiny after Australian Brenton Tarrant made references to racist memes that appear on groups such as these before, and even during his alleged terrorist attacks in Christchurch, which killed 50 people.

Researchers warn that alt-right groups are using mainstream social media such as Twitter and YouTube as well as gaming chat apps (Discord, Steam) and online message boards (4chan, 8chan, Gab) to spread their hatred using images.

I think [Brenton] Tarrant chose to turn himself into a meme.

This week, the founder of 8chan, Fredrick Brennan, expressed remorse over his creation, after Tarrant used the platform to post livestreams of his alleged attacks along with several memes.

Memes – units of culture that can be endlessly manipulated and repurposed – often appear on the internet as images with text captions.

"I think Tarrant chose to turn himself into a meme," said Teodor Mitew, a senior lecturer in digital studies at the University of Wollongong, referring to the spread and adaptation of his images.

Dr Mitew said “memetic warfare” was emerging online where large numbers of often anonymous people with unclear intentions create “hyper-sardonic”, but also dangerous, content.

A man wearing face paint to resemble Pepe the Frog ahead of a rally for President-elect Donald Trump in 2016.Credit:The New York Times

“The tools for meme generation have been radically democratised,” he said. “Anyone, with MS Paint only, is able to create their own propaganda messages.”

While users of message boards are anonymous, they are assumed to be predominantly young white men. Australian content such as the ocker “Aussie shitposter” character collide with international hate symbols such as the cartoon toad Groyper to create memes with multiple references and targets.

“The far-right groups have an arsenal of narratives,” said University of Western Sydney researcher Kevin Dunn, co-author of a 10-year review of cyber racism in Australia.

Professor Dunn and his colleagues found that extremists use clever rhetoric to cast racism as a supposedly natural response to what they portray as inevitable conflict between racial groups.

Using “disturbingly creative techniques”, they also appeal to younger converts using gaming platforms, and they rely heavily on humour.

An international team of researchers last year published a paper analysing extremist content across 160 million images from 2.6 billion posts on social media.

“Polarised communities within 4chan and Reddit have been working hard to create new memes and make them go viral, aiming to increase the visibility of their ideas—a phenomenon known as ‘attention hacking’,” the study’s authors found.

An anti-Semitic meme – an ugly caricature of a supposedly Jewish man rubbing his hands together – was the third most popular meme on 4chan’s politically incorrect forum /pol/.

A version of Pepe the Frog, an innocent cartoon character before it was turned into a hate symbol by the far-right, was the second most popular.

Memes about US President Donald Trump abound but his supporters are routinely pilloried by the far-right as “cuckservatives”: conservatives whose political agendas have been “cuckolded” by tamer elements.

The president is disdainfully associated with “boomer” politics – not limited to the baby boomer generation but referring generally to older, more neo-conservative views.

In Australia, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson has been labelled a "boomer" in contrast to her disowned senator Fraser Anning, who linked the Christchurch attacks to fears of Muslim immigration.

Senator Fraser Anning.Credit:AAP

Posters deemed too extreme for 4chan, referred to as "edgelords", have migrated to its barely-regulated off-shoot 8chan.

An 8Chan forum devoted to Tarrant this week had the sub-heading: “when they start praying, i start spraying”.

Illustration: Matt GoldingCredit:

The site’s founder, Mr Brennan, has regrets about the forum he left in December, especially after seeing the reaction to the Christchurch massacre.

“It was very difficult in the days that followed to know that I had created that site,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

“I have no desire to ever be involved in the image-board world again. A lot of these sites cause more misery than anything else.”

8chan is meant to have one “global” rule: do not post anything illegal. But laws against hate speech and racial discrimination in countries around the world would render reams of 8chan content illegal.

Some New Zealand and Australian internet service providers blocked access to 8chan, which had frequent repostings of the shooter's video, as well as the far-right forum Kiwifarms, which refused to hand over data about its members following a request from authorities.

Dr Mitew said any attempt to combat the problem by taking down platforms was a “whack-a-mole battle,” given that users can easily download programs to avoid the blocks.

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