The making of a made for social media massacre

On 15 March 2019, Facebook livestreamed a massacre. A lone gunman toting semi-automatic weapons killed 51 people and wounded 49 others.Two mosques in the small city of Christchurch were the physical location of the attack but this massacre was planned and executed for a much larger audience. As a prelude, the terrorist posted a Great Replacement manifesto online and emailed a personal copy to the prime minister of New Zealand. Comprising 87 pages of racist memes and conspiracy theories, the manifesto was written for a global audience of violent extremists. The focus in this chapter is on the enabling relationship between social media and the rise of contemporary fascism, the so-called alt-right. Social media may not have caused the massacre but it has been central to: (1) shaping an alt-right imaginary in which the White Races face extinction; (2) forging a global brotherhood espousing real-world, violent action; and (3) providing a global forum within which such atrocities may be planned, executed, distributed and consumed. My analysis is situated within the context of the mainstream political discourses of disinformation associated with populist politics, especially of US President Trump, and the monopoly position enjoyed by a small number of major social media companies. When, on 6 January 2021, Facebook finally banned President Trump from its platform, it had taken the invasion of Congress by a violent mob bent on insurrection to trigger that action.