Red Ice

Red Ice
Formation2002; 22 years ago (2002)
Founded atGothenburg, Sweden
TypeWhite supremacist[1]
Official language
English
Key people
Lana Lokteff and Henrik Palmgren
Websiteredice.tv
Part of a series on
Antisemitism
Definitions
Geography
Manifestations
Antisemitic tropes
Antisemitic publications
Persecution
Antisemitism on the Internet
Opposition
Category

Red Ice is a white supremacist[1] multimedia company based in Sweden and led by the married couple Lana Lokteff and Henrik Palmgren. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has described Red Ice as being important in the YouTube alt-right radicalization pipeline, further radicalizing people tentatively on the far-right and having "a history of embracing white supremacist rhetoric and talking points".[7]

Products and content

From 2002 to 2012, the main focus of Red Ice's content was conspiracy theories such as aliens, 9/11, the Illuminati, and Freemasonry. In 2012, the outlet shifted to concentrate on ideas of race, and especially to the idea of the white genocide conspiracy theory in response to what the couple perceived as "anti-white sentiment" coinciding with the Black Lives Matter movement.[8][2]

As of 2017, Red Ice's main output was its weekly talk-radio-style programs. Interviews make up part of this content; Lokteff searches for personalities on the internet based on viewer recommendations and brings them on the program. Lokteff hosts her own program, Radio 3Fourteen, which highlights white nationalist women and alt-right preferences towards gender roles: men as strong, rational, political, and the decision-making partner, and women as emotional, family-centered, and supportive. These programs are repackaged in additional audio and video formats. Red Ice also has premium, paywalled content. After shifting into the white supremacist space, Red Ice also began producing newscasts.[2][9]

Lokteff's guests have included Lauren Southern and Faith Goldy, among others.[10] In March 2018, Simon Roche, a spokesperson for the Suidlanders, a South African Afrikaner supremacist group, claimed in an appearance on Red Ice that it was deadlier to be a white farmer in South Africa than a police officer.[11] Adolf Hitler was also described as "The Great One" on Red Ice's website.[12] In April 2018, the SPLC said that Red Ice was "exploring white nationalism, antisemitism and Holocaust denial, and promoting the myth of white genocide."[7]

Red Ice TV hosted videos for the white nationalist conference 'Awakening' held in Finland in April 2019.[13]

In June 2023, Police Scotland launched an investigation into content published on BitChute that directed abuse and threats towards First Minister Humza Yousaf after receiving a complaint from his office. The content included several Red Ice videos featuring Lokteff, one of which called for Yousaf to "go back" to Pakistan and accused him of trying to "infiltrate and destroy white Scottish culture and heritage".[14]

History

In 2002, Henrik Palmgren started Red Ice in Gothenburg.[9]

In August 2017, Henrik Palmgren said that hackers had taken down the Red Ice website and were going to release names of 23,000 subscribing members. This event occurred alongside the hacking of several other neo-Nazi and alt-right platforms. On other hacked sites at the time, the actions were claimed in the name of the decentralized group Anonymous.[2]

In September 2018, YouTube limited some videos by Red Ice after it posted a video claiming that white women were being "pushed" into interracial relationships.[15]

In April 2019, comments and monetization were disabled by YouTube on a livestream of a House Judiciary Committee hearing hosted by Palmgren and Lokteff due to commenters' use of anti-Semitic slurs, white nationalist memes, and derogatory remarks about women in the hearing.[16][17]

In June 2019, Red Ice's YouTube channel was demonetized due to YouTube's recently expanded policy guidelines, which prohibited videos "promoting or glorifying Nazi ideology," spreading Holocaust denial and rejecting "well-documented events" like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.[18] In October 2019, the channel was banned for hate speech violations. The channel had about 330,000 subscribers. Lokteff and Red Ice promoted a backup channel in an attempt to circumvent the ban.[19][20] A week later, the backup channel was also removed by YouTube.[21][4]

In November 2019, Facebook banned Red Ice from using its platform.[22][23]

Influence

In August 2017, Red Ice had 130,000 YouTube subscribers.[2] By April 2019, it had over 300,000 subscribers and by October, 335,000 subscribers and 44.7 million total views.[13][24] In November 2019, it had 90,000 followers on Facebook.[22] As of June 2023, Red Ice maintains a social media presence on BitChute, Telegram, VK, Rumble and Gab.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b [2][3][4][5][6]
  2. ^ a b c d e Dixit, Pranav; Feder, J. Lester; Warzel, Charlie; Kantrowitz, Alex (August 14, 2017). "White Supremacist Platforms Are Being Targeted By Hackers And Rejected By Hosts". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on July 9, 2020. Retrieved May 9, 2020. On Saturday, Henrik Palmgren of Red Ice, a white supremacist multimedia platform
  3. ^ Willingham, AJ (March 6, 2018). "Middle school teacher secretly ran white supremacist podcast, says it was satire". CNN Digital. CNN. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2020. Red Ice is a white supremacist media company
  4. ^ a b Katzowitz, Josh (October 24, 2019). "Red Ice, a popular white supremacist YouTube channel, has been shut down—again". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on May 9, 2024. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
  5. ^ Wong, Julia Carrie (November 21, 2019). "White nationalists are openly operating on Facebook. The company won't act". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 23, 2022. Retrieved June 23, 2022. Red Ice TV is "a group that styles themselves as a news organization when they are primarily a political organization, and the politics are staunchly white supremacist", Donovan said.
  6. ^ "Hate Beyond Borders: The Internationalization of White Supremacy". Anti-Defamation League. March 5, 2022. Archived from the original on September 27, 2019. Retrieved November 21, 2022. He has ties to a number of white supremacists in the U. S., and wrote articles for Altright.com., the now-defunct site headed by white supremacist Richard Spencer, as well as Red Ice, a white supremacist media outfit.
  7. ^ a b Miller, Cassie (April 19, 2018). "McInnes, Molyneux, and 4chan: Investigating pathways to the alt-right". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on May 7, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  8. ^ Bowman, Emma; Stewart, Ian. "The Women Behind The 'Alt-Right'". NPR. Archived from the original on October 17, 2019. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  9. ^ a b Darby, Seyward (September 1, 2017). "The Rise of the Valkyries". Harper's Magazine. Archived from the original on December 20, 2019. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  10. ^ Stern, Alexandra Minna (2019). Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press. p. 101. ISBN 978-0807063361. Archived from the original on April 4, 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023. As a home for the small but active alt-right sisterhood, Radio 3Fourteen brings together female alt-righters with their followers on social media. Regulars include ... Canadian white nationalists Lauren Southern and Faith Goldy
  11. ^ Gedye, Lloyd (March 23, 2018). "White genocide: How the big lie spread to the US and beyond". The Mail & Guardian. Archived from the original on April 5, 2020. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  12. ^ "The Kalergi Plan for European Genocide". Red Ice. March 22, 2016. Archived from the original on January 4, 2023. Retrieved March 7, 2023. With the rise of Mussolini in Italy, The Great One in Germany and Franco in Spain...
  13. ^ a b Owen, Tess (April 4, 2019). "White nationalists from around the world are meeting in Finland. Here's what you need to know". Vice. Archived from the original on March 13, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  14. ^ a b McLaughlin, Martyn (June 3, 2023). "Police Scotland launches investigation into racist abuse and threats aimed at Humza Yousaf". The Scotsman. Archived from the original on June 3, 2023. Retrieved August 16, 2023.
  15. ^ Sommer, Will (September 6, 2018). "YouTube Won't Ban 'They Want You Dead, White Man!' Channel". The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 11, 2024.
  16. ^ Broderick, Ryan (April 9, 2019). "Comments Were So Racist On Livestreams Of A Congressional Hearing On White Nationalism YouTube Had To Disable Them". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on June 13, 2020. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  17. ^ Alvarez, Alejandro (April 9, 2019). "Lawmakers held a hearing on white nationalism. On YouTube, it was immediately attacked with hate speech". NBC News. Archived from the original on June 2, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  18. ^ Broderick, Ryan (June 5, 2019). "YouTube Will Now Block Discriminatory Content, Just A Day After Saying It Doesn't Violate Its Policies". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on October 27, 2020. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  19. ^ Ramirez, Nikki McCann (October 18, 2019). "White nationalist Red Ice TV is promoting a backup channel to skirt its YouTube ban". Media Matters for America. Archived from the original on October 20, 2019. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
  20. ^ Gais, Hannah (October 21, 2019). "YouTube Takes Down Red Ice's Main Channel". HateWatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on October 22, 2019. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
  21. ^ Gais, Hannah (October 23, 2019). "YouTube Yanks Second Red Ice Channel". HateWatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on October 25, 2019. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
  22. ^ a b Wong, Julia Carrie (November 27, 2019). "Facebook to ban two white nationalist groups after Guardian report". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 12, 2022. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  23. ^ "Facebook bans two prominent white nationalist groups after Guardian report". Engadget. November 27, 2019. Archived from the original on November 21, 2022. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  24. ^ "Red Ice TV's YouTube Stats (Summary Profile) - Social Blade Stats". socialblade.com. Archived from the original on December 26, 2022. Retrieved December 26, 2022.