Metapedia

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Metapedia
"The alternative encyclopedia"
Online encyclopedia with a national, historical and racist focus
languages 20th
operator "NFSE Media AB, Sweden"
Registration Yes
On-line 2006 (currently active)
metapedia <point> org

Metapedia is a right-wing extremist online encyclopedia focusing on culture, philosophy, science, politics and history, which is created as a wiki project in 20 languages ​​by its users.

The project started in Sweden in 2006 and in 2008 was classified as right-wing extremist in the constitution protection report of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia of the Federal Republic of Germany , as Metapedia articles have historically revisionist features and features that play down the Nazi regime .

Project

The first online section was the Swedish Metapedia on October 26, 2006. The project was brought into being by the right-wing radical former skinhead Anders Lagerström, his colleague Lennart Berg and the Nordiska förbundet (Nordic Federation) , who had several criminal records . The förbundet had close relationships with Nordiska förlaget (Nordic publishing house), which the previously unemployed Lagerström founded in 2002 after further training in business administration with grants from the Swedish employment agency and through which neo-Nazi propaganda and white power music were distributed. In addition to online activities, förbundet also organized meetings of international neo-Nazis with the participation of David Duke and Frank Rennicke, among others .

The project uses the MediaWiki software. The writing of articles is only possible after registration. The content is shaped by historical revisionism . With regard to the Nazi regime , there are clearly trivializing to advocating features (see right-wing extremism on the Internet ). The German-language Metapedia describes itself as "nationally minded" and " world network encyclopedia".

In 2010 the activities of Nordiska förbundet ended , but the Metapedia project was continued. According to the imprint, the company "NFSE Media AB, Sweden", based in Linköping, is responsible for Metapedia's website today . The company is run by Lennart Berg.

The even more extreme Rightpedia project split off from Metapedia . One of the Rightpedia founders created more than 140 "sock puppets" (additional user accounts) in Wikipedia within 10 years .

German language version

The German-language section went online in May 2007, contains around 66,000 articles and is currently by far the largest language section (ahead of the English with around 13,000 articles); there are now twenty language versions.

Content and direction

In the project description, Metapedia claims to "write about truths and facts and not about what the politically correct majority of writers think they are and what they are imposing on their readers". Political agitation and ideological proselytizing are undesirable according to the self-image of Metapedia, but they have clear traits that are historically revisionist and downplaying the Nazi regime, judged the NRW Constitutional Protection in its 2008 report.

In 2008, the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia judged the Metapedia article Holocaust that the formulations attempted “ to cast doubt on the Holocaust in a subtle way by suggesting that real scientific research is not possible due to the applicable criminal law norms”. It should "give the impression that in truth there was no systematic extermination of the Jews", and "the deportation was also described in a euphemistic way". In the article about the Reichspogromnacht in 1938 "denied that the attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions were carried out on official orders" and "the consequences of the pogroms were played down".

The social scientist Thomas Pfeiffer sees the Metapedia as well as the similar Encyclopædia Germanica as an "attempt to present right-wing extremist ideas in a serious guise". In doing so, they are "more broadly effective, in fact they appear as projects among like-minded people."

Metapedia's texts are partly copied from other websites and then edited. Some of the content comes from the German-language Wikipedia , although the articles have been modified according to Metapedia's political orientation. Texts were also copied from the NPD website.

The prefix “meta” refers to the term “ metapolitics ”. This means that the political conquest of society begins with the attainment of intellectual opinion leadership. The founders of this political approach can be found in the “ New Right ”. The “verbal camouflage” of the project with the help of these terms with the aim of achieving a broad impact “only works to a limited extent on Metapedia”. On the side, further ideas of the new right, including ethnopluralism and euro-nationalism , are represented, the side is "dedicated to the pro-European cultural war ". Furthermore, there are footnotes to new right organizations such as the Thule Seminar and the Society for Free Journalism (GfP).

Volker Schmidt described Metapedia in the Frankfurter Rundschau as an "alternative [...] for very right-wing people who want to protect their worldview from annoying factual knowledge".

Austria

In Austria, Metapedia is still listed on Google and in 2016 appeared in the first five search results for the terms “ Holocaust ”, “ BRD ”, “ Republic of Austria ”, “ Jews ” and “ German Reich ”. Austria is referred to in the Metapedia as a German state.

Legal investigation

Germany

Because of the right-wing extremist content, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution informed the responsible law enforcement authorities. With regard to a link to download the Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew , whose rights the Federal Republic of Germany is entitled to, the Berlin State Criminal Police Office investigated copyright infringement . In addition, in 2008 an indexing procedure was initiated at the Federal Inspectorate for Media Harmful to Young People, which, according to the Metapedia operators, culminated in the indexing on January 22, 2009. Since February 19, 2009, Metapedia pages are no longer listed on Google.de .

Sweden

The Swedish Chancellor of Justice started an investigation in 2009 on suspicion of racist agitation in the article on Adolf Hitler . No proceedings were opened because, although no distancing from Hitler's anti-Semitic positions was discernible and a rather positive attitude towards his views could be assumed, this did not constitute criminal agitation within the meaning of the law.

reception

Thomas Pfeiffer finds that on Metapedia "[s] lively language and the concept of metapolitics - with which the goal of cultural hegemony is linked through targeted action on social discourses - [...] here too the style and strategic approach of the New Right" recall.

literature

  • Henrik Arnstad: Ikea Fascism: Metapedia and the Internationalization of Swedish Generic Fascism. Fascism - Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies, Volume 4, Issue 2, 2015, pp. 194-208, doi: 10.1163 / 22116257-00402002 . (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d "Metapedia" as the national counterpart to "Wikipedia". In: Interior Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia: Verfassungsschutzbericht of North Rhine-Westphalia in the year 2008 . P. 88 f. ( PDF; 1.4 MB ( memento from October 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )).
  2. ↑ Inquiry by MPs Sabine Schatz, Thomas Drozda, colleagues, to the Federal Minister for Constitution, Reforms, Deregulation and Justice regarding the neo-Nazi internet platform "Metapedia". Austrian National Council of March 14, 2018
  3. ↑ a b c Henrik Arnstad: Ikea Fascism: Metapedia and the Internationalization of Swedish Generic Fascism. Fascism - Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies, Volume 4, Issue 2, 2015, pp. 194-208, doi: 10.1163 / 22116257-00402002 .
  4. ↑ Whois Record for MetaPedia.org (English)
  5. ↑ Extremisternas "uppslagsverk" kan vara olagligt ( Memento from July 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on corren.se (Swedish)
  6. ^ Justin Ward: Wikipedia wars: inside the fight against far-right editors, vandals and sock puppets. Southern Poverty Law Center , March 12, 2018
  7. ↑ a b Thomas Pfeiffer: Virtual counter-public and a way out of the “right-wing ghetto”. Strategic functions of the internet for German right-wing extremism . In: Stephan Braun, Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster (eds.): Strategies of the extreme right. Background - analyzes - answers . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-531-15911-9 , pp. 290-309, here p. 302 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Thomas Pfeiffer: Virtual counter-public and a way out of the “right ghetto”. Strategic functions of the internet for German right-wing extremism . In: Stephan Braun, Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster (eds.): Strategies of the extreme right. Background - analyzes - answers . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-531-15911-9 , pp. 290-309, here p. 307 ( online ).
  9. ^ Benjamin Weber: Web Lexicon Metapedia: Das Nazi-Nachschlagewerk. In: The daily newspaper . July 25, 2008. Retrieved January 17, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Peter Nowak : "Right Wikipedia copy between claim and reality" . Telepolis , February 10, 2008.
  11. ↑ Wikipedia scrap: The right online reference work Metapedia , accessed on March 26, 2012.
  12. ↑ Volker Schmidt: Lexicon for ignoramuses. “Metapedia” would like to be a reference work for the right-wing scene. Frankfurter Rundschau, March 4, 2008.
  13. ↑ Paul Donnerbauer: We looked at Wikipedia for Nazis: A Google search for “Republic of Austria” can easily lead you to a Nazi website by mistake. , vice.com, February 4, 2016
  14. ↑ Bundestag printed matter 16/10215 of September 12, 2008 , p. 6f .: Answer of the federal government to the small question from the Bundestag member Monika Lazar ( PDF; 460 kB )
  15. ↑ Julian Bruns, Kathrin Glösel, Natasha Strobl : The identitary. Handbook on the youth movement of the New Right in Europe. Unrast, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-89771-549-3 , p. 147 f.
  16. ↑ Thomas Pfeiffer : Counter-public and new beginnings in the net. What function do websites and offers in Web 2.0 fulfill for German right-wing extremism? In: Stephan Braun, Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster (eds.): Strategies of the extreme right: Backgrounds - Analyzes - Answers. Springer: 2015, p. 274