ABSTRACT
Between 2015 and 2019 various solidarity efforts led by the UNHCR, civil society, and some states fostered grassroots support for refugees and migrants in receiving countries. However, a strong backlash emerged offline and online: hundreds of thousands of tweets circulated anti-solidarity hashtags such as #RefugeesNOTwelcome and #NOTWelcomeRefugees. This chapter argues that the circulation of anti-solidarity hashtags needs to be taken seriously for, first, the way this embodies a popular far-right online tactic of hijacking, and, second, for how these hashtags and their accompanying discourses represent examples of “soft repression.” Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, this chapter finds that anti- and pro-solidarity hashtags interacted when #refugeesNOTwelcome and #NOTwelcomerefugees, along with co-occurring hashtags linked to far-right discourses, were used to hijack a mainstream discussion as part of far right online communication tactics. Further, hashtags and their accompanying discourses represent examples of soft-repression that ridiculed, stigmatized, and silenced migrants and refugees as well as their supporters. This research shows how hijacking and soft repression operate and lead to the shrinking of spaces online for demonstrating solidarity.
