ABSTRACT
Hateful, misogynist, and racist expressions have become a mundane, even ordinary, part of digital communication across the globe. This chapter explores formations of hate speech in the context of far-right anti-immigrant movements in Finland. It seeks to unravel the modalities and intensities of sharing hate in the context of a multidimensional, messy, and conflicted online world together with the ways in which this sharing connects affective publics. The chapter approaches hate speech as a complex social practice with a variety of social, technological, political, and economic consequences. The focus is on different modalities and temporalities that shape and structure affective intensities of hate speech in digital media. Hate speech takes different forms ranging from memes and images to written blog texts; from podcasts and music to YouTube videos and amateur talk shows. By distinguishing between inward-directed (Facebook site of a far-right group) and outward-directed (Twitter debate) hate speech, the chapter looks at the different intensities and temporalities, the anticipation, acceleration, and delay that shape these affective arrangements. The chapter further shows how hateful affective practices are connected materially and intrinsically to the digital infrastructures, social media affordances, and platform policies.
