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StoneToss is a political cartoon series in the form of a webcomic, launched in 2017 by an anonymous American neo-Nazi cartoonist (using "StoneToss" as a pseudonym). The webcomic espouses racist, homophobic and antisemitic views, including promotion of Holocaust denial, using "simple and colorful imagery".

Content and reception

The Global Network on Extremism and Technology researchers Hampton Stall, David Foran, and Hari Prasad have described StoneToss as a "crypto-Nazi cartoonist" and a "a comic creator pulls from neo-Nazi views and makes them more palatable for a broader audience". In 2021, the Anti Defamation League described StoneToss as a "far-right illustrator", one of whose comics was a presentation of the antisemitic idea of Jewish deicide.

In a 2022 Global Studies Quarterly article titled "DIY Cruelty: The Global Political Micro-Practices of Hateful Memes", political scientist Renee Marlin-Bennett and researcher Susan T Jackson studied a pair of politically polar-opposite subreddits and identified StoneToss as an "extreme rightwing cartoonist known for his bigoted work", whose cartoons are prominently featured in the right-wing subreddit. According to them, his cartoons were not posted "as memes but as non-meme posts that the community agrees with and is entertained by." They further wrote that "meme creators take his simple line drawings and edit them to make new memes, often called "stonetossedit" or "stonetoss is a nazi"", and that both Reddit communities have adapted StoneToss' work for their own purposes, thereby increasing the visibility of the cartoons.

Alleged revelation of the author's identity

In March 2024, anti-fascist internet vigilantes claimed to have successfully doxed StoneToss using leaked information from Gab, a social media website with a far-right userbase. According to the material they published, the author is a Texan former security guard and IT professional. LGBT magazine The Advocate reported on March 19, that there is a "lack of independent verification of identity". The doxers said that the same author was the author of the RedPanels webcomic, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Nazi comic.

Controversy ensued when Twitter suspended multiple users who posted the alleged author's name, with media taking special note of civil rights attorney and transgender rights activist Alejandra Caraballo's suspension. In a piece titled "Nazi cartoonist meets the Streisand Effect after Twitter censors discussion of his identity", Rob Beschizza of Boing Boing commented that, while "no-one outside of extremely online spaces cares", the controversy was intensified via a Streisand effect. The episode was followed by renewed concerns about content moderation on Twitter under Elon Musk, especially regarding content that promotes far-right ideas.

References

1. "The Swirl – StoneToss". stonetoss.com. July 18, 2017. Archived from the original on August 27, 2023. Retrieved August 27, 2023.
2. ^ Gilbert, David (March 20, 2024). "X Blocked Journalists and Researchers Who Identified a Neo-Nazi Cartoonist". Wired. Archived from the original on March 20, 2024. Retrieved March 20, 2024.
3. ^ Beschizza, Rob (March 16, 2024). "Nazi cartoonist meets the Streisand Effect after Twitter censors discussion of his identity". Boing Boing. Archived from the original on March 16, 2024. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
4. Gilmour, David (May 31, 2019). "Antifa redditors are repurposing anti-Semitic comics for good". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on March 6, 2024. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
5. • Stall, Hampton; Prasad, Hari; Foran, David (October 29, 2020). "What's in a Meme? The Rise of "Saint Kyle"". Global Network on Extremism and Technology. Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
   • Stall, Hampton; Foran, David; Prasad, Hari (November 17, 2023). "Kyle Rittenhouse and the Shared Meme Networks of the Armed American Far-Right: An Analysis of the Content Creation Formula, right-wing Injection of Politics, and Normalization of Violence". Terrorism and Political Violence. 35 (8): 1625–1649. doi:10.1080/09546553.2022.2074293.
6. Stall, Hampton; Prasad, Hari; Foran, David (December 13, 2021). "Can the Right Meme? (And How?): A Comparative Analysis of Three Online Reactionary Meme Subcultures" (PDF). Global Network on Extremism and Technology. International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 17, 2024. Retrieved March 17, 2024 – via King's College London Research Portal.
7. "Gab CEO Andrew Torba Broadcasts His Antisemitism Across Social Media Platforms". ADL. December 15, 2021. Archived from the original on January 13, 2024. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
8. ^ Marlin-Bennett, Renée; Jackson, Susan T (February 9, 2022). "DIY Cruelty: The Global Political Micro-Practices of Hateful Memes". Global Studies Quarterly. 2 (2). doi:10.1093/isagsq/ksac002. ISSN 2634-3797.
9. Crimmins, Tricia (March 13, 2024). "Author of far-right comic StoneToss allegedly doxed by left-wing reporting collective". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on March 17, 2024. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
10. ^ Wiggins, Christopher (March 19, 2024). "Alejandra Caraballo banned from Elon Musk's X platform". The Advocate. Archived from the original on March 19, 2024. Retrieved March 19, 2024.
11. Ward, Justin (April 19, 2018). "Day of the trope: White nationalist memes thrive on Reddit's r/The_Donald". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on February 1, 2019. Retrieved March 19, 2024.
12. Sprayregen, Molly (March 18, 2024). "Elon Musk shamed for protecting an alt-right cartoonist while letting transphobia flourish on X". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on March 19, 2024. Retrieved March 19, 2024.

• Living people
• American editorial cartoonists
• Far-right politics in the United States
• Holocaust denial in the United States