We have now produced a digital version of the current issue datacide eighteen. Its content is identical to the print edition, but some illustrations are in colour and some links are clickable. It’s ideal to read on your tablet or laptop.

If you’re using facebook you may have noticed that this very web site has been blacklisted. It is no longer possible to link to it from facebook, and all existing links have been removed. The Datacide page on fb still exists, so it’s not that Datacide per se has been banned. But when you try to set a link it claims that the site “violates community standards” or that it “includes content that other people on Facebook have reported as abusive” (depending on how you try to set a link you get either of those “error” messages). The latter suggests that it’s the result of a campaign, and not a mistake by fb’s AI as we initially assumed. But this is speculation – no reason or cause has been given by facebook.

Links to datacide-magazine.com on facebook have been blocked for several weeks now – we and a number of people have filed complaints/error reports, but unsurprisingly these have been ignored by facebook. It’s a crass example of an intransparent and unaccountable Behemoth exercising censorship.

How bad is this for us? 

Paris, December 5, 2019: Tense moments on the first day of the nationwide strike against the proposed changes of the pension system in France. We’re waiting on Place de la République for the demo to arrive. The demo started at Gare de l’Est (only about 15 minutes walk from République) and is supposed to head south to Nation. Boulevard de Magenta is already full of people, but somehow they’re not getting on to République. Instead objects are set on fire right at the junction of Magenta and République which gives the “forces of order” the pretext to throw teargas grenades into the crowd. Uncut footage from about 3.45pm at Place de la République.

On Monday, November 12th, 2018 the last of three trials against members of the neo-Nazi group National Action ended with convictions of three people, including Daniel Bogunovic and a couple, Claudia Patatas and Adam Thomas. They will be sentenced on December 14th.

National Action was a British openly neo-Nazi group founded in 2013. The group cultivated a militant image and notoriously carried a banner with the slogan “Refugees not welcome” and the hashtag #hitlerwasright at public demonstrations. Since December 2016 the group has been proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. Since then, however, they have continued to organise under different covers. They are believed to have prepared for a “race war”, plotted an assassination, and advocated violence against and extermination of Jews and “non-whites”. They also celebrated the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox. Following investigations and arrests, several court cases have led to convictions for membership in a terrorist organisation and other offences. Several members were sentenced to prison terms of up to eight years (various news sources here, here and here)

While the press was very much concerned with the fact that Patatas and Thomas gave their baby son the middle name Adolf, that they had a swastika-shaped cookie cutter and that they were dressing up in Ku Klux Klan outfits, the connection to the far right Neofolk music scene remained overlooked.

For the BBC story providing a more detailed overview of the National Action case click on screenshot:

A tumblr blog called harsherreality  has collected evidence that Patatas was a  “close associate of Death In June’s Douglas Pearce, Sol Invictus’ Tony Wakeford, Allerseelen’s Gerhard Hallstatt, fascist publishers Michael Moynihan and Troy Southgate and a host of neo-folk musicians and activists – most of whom publicly deny their fascist involvement.” [Read more →]

Not entirely without hesitation we publish our “traditional” list of the most read articles of the previous year. The hesitation comes from the fact that it looks like it’s mostly the same articles that are read year in and year out. It has been suggested before that perhaps we should be making a list of the least read, or simply a list of recommendations.

Don’t get us wrong: all the articles on this list are well worth reading. However there is a wealth of material on this site which tends to be overlooked – especially newer additions.

Of course by publishing this list we somewhat contribute to the ‘problem’, but we’re not creating it. A key reason that the most read article list has become increasingly similar over the years seems to be the way that search engines and social media are now the dominant ways to find content on the internet. So articles which have already found many readers and are linked to more than others and will rank higher on search engines than new additions. In other cases an intense social media buzz or a link from a prominent web site can cause a (often short term) spike.

But what seems to be missing is much of a direct readership navigating the web site, as readers are increasingly and unwittingly turned into passive consumers.

Granted: There is much room for improvement on this site, and we will be working on it this year.

Below: The usual top 20 of 2017 + 3 recommendations + the least read article ever on this site! [Read more →]