StoneToss

StoneToss is a pseudonymous American neo-Nazi political cartoonist who publishes a webcomic of the same name. Launched in June 2017, the comic espouses racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, and antisemitic views, including Holocaust denial, using "simple and colorful imagery".

In March 2024, after an antifascist group published materials claiming to have revealed his identity, he sought help from Twitter's owner Elon Musk. Twitter then suspended multiple users who included StoneToss' alleged real name in their tweets, and amended its privacy policy to prohibit disclosure of others' real names. Critics took the move as evidence of Musk's preferential treatment for neo-Nazis, antisemites, and white supremacists.

Career

StoneToss debuted his webcomic in July 2017, which has since gained popularity in right-wing online communities, receiving millions of views on Twitter. He also publishes the cartoons on his website, where he describes himself as an "independent cartoonist" and "NFT artist". Described in 2024 as a neo-Nazi creator by and '' Wired'', he conveys various extreme ideas through his content, with antisemitism a pronounced element. Global Network on Extremism and Technology researchers Hampton Stall, David Foran, and Hari Prasad have described him as a "crypto-Nazi cartoonist", who "pulls from neo-Nazi views and makes them more palatable for a broader audience". In 2021, the Jewish organization Anti-Defamation League described him as a "far-right illustrator", citing the example of a comic with Jewish deicide as its theme. In a commentary piece for the think tank European Center for Populism Studies, researcher Heidi Hart wrote that the cartoons include Holocaust denial dog whistles, and also sexist tropes. Some of his cartoons use suicide among transgender people as a punchline.

Reddit and Discord banned their respective official StoneToss communities in 2019. On Facebook and Instagram, some of the cartoons were posted by the author in heavily pixellated versions to prevent them from breaching those platforms' policies. StoneToss has used the comic to fundraise by selling non-fungible tokens on websites such as OpenSea before being banned from the websites.

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 Reddit communities have adapted StoneToss' work for their own purposes, thereby increasing the visibility of the cartoons. Hart wrote that, while internet users on the left have been trying to appropriate the cartoons, adding "layers of irony", the subversion of their message is not easily understood by most.

The " amogus" strain of internet memes draws its origin from the initial amogus meme of a ''StoneToss'' cartoon combined with an '' Among Us'' character.

Alleged revelation of identity

In March 2024, Anonymous Comrades Collective and Late-Night Anti-Fascists claimed to have revealed the identity of StoneToss using leaked information from Gab, a social media website with a far-right userbase. According to the material they published, he is a Texan former security guard and IT professional, who had been putting significant effort into remaining anonymous. The group said that he had also created the ''RedPanels'' webcomic, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Nazi comic and by Matt Binder of Mashable as "even more overtly pro-Nazi" than ''StoneToss''. media organizations reporting on the event have been indicating that they have not independently verified the results of the groups' research.

StoneToss denied being a neo-Nazi and sought protection from Twitter's owner Elon Musk through individuals who had contacts with him. This was followed by a controversy after Twitter suspended multiple users who posted the author's alleged real name, with media taking special note of civil rights attorney and transgender rights activist Alejandra Caraballo's suspension. Rob Beschizza of '' Boing Boing'' commented that, while "no-one outside of extremely online spaces cares", the controversy was intensified via the Streisand effect. The episode was followed by renewed concerns about content moderation on Twitter under Musk, especially regarding content that promotes far-right ideas. After a few days, Twitter amended its privacy policy—which at the time expressly excluded real names from what it considers private information—to prohibit disclosure of others' real names. As this behavior had been previously tolerated when it came from right-wing accounts, critics took the move as evidence of the platform under Musk affording preferential treatment to that group of users.

See also

* List of Streisand effect examples
* Sinfest

Notes

References

External links

* {{official website, https://stonetoss.com

Living people
American Holocaust deniers
American neo-Nazis
American editorial cartoonists
Race-related controversies in comics
Religious controversies in comics
Twitter accounts
Twitter controversies
Internet memes introduced in 2017
American webcomic creators
American comedy webcomics
Pseudonymous artists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Neo-Nazi websites
Non-fungible tokens