‘Alt-Right’ Leader Richard Spencer Booted From Soundcloud Podcast Site

New Face: White nationalist and leading ‘alt-right’ figure Richard Spencer addresses a crowd at Texas A&M University in December. Image by YouTube

By Sam Kestenbaum May 30, 2017

White nationalist Richard Spencer’s “alt-right” podcast was booted from SoundCloud for violating the site’s terms of service last week.

The move came in response to a Twitter query from the freelance journalist Alex Kotch, who wrote about the incident in a post for Alternet.org. “I got the notorious white nationalist Richard Spencer kicked off of his podcast platform,” Kotch wrote.

Kotch discovered that Spencer’s podcasts violated SoundCloud’s terms of service, which forbid “content that promotes or encourages hatred, discrimination or violence against others based on things like race, cultural identity or ethnic background, religious beliefs, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”

Spencer popularized the term “alt-right.” He advocates for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” and the creation of a “white ethno-state.” He is among the country’s most recognizable white nationalists and has collaborated with people like the neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin and former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke.

Kotch wrote that he had been attacked online by “alt-right” accounts since Spencer’s removal. Kotch defended his move.

“Good people should, any chance they get, no-platform cowardly alt-right provocateurs, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates and other detestable groups of insecure, angry people,” Kotch wrote.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

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