In the weeks since Donald Trump was elected President, racial hate crimes in the U.S have increased and the former leader of the Klu Klux Klan has applauded Trump’s appointment of staffers who are examples of “white people taking back their government”. Terrifyingly, new generations of white supremacists are feeling emboldened — and high profile fashion models have been caught up in their hateful rhetoric, reports Racked.
Australian supermodel Gemma Ward is one of several beauties that has unknowingly become a poster girl in promotion of white supremacy, as hateful racists wage a social media campaign to illustrate that “whites are superior to other races.”
While some of the offensive accounts have since been shut down or blocked, Ward’s management have condemned the unauthorized usage of her image, with a spokesperson from IMG models telling Marie Claire that “the images have definitely been used without her consent”.
Swedish blogger Joana Gröblinghoff was similarly outraged, telling Racked that the portrayal was “disgusting …. I was never asked for permission and this is not the way I want to see my face on the internet!”
While there are no clear guidelines on what Twitter deems as hate speech, copy infringement is the only viable way to shut these sorts of accounts down.
“If more people sued or threatened to sue for copyright infringement when their image is being re-appropriated by neo-Nazis, it could have a deterrent effect,” Carrie Goldberg, a lawyer who deals with online harassment, told Racked.
