Beauty

Unwitting models being used as the faces of white supremacy are furious

Their pictures are being used without their consent.

One thing that has been observed since the rise of Donald Trump and the outcome of Brexit is how white supremacist groups have cashed in on the popularity of xenophobia and embraced racial tensions.

It’s nothing new for bigots to hide behind the anonymity of social media accounts to push their cause but many have also gone a step further in recruiting unconsenting poster girls for their vile hatred and using their images to promote a superiority to other races.

https://twitter.com/whiterevanchist/status/783025398472806400
https://twitter.com/CaucasianAllure/status/796525310997106689
https://twitter.com/CaucasianAllure/status/806994354644586497
https://twitter.com/CaucasianAllure/status/709083968721829891

Yeah, we know – totally disgusting, right!

However one journalist from Racked has reached out to some of these fair skinned, light eyed models who had no idea they were unwilling participants.

Swedish blogger, Joana Gröblinghoff’s images prove popular with one of the white nationalist groups and she was outraged when she found out.

“This is disgusting!” told Racked. “I was never asked for permission and this is not the way I want to see my face on the internet!”

Fiona Quinn is the photographer behind the original photo in this tweet:

https://twitter.com/whiterevanchist/status/775184058141728768

She said this kind of Neo-Nazi rhetoric went against her very nature.

“I am horrified. This goes against my belief systems and makes me feel sick. I live in New Zealand — we are multicultural and so many of my close friends are not white!”

According to the report, Australia’s own Gemma Ward is also a favourite of some of these accounts – something we’re sure the supermodel would condemn.

Twitter has long been criticised by users for not responding to racism, bigotry, hate speech and threats of more effectively.

Basically, this is all a bit of a grey area for Twitter, which does not have any hard rules on what constitutes as hate speech. For models who want don’t want their image used like this their only option might be the make a copyright infringement – it might be a bit like getting Al Capone on tax breaches – but Twitter responds to copyright complaints pretty swiftly.

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