How racist discourse found new forms: Online comments after the Aotearoa New Zealand mosque attacks

After Aotearoa New Zealands worst terrorist attack, in March 2019, when 51 Muslims at prayer were killed, a major change in public discourse took place.Prejudice against Muslims became socially unacceptable and was widely challenged or muted in the society.This paper explores how talk changed in the comments on Kiwiblog, a major site of right-wing discourse in the country, which had historically been a focus for anti-Muslim prejudice.Using corpus-analytic tools we studied patterns across immigration-related talk.We found a major reduction in prejudiced talk as major commenters went quiet, while the prejudiced talk from others on the site did not abate.Other commenters turned to cultural forms of prejudice that might attract less social sanction and engaged in other strategies to defend, transfer or distance racism and disputed the category of racism.The form of racism changed as it responded to changing social conditions.