Richard Dawkins accidentally tweeted a link to Neo-Nazi propaganda

Richard Dawkins has accidentally tweeted a link to an infamous Neo-Nazi slogan.

The outspoken scientist posted an image on his Twitter feed on Monday morning poking fun of left-wing "social justice" politics. It was a fake book cover aping his best-selling atheist text "The God Delusion" - instead showing "The Social Justice Delusion."

It warns of the purported dangers of social justice politics, warning that "you turn the very principles of freedom against us ... you believe in bullying, even as you claim to love the oppressed."

It signed off with the message: "Eat sh*t and die. All I ever asked was to be left alone." (Scroll down for the full image.)

"For those who - inevitably - won't get it, this IS a joke," Dawkins wrote in the accompanying tweet. "But like most good jokes, it's also serious."

It's combative - but ultimately harmless stuff.

However, the image also contains a QR code, a type of digital barcode. Scan that with a QR reader and you get something rather more unpleasant: Neo-Nazi propaganda. It takes you to the "Fourteen Words," a White Nationalist slogan:

Dawkins has since deleted his tweet, confirming that he wasn't aware of the "obnoxious message" before tweeting the image. He hasn't yet responded to a further question from Business Insider about the source of the image.

As Dawkins notes in his Twitter bio, "[retweets] don't imply endorsement, not exhaustive research of [a] tweeter's CV." Nonetheless, it's always best to be careful what you tweet.

Here's the original image Dawkins sent:

Dawkins has a history of provocative tweets. In January, he was disinvited from an upcoming skeptics conference after tweeting out a video that claimed similarities exist between feminism and radical Islamism.