The Nuts and Bolts of Stormfront and the use of the Web
Stormfront.com, the first of the many white supremacist websites, still holds the title of the largest and most popular. When Black (at right) built his first private dial-up bulletin board in 1990 for a few members of David Duke’s Senate race campaign, he did not expect it would lead to one of the largest influences on the international white supremacist movement. The day after it officially went public in March of 1995, it attracted 1,700 visitors. Today, there are 106, 000 members, with an average of 1,000 new members added every two weeks. According to Alexa Web Rankings, the average number of daily hits is 10,700 a day. Stormfront has been called the most powerful and active influence in the White Nationalist Community. “I feel like I've accomplished more on the Web than in my 25 years of political activism,” Black told a reporter in 1998. (A shy private man, Black has stopped talking to the media in recent years.)
During his lifetime career in the white nationalist movement, Black has tried traditional forms out outreach, but he has called the Internet far superior. “Over the years I have distributed tens of thousands of leaflets, fliers and newspapers, maybe hundreds of thousands. But we have never been able to reach the kind of audience we can now, so easily and inexpensively,” he said in a 2000 interview for HBO’s documentary Hate.com. "The net has provided us with the opportunity to bring our point of view to hundreds of thousands of people who would never have otherwise subscribed to one of our publications or otherwise been in touch with any of our organizations.”
Click here to read Don Black's reaction to the documentary on Stormfront.org or here to learn more about anonymity on the Web.
But more than the web’s wide reach, it’s the power of its immediacy and ease. “Everything used to be done by mail and paper. It was very weak compared to what we have now. You had to wait each month to get your magazine or newsletter, had to write in letters to congress. Now if you get hankering to do something, you are online 24 hours a day,” explains Jamie Kelso, 58, the website’s manager, Black’s current right hand man and David Duke’s former top aide.
As a message board, akin to Craigslist, the design is simple to the point of looking outdated; unfortunately the messages posted reveal that the white supremacists movement is not. There are announcements for local Klan gatherings, downloadable flyers, polls, and streaming podcasts and racist music.
Different sections cover race related news (“White Girl beaten by Mestizo girls on bus,” “Liberian Family of 15 Moves Right In”), activism, poetry, strategy and tactics, money talks and even a youth section and a whites-only dating service. Debates cover whether it is more effective to identify oneself as a Klansman when speaking out to the community (consensus says no), and if it’s appropriate to use the N-word around children. The classified ad section list Swastika rings, Hitler paintings and Aryan wear boots. The “Self-defense, Martial Arts and Preparedness” section lists “a 30 day count down to race war” and “Just a friendly warning; .223 & 5.56mm are NOT the same round!” The “Privacy, Network Security and Encryption” section has information about the FBI bugging cell phones, Spyware, and file-sharing network. And perhaps most importantly, is the locals’ section which links racists to others in their neighborhood to plan events and meet-ups.
The ease of partaking in a movement by simply clicking one’s mouse may seem too small of a commitment to really amount to much, but Stormfront has tried to counter this by adding incentives for greater involvement and dedication. Positive feedback on your posts helps graduate you to a higher member status with more site access; monetary donations grant entry into the secret VIP chatroom. Moreover, to create a greater sense of an immediate and tangible community, they added a list of the other members currently online, which often includes the high profilers within the movement like David Duke, Bob Whitaker (a former Reagan administration member in charge of security clearances, one of the few white nationalists to gain prominence in government despite being openly racist), and April Gaede (mother of Prussian Blue, the 14-year-old blond twin girls who perform pop songs with racist lyrics, a sort of white supremacist version of the Olsen Twins) all of whom are just a click away. A section even alerts users of other members' birthdays.
View Prussian Blue music video below:
Click here to view ABC News' report on the group.
More importantly, the ease in joining has paid off in the long run through its ability to draw people into what can be an intimidating and scary communities. There are ignorant rants and overt hate, but the site prohibits discussions that aren’t “civil and productive, ” and have even taken down posts which seem too extreme or ignorant. Profanity is coded to appear as asterisks. The site prohibits anyone “advocating or suggesting any activity which is illegal under U.S. law.” (The rules are enforced, but they are easy to get around. There are no guns listed for sale, for instance, but plenty of advice on buying them, and no monitoring of private messages sent between members. Members discuss strategies for possible race wars, and ask for specific help in dealing with Jews and ethnic minorities causing problems. One can only surmise that the talk could lead elsewhere.) While the legal incentives for such a ban are clear, it also helps dispel the stereotype of ignorance and extremity. A more mainstream image furthers their cause politically and helps with recruitment.
Stormfront works hard to make the movement seem welcoming. The very medium of the internet portrays a more mainstream image, and self-selects only those with internet access. Stormfront’s Jaime Kelso conducts outreach on other websites and in the real world, which includes promoting the very use of the Internet. He personally found Stormfront through the benign Google, which is not surprisingly the most common way that people find the site. Members have even created videoblogs on YouTube to counter the stereotypes. Their efforts may just be working. Click here to read how many use the Web as a mask.
View a white nationalist's YouTube video response to a newscast on Stormfront:
View NBC newscast:
Click here to continue ...
Posted by Team B 1:25 PM
Labels: anonymity, Don Black, immediacy and ease
