doxing
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added swatting 1 24
merri ok
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once a nuclear move, now common
merri ok
see // defund retaliate eg AAF canary mission
see name and shame/ expose
ethics of doxxing of alt rt
some jan 6 lost jobs?
anniv of charlottesville (interesting class divide: preppies with prof'l future do not want to be outed but atomwaffen proles do not care b/c see no prof future)
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-august-8-2018/
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:{01/29/26 MMA
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KIRK 6 POST SHOOTING
AN 11 25
Two months after the assassination of MAGA podcaster Charlie Kirk, over 600 people have been targeted by the government with firings, suspensions, investigations and other actions, Reuters reports.
Educators, they note, are the main target, noting that "more than 350 education workers were fired, suspended or investigated in the days following the assassination, including 50 academics and senior university administrators, three high school principals, two cheerleading coaches and a theology instructor."
Reuters reports that "Republican officials publicly threatened to deprive universities and schools of taxpayer funds unless specific critics of Kirk were fired."
One of those people, Lauren Vaughn, a kindergarten assistant in South Carolina, was fired from her job after posting a Kirk quote defending the Second Amendment on social media followed by the now ubiquitous liberal rallying cry for gun control, "thoughts and prayers."
According to a Reuters review of court records, public statements, local media reports and interviews with two dozen people who were fired or otherwise disciplined, Vaughn "was one of more than 600 Americans fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Kirk’s September 10 assassination."
At least 15 people were punished for "allegedly invoking 'karma' or 'divine justice,'" they note, "and at least nine others were disciplined for variations on 'good riddance.'"
"Other offending posts appeared to exult in the killing or express hope that other Republican figures would be next," they add.
But others like Vaughn were disciplined for simplycriticizing Kirk's politics, they note.
"This account is the most comprehensive to date of the backlash against Kirk’s critics, tracing how senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, local Republican lawmakers and allied influencers mobilized to enforce the Trump movement’s views," Reuters explains.
"The story maps the pro-Trump machinery of retaliation now reshaping American political life, detailing its scale and tactics, ranging from shaming on social media to public pressure on employers and threats to defund institutions," they add.
While Reuters notes that "Americans sometimes lose their jobs after speaking out in heated political moments," the post-Kirk situation was different "because of its reach and its public backing from Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other top government officials."
"It represents a striking about-face for Republicans, who for years castigated the left for what they called 'cancel culture' – the ostracism or punishment of those whose views were deemed unacceptable," they add.
Vaughn is challenging her dismissal in a federal lawsuit filed September 18, seeking reinstatement, they write, but the school district maintains that her post “appeared to endorse Mr. Kirk’s murder or indicate that it was ‘worth’ him losing his life to protect Americans’ constitutional rights.”
Like Vaughn, Julie Strebe, a sheriff’s deputy in Salem, Missouri, lost her job after posting comments on Facebook about the shooting, including, “Empathy is not owed to oppressors.'
"She said her bosses were besieged with calls for her dismissal and that, at one point, a hand-drawn sign appeared across from her home reading, 'Julie Strebe Supports the Assassination of Charles Kirk,'" and has since had to install five surveillance cameras at her house to protect herself.
Reuters notes that "many Republican officials have embraced the punitive campaign," proposing "extraordinary measures," from lifetime social media bans to revoking visas over those they deem to have reveled in Kirk's death.
"Some academics compared the backlash to the 'Red Scare,' the anti-Communist purge that peaked in the 1950s, when officials, labor leaders and Hollywood figures were accused of Communist ties," Reuters notes.
Landon Storrs, a University of Iowa history professor, agrees, saying, "there are very disturbing parallels."
Even Trump loyalist Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says it has gone too far, warning on his podcast that letting government decide “what speech we like and what we don’t” sets a dangerous precedent. Silencing voices like Jimmy Kimmel's might feel good, he said, but “when it’s used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.” BC DEMS GUBMINT EVIL SO THEY WILL USE PWR WE GIVE THEM FOR EVIL, AND WE ARE ALREADY PERSUCUTED VICTIMS OF BIG TECH WOKISM
Far right social media influencers like the X account Libs of TikTokstarted the revenge campaign almost immediately following Kirk's death, Reuters says.
"In the week after the shooting, Libs of TikTok shared the names and profiles of at least 134 people accused of celebrating violence or mocking Kirk’s memory, frequently tagging Trump administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. At times, the influencer posted disciplinary actions taken against specific government employees," they write.
The people Reuters has identified may not be accurate, they say, noting that "the tally of more than 600 people punished for criticizing Kirk is likely an undercount. Many companies and government organizations haven’t publicly disclosed terminations or suspensions."
The fallout has led to many peoples' silence, they report, saying, "The retaliation has silenced many voices. Scores of people who posted anti-Kirk comments have since scrubbed or locked their accounts, Reuters found. Others said in interviews that they are pushing back."
One of those, Kimberly Hunt, an HR worker in Arizona who was fired for her Kirk comments, is doing just that.
Hunt says she has raised more than $88,000 from a GoFundMe campaign titled, “Doxxed, Fired, but Not Silenced," saying she wants to use the money to further her education, become a content creator, and keep calling out people like Kirk.
“It’s definitely just emboldened me,” she says.
Not so for Florida Atlantic University associate professor Karen Leader, who was placed on administrative leave for her comments after a former staffer of Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) shared screenshots of her posts and tagged her employer.
“Whether my career is over or not, I don’t know,” Leader says. “But my life has changed.”
ref
REUTERS
Screen capture of Jimmy Kimmel after returning to television on September 23, 2025
‘MASSIVE PURGE OF THESE EVIL PSYCHOS’
The campaign to punish Kirk’s critics began almost immediately.
About 30 minutes after Trump’s announcement that Kirk had died, right-wing influencers mobilized. Among the first was Chaya Raichik, operator of the widely followed Libs of TikTok account, which had posted on X, “THIS IS WAR,” before highlighting a Massachusetts teacher who had written: “Just a reminder, We’re NOT offering sympathy.”
By night’s end, Libs of TikTok had published or reposted the professional details of 37 individuals, often accompanied by commentary such as “absolutely vile,” “Your tax dollars pay her salary,” or “Would you want him teaching your kids?”
“It’s actually terrifying how many of them are teachers, doctors and military members,” Libs of TikTok wrote the next day. “We need a massive purge of these evil psychos who want to kiII all of us for simply having opposing political views.”
In the week after the shooting, Libs of TikTok shared the names and profiles of at least 134 people accused of celebrating violence or mocking Kirk’s memory, frequently tagging Trump administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. At times, the influencer posted disciplinary actions taken against specific government employees.
Screenshot of the Libs of TikTok X account on September 10, 2025
“BREAKING: This marine was fired,” Libs of TikTok posted on September 12, a day after calling out a Marine Corps captain. The officer had responded to Kirk’s death by posting an emoji of clinking beer mugs, according to a screenshot the influencer shared with followers. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the beer-mug post; the captain declined to comment. Libs of TikTok also reported similar disciplinary actions involving an Army Reserve officer and an Army colonel who had commented on the death on social media.
The Pentagon and the Justice Department issued statements condemning celebrations of Kirk’s death but did not address questions about their relationship with Libs of TikTok.
Right-wing influencer Scott Presler began posting screenshots of Kirk commentary, too.
“Take a screenshot of EVERY single person celebrating today,” he told his followers on September 10. “You bet your behind we will make them infamous.” Over the next week, Presler shared posts on X about 70 people who had commented on the killing, and wrote in one message: “Almost every person we’ve posted about – who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination – has been fired.” Presler didn’t respond to requests for comment.
For many on the right, outraged by celebratory reactions from the left, the wave of firings became a form of catharsis.
“It’s good that they are shamed and humiliated and must live with the repercussions for the rest of their lives,” right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh told his audience as he discussed the firings. “It’s good if they wake up every day until they die wishing they had not said what they said.” Asked for comment, Walsh emailed back: “f**k off.”
...
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On December 29, police descended on the home of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows after receiving a hoax emergency call. The apparent “swatting” — a practice that uses phony emergency calls as a harassment tool — came just a day after social media users, including a local right-wing activist, shared Bellows’ home address and claimed that she “needs to be dealt with” and threatened to “keep her up all night.”
The threats followed Bellows’ December 28 decision to bar former President Donald Trump from Maine’s presidential primary ballot because of his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection. (Trump has since appealed the decision.)
Within hours of the announcement, users on various social media platforms — including Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) — began sharing Bellows’ home address. The next night, police showed up at Bellows’ home after receiving a phony emergency call — a harassment tool that has led to at least one fatal police shooting.
One of the first social media users to share Bellows’ address was a local right-wing activist named Shawn McBreairty. On X, McBreairty accused Bellows of “attempting to devolve our Constitutional Republic into a banana republic” by barring Trump from the state’s primary ballot before posting Bellows’ home address.
In 2021, McBreairty became a right-wing media darling and appeared on Fox News multiple times to discuss his fight against what he called “indoctrination” in local schools and his ban from school board meetings of a Maine school district for reading explicit material at a meeting. (McBreairty has been involved in lawsuits with at least two different Maine school districts.)
Several other X users also posted Bellows’ address on the platform.
Users on Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta, also shared Bellows’ address. One Facebook user repeatedly posted Bellows’ address, along with photos allegedly showing the home, to a pro-Trump Facebook group with nearly 150,000 members. The user, who said the address had been “data mined,” called on other users to “Go PROTEST and keep her up all night” and argued that Bellows “needs to be dealt with.”
Far-right message board users also shared Bellows’ address and made violent threats against her. One 4chan user called for Bellows “to be shot.” (Some posts alleged that Bellows had shared her own address on Instagram.)
Bellows’ apparent “swatting” is another instance of social media activity and threats leading to real-world harms.
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Trump-allied group wants J6 committee staffers blacklisted - POLITICO
2/23/2023
A conservative non-profit group allied with former President Donald Trump urged “Hill staffers and their colleagues” to cut off meetings with any former Jan. 6 committee staffers who have since joined firms that lobby.
In a letter sent to hundreds of recipients on the Hill, the dark money group American Accountability Foundation listed the names of the former committee staffers and their titles — along with their new employers and links to their firms’ clients — all of whom they urged to blacklist.
“AAF has put together a cheat-sheet below outlining their new firms and the firm’s clients so you can be sure you (and your staff) aren’t inadvertently taking a meeting with a company that hires staff that hates your boss,” says the memo sent by Thomas Jones, the group’s president and founder. In his letter, Jones noted recent reporting by POLITICO on the January 6 committee staffers being hired by law and lobbying shops.
“It is important to remember that even if one of these former J6 investigators is not listed as a lobbyist on this specific account, the billings brought in by the clients listed below benefit all staff at the J6 investigator’s new firm,” he added.
It remains to be seen how effective the gambit will be, as the letter was sent only this past Wednesday. K Street firms have a major presence on Capitol Hill and their hires include figures on all sides of the political spectrum. But the group’s play illustrates the intense desire that exists among some conservatives to exact political retribution for those staffers who helped unearth extraordinary evidence of Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.
Jones confirmed the authenticity of the memo in an email to POLITICO. He railed against the January 6 committee’s use of investigative power, claiming that the committee and the F.B.I. forced some to “spend tens — sometimes hundreds — of thousands of dollars defending themselves from an overreaching and weaponized government.” He argued that conservatives should not be taking meetings with these lobbyists’ clients.
“My email was just a short list of people and companies they should stop working with,” he said.
“Until conservatives are willing to fight back against the swamp — in this case cutting off the lifeblood of lobbyist access — the swamp will never be drained,” he contended.
:{:{Among those listed on the memo include Casey Lucier, former investigative counsel for the committee, who was hired at McGuireWoods, a firm that represents Hertz Global, Perdue Foods, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and others.}:
:{:{Other names listed were Kevin Elliker, another former investigative counsel, who was hired by Hunton Andrews Kurth. That firm represents Koch Companies Public Sector, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, and Southern Company Services.}:
Former committee staffers Marcus Childress, Heather Connelly, and Michelle Kallen had all been hired by Jenner & Block, the email noted, which represents T-Mobile and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
In his message, Jones also noted that the memo’s recipients were free to send over additional names.
Led by Jones, an alumnus of Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Tex.) presidential campaign, and Matt Buckham, a veteran of the Trump White House, the American Accountability Foundation has taken on controversial tactics to undermine Biden’s nominees. The New Yorker reported links between the American Accountability Foundation and the Conservative Partnership Institute, which has been affiliated with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorney Cleta Mitchell. Notably, Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger works for McGuireWoods, one of the firms listed in the memo.
- FILED UNDER:
- DONALD TRUMP,
- DONALD TRUMP 2024,
- TED CRUZ,
- K STREET,
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mirror // anti-commie cold war BS
6 22 rww
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/whatever-it-takes-john-guandolo-trains-right-wing-activists-to-ruin-the-lives-of-anyone-opposing-their-agenda/
john Guandolo is right-wing conspiracy theorist and anti-Islam activist so radical that in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, he praised insurrectionists for showing restraint by not publicly executing lawmakers, most of whom he claimed are “traitors” who should be “swinging from a rope.”
Now Guandolo is holding trainings for right-wing activists across the country to teach them how to identify the “bad guys, “enemies,” and “communists” in their local communities, flush them out, and throw them in jail, if necessary. During an appearance on “The Amber May Show” last Wednesday, Guandolo—a disgraced former FBI agent who now runs an organization called Understanding The Threat—revealed more about the content of these training sessions.
For a mere $15,000, Guandolo explained how he teaches activists to not only identify and remove “hostile operators” from the local government, but also to “publicly humiliate” anyone who opposes their efforts, get them “fired from their jobs,” and force them “to move out of the community.”...
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an 6 22 pro publ
The dummied-up flyer bore the hallmarks of a real WANTED poster. A grainy photo of a woman outside an election office in the suburbs of Atlanta stamped with the word “WANTED.” An image of a sheriff’s badge and the phone number for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office. The implication was clear: The woman was being sought by the local sheriff for voter fraud.
The flyer was fake, and though the sheriff’s office eventually called it out, the false poster went viral, amassing tens of thousands of shares, views and threatening comments on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok and raising fears that harm could come to the unidentified woman.
Stolen-election activists and supporters of former President Donald Trump have embraced a new tactic in their ongoing campaign to unearth supposed proof of fraud in the 2020 presidential race: chasing down a fictional breed of fraudster known as a “ballot mule” and using social media to do it.
Inspired by a conservative documentary film that has won praise from Trump and his allies — and debunking from critics including former Attorney General William Barr — self-styled citizen sleuths are posting and sharing photos of unnamed individuals and accusing them of election crimes. They are calling on their followers to help identify these “ballot mules,” who are accused of having violated laws against dropping off multiple absentee ballots during the 2020 election. A state lawmaker in Arizona has even encouraged people to act as “vigilantes” and catch future “mules.”
Promoting such false information violates the policies of Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. Facebook’s “Community Standards” says its policy is to remove content that incites harassment or violence or impersonates government officials. Twitter and TikTok have similar rules and guidelines for what can and can’t appear on their platforms.
ProPublica identified at least a dozen additional posts on Twitter, Facebook and TikTok that accuse unnamed individuals of being “ballot mules” and engaging in allegedly illegal activity. Some of these posts echo the “WANTED”-style language seen in the Gwinnett County meme, while others include similar calls to action to identify the individuals.
None of the posts reviewed by ProPublica include evidence that any of the people depicted in the posters engaged in illegal activity. Yet the social media companies have reacted slowly or not at all to such posts, some of which clearly violate their policies, experts say.
Disinformation researchers from the nonpartisan clean-government nonprofitCommon Causealerted Facebook and Twitter that the platforms were allowing users to post such incendiary claims in May. Not only did the claims lack evidence that crimes had been committed, but experts worry that poll workers, volunteers and regular voters could face unwarranted harassment or physical harm if they are wrongfully accused of illegal election activity.
So far, there is no sign that any of the people depicted have been identified or suffered any threats.
Emma Steiner, a disinformation analyst with Common Cause who sent warnings to the social-media companies, says the lack of action suggests that tech companies relaxed their efforts to police election-related threats ahead of the 2022 midterms.
“This is the new playbook, and I’m worried that platforms are not prepared to deal with this tactic that encourages dangerous behavior,” Steiner said.
Spokespeople for Facebook and TikTok said they would remove posts flagged by ProPublica for violating their respective community standards policies. A Twitter spokesperson did not comment.
Thirty-one states allow a third party to collect and return an absentee ormail-in balloton behalf of another voter. These laws help voters who are disabled or infirm, live in spread-out rural areas or reside on tribal lands with limited access to polling places or ballot drop boxes. In states with a history of absentee voting, both Democratic and Republican operatives have engaged in organized ballot-collection drives.
Critics, labeling the practice “ballot harvesting,” have sought to restrict its use, warning about the potential for fraud. However, incidents of proven fraud related to ballot collection are extremely rare. A database maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation identifies just 238 cases of “fraudulent use of absentee ballots” since 1988. One high-profile case of fraud involving absentee ballots occurred in a 2018 North Carolina congressional race. A Republican operativeengaged in a ballot-tampering scheme involving hundreds of ballots. The state election board later threw out the election result and ordered a redo. It was likely the first federal election overturned due to fraud, according to historians and election-law experts.
The phrases “ballot mules” and “ballot trafficking” — with their intentional echoes of the language of drugs and cartels — started to gain traction online in 2021, according to Mike Caulfield, a misinformation researcher at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. An analysis by Caulfield and his colleagues found that prominent Republicans including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel invoked “ballot trafficking” last spring.
But it wasn’t until conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza and a discredited conservative group called True the Vote last fall began to tease findings that would later appear in D’Souza’s movie “2000 Mules” that uses of “ballot trafficking” and “ballot mules” shot up, according to Caulfield’s research.
The “2000 Mules” film claims that a network of thousands of people illegally stuffed ballot boxes in swing states to steal the presidency for Joe Biden. It draws heavily on the work of True the Vote, which purported to use surveillance footage and geolocation data to make its claims of illegal ballot activity.
Numerous fact-checks of the film have cast serious doubt over its central premise. In a deposition with the Jan. 6 select committee, Barr said he found the conclusions of “2000 Mules” far from convincing. “My opinion then and my opinion now,” he said, “is that the election was not stolen by fraud, and I haven’t seen anything since the election that changes my mind on that, including the ‘2000 Mules’ movie.”
D’Souza and True the Vote did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite its flimsy conclusions, “2000 Mules” found an enthusiastic audience in Trump and his supporters. In early May, Trump screened the film at his Mar-a-Lago private club. The film has since earned nearly $1.5 million at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo. In a recent 12-page letter responding to the public hearings organized by the Jan. 6 select committee, Trump cited “2000 Mules” nearly 20 times.
As the film’s dubious claims have spread online, stolen-election activists are creating and sharing online content purporting to reveal more “mules” and accusing those individuals of illegal behavior without actual evidence of wrongdoing.
The most striking example is the meme that depicts an older white woman leaving a ballot drop box in Georgia’s suburban Gwinnett County. The word “WANTED” appears above her head as does the image of a sheriff’s badge labeled “Gwinnett County” and the sheriff office’s phone number.
“Ballot mule,” the meme says. “If you can ID her, call Gwinnett Co. sheriff’s office.”
A spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office says the meme is fake. The sheriff’s office hasn’t received calls purporting to identify the woman. The spokeswoman said that the office was investigating who created the meme.
ProPublica was unable to identify the woman in the “WANTED” meme. A spokesman for the Gwinnett County elections office confirmed that the name tag worn by the woman in the meme matched those worn by county election workers in 2020. He also verified that the drop box in the video was located outside of the county’s election headquarters.
The origins of the woman’s photo in the “WANTED” meme appear to point back to a Georgia businessman and self-described election-fraud investigator named David Cross.
For months Cross has posted short clips of surveillance footage showing people depositing ballots at drop boxes in Gwinnett County. Cross sometimes narrates these videos and makes unverified accusations of illegal ballot harvesting. In a clip that Cross posted online on May 3, an older white woman — the same woman in the “WANTED” meme — deposits multiple ballots into the drop box outside the headquarters for Gwinnett County’s elections office. In his narration, Cross accuses the woman of depositing as many as 35 ballots, though it’s not at all clear from the video exactly how many ballots the woman deposited. “Totally illegal,” he says in the video. (Cross did not respond to requests for comment.)
Georgia law prohibits many third parties from submitting a ballot that’s not their own. However, the law makes exceptions for caregivers for the elderly and the disabled, immediate family members, members of the same household, in-laws, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and more.
Cross, the Georgia activist, has filed complaints with the State Election Board and secretary of state’s office alleging illegal ballot deliveries and citing his surveillance footage clips. Last month, the State Election Board dismissed three complaints alleging “ballot harvesting” after an investigation by the secretary of state’s office found that the alleged “mules” were voters dropping off ballots for themselves and family members.
A spokesman for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told ProPublica that the office has a pending investigation into the woman in the “WANTED” meme. The spokesman, Walter Jones, stressed that no one should assume that an individual shown in a video delivering multiple ballots is automatically guilty of a crime, nor would the ballots in question be invalidated even if someone had violated the state’s ballot-collection law.
The video published by Cross of the woman at the Gwinnett County drop box spread rapidly online. Twitter users accused the woman of being one of the “2000 mules” and urged their followers to “MAKE HER FAMOUS!” — in other words, reveal her identity and share it widely.
One Twitter user shared the woman’s image with the “WANTED” text and the fake Gwinnett County sheriff’s badge. “Once we find out who paid these people the whole story will become clear,” the account wrote. That tweet amassed more than 9,000 retweets and more than 14,000 likes before Twitter removed it.
The “WANTED” post spread across Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. A Facebook group called “Celebrities for Trump” shared it. “We need more if [sic] these,” the post said, referring to the WANTED sign. “Keep your eyes open. Report them all it is a crime.”
Several days after the “WANTED” flyer surfaced and reached a large audience, the Gwinnett County sheriff stated that the post was “false.” Yet despite the post impersonating a law-enforcement agency, social-media companies have been slow to remove it.
While Twitter removed dozens of posts with the “WANTED” sign, ProPublica was able to find instances of it still on the platform.
Disinformation researchers tell ProPublica that they also identified posts accusing people of being ballot mules in other states with laws that restrict third parties from submitting people’s ballots. “Mule right here in PA,” one TikTok post read. “Make this Upper Dublin resident famous #2000Mules #2000MulesDocumentary #2000MulesTheMovie.”
In Arizona, a Republican state senator named Kelly Townsend has encouraged people to camp out at ballot drop boxes and write down license plate numbers of people deemed to be suspicious. “I have been so pleased to hear of all you vigilantes that want to camp out at these drop boxes,” Townsend recently said. “So, do it. Do it.”
Even if “2000 Mules” were accurate — which experts stress it almost certainly is not — the ballot-trafficking theory put forward by the film would not change the result of any election. Rick Hasen, a professor and election-law expert at the University of California, Irvine, says he believes the rigged-election message in “2000 Mules” is just the latest attempt to more broadly lay the groundwork for challenging and overturning the outcome of a future election.
“If you believe the last election was stolen, you’re going to be more likely to take steps to steal the next one back,” Hasen said. “It’s pretty obvious that what’s going on here is using false claims of fraud as a potential pretext to engage in election subversion in 2024 or another future election. That’s very dangerous for American democracy.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/anonymous-hack-fascist-internet/
igor salon
The hacktivist collective Anonymous leaked over 150 gigabytes of private data after hacking the web registration company Epik, a popular domain host for far-right groups.
Popular far-right platforms like Parler, Gab and 8chan, as well as far-right extremist groups like the Proud Boys and QAnon, recently migrated to Epik being banned from other platforms following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot for violating policies on hate speech and spreading misinformation. Last week, Anonymous dumped what it said was a "decade's worth" of company data in a torrent file, including passwords, internal emails, home addresses, and phone numbers.
"After years of bolstering the worst trash the Internet has to offer, this is, truly, the Epik moment we've all been waiting for," the group said in a statement it published along with the data dump, which was first reported by independent journalist Steven Monacelli.
"This dataset is all that's needed to trace actual ownership and management of the fascist side of the Internet," the statement said. "Time to find out who in your family secretly ran an Ivermectin horse porn fetish site, disinfo publishing outfit, or yet another Qanon hellhole."
Extremism researchers say the leak is akin to a "Rosetta Stone to the far right" and is helping them find new links among the groups.
"It's massive. It may be the biggest domain-style leak I've seen and, as an extremism researcher, it's certainly the most interesting," Megan Squire, a professor atElon Universitywho studies right-wing extremism, told the Washington Post. "It's an embarrassment of riches — stress on the embarrassment."
Epik drew national headlines earlier this month after offering support to Texas Right to Life, an antiabortion group whose website was removed from GoDaddy because it solicited information on women who solicited abortions in violations of Texas' new near-total ban. But Epik ultimately stopped working with the site because it violated their rules against collecting private information. Epik has in recent years become a safe space for far-right platforms that were booted from major web hosts like Amazon Web Services, though it has tried to take steps to shed some of its most toxic clients, cutting ties with the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer and 8chan.
"The company played such a major role in keeping far-right terrorist cesspools alive," Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which studies online extremism, told the Post. "Without Epik, many extremist communities — from QAnon and white nationalists to accelerationist neo-Nazis — would have had far less oxygen to spread harm, whether that be building toward the Jan. 6 Capitol riots or sowing the misinformation and conspiracy theories chipping away at democracy."
Epik founder Robert Monster has drawn growing criticism for hosting extremist content. Monster has denied holding extremist views but following that Christchurch shooting in New Zealand that killed 50 people, he uploaded links to the shooter's video and published his so-called manifesto. Monster insisted that his employees watch the video, which he claimed was faked, according to Bloomberg News.
Monster acknowledged the hack in an email to customers last week, alerting them of an "alleged security incident."
"You are in our prayers today," he wrote, according to the Post. "When situations arise where individuals might not have honorable intentions, I pray for them. I believe that what theenemy intends for evil, God invariably transforms into good. Blessings to you all."
But the company has come under "ridicule" from researchers who have "marveled at the site's apparent failure to take security precautions," according to the report. None of the files were encrypted, researchers say, including data revealing the administrators of far-right websites and passwords. The hack also exposed personal data from Anonymize, a privacy service the company offered to users that wanted to hide their identity.Previous similar hacks have drawn investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and hefty settlements.
"Given Epik's boasts about security, and the scope of its Web hosting, I would think it would be an FTC target, especially if the company was warned but failed to take protective action," David Vladeck, the former director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau, told the Post. "I would add that the FTC wouldn't care about the content — right wing or left wing; the questions would be the possible magnitude and impact of the breach and the representations … the company may have made about security."
Epik initially said it was unaware of the hack but Monster, on a "rambling three-hour live-stream" last week, acknowledged there was a "hijack of data that should not have been hijacked," according to the report.
"If you have a negative intent to use that data, it's not going to work out for you. I'm just telling you," he said. "If the demon tells you to do it, the demon is not your friend."
But extremism researchers have likened the leak to the "Panama Papers of hate groups," Emma Best, co-founder of the nonprofit whistleblower groupDistributed Denial of Secrets, told the Post.
"A lot of research begins with naming names," she said. "There's a lot of optimism and feeling of being overwhelmed, and people knowing they're in for the long haul with some of this data."
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an 620josh h
...It’s that last part that is so infuriating to the right. Many anti-fascist activists, whether or not they identify as such, do their work from behind a keyboard. They’re basically online sleuths, who scour the fever swamps of the internet, try to identify anonymous members of extremist groups and expose them.
the point is to attach professional and social costs to membership in white supremacist, neo-Nazi and similar organizations. Whenever you read about a cop or schoolteacher being fired or a service member being discharged from the military for being affiliated with far-right groups, or for abhorrent expressions of racism or homophobia or antisemitism, an anti-fascist probably brought those activities to light. (Reasonable people can debate the ethics of “doxxing,” which is a tactic that can be turned against anyone.)
While conservatives are obviously engaging in some ridiculous fear-mongering about hordes of bloodthirsty antifa rioters to delegitimize the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the country and to distract from Trump’s many miserable failures, there’s more to it than that. For years, many on the right–including mainstream conservatives–have embraced the idea that freedom of speech includes the freedom from facing any consequences for offensive speech. The First Amendment, in their formulation, doesn’t just constrain the government from punishing people for expressing their views. It should also prevent people from being fired by their employers, businesses from being boycotted and writers and artists from losing their perches.
Just last week, for example, there was widespread outrage on the right when Andrew Sullivan, who has a long history of offering inflammatory takes on race, revealed that NY Magazinewouldn’t publish a column on the George Floyd protests and that his writings on these issue would receive extra scrutiny by the magazine’s editors going forward. The New York Post was one of many conservative publications to characterize what was a routine editorial decision as “censorship.”
Some antifa activists have committed acts of vandalism and bloodied some noses of far-right goons. They’ve made what many see as tactical errors at times. Most tend to play the media relations game poorly, and some have assaulted the wrong targets.
But they have also decimated the alt-right–the less extreme version of more hardcore fascist groups–by making it hard to be a member without one’s neighbors and employers finding out about it. And that’s what many on the right really find so terrifying.
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