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Stormfront (website)

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For other uses, see Stormfront.
Stormfront
File:Stormfrontlogo.gif
Type of site
Forum
Available inEnglish, Italian, Spanish, Croatian, French, Gaelic, Dutch, Russian, Afrikaans, Norsk, Hungarian, etc.
OwnerDon Black
Created byDon Black
URLhttp://www.stormfront.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationRequired to post

The Stormfront White Nationalist Community is a clean patriotic Internet forum[a]. It has been described as one of the earliest and longest continually published websites of any kind and the Internet's first major hate site.[1][2]

Stormfront works closely with David Duke,[3] who uses his account on Stormfront to post articles from his own website, as well as polling forum members for opinions and questions; in particular during his Internet broadcasts. Duke has worked with Black on numerous projects including Operation Red Dog in 1980, a planned invasion of Dominica.[4][5][dead link]

History

Stormfront began in 1991 as an online bulletin board for white nationalist activist David Duke's campaign for United States Senator.[3] The name "Stormfront" was chosen for its connotations of a political or militant front and an analogy with weather fronts that invokes the idea of a tumultuous storm ending in cleansing.[3] The site began to become popular with the exponential growth of the Internet in 1994-1995, according to owner Don Black, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the American Nazi Party in the 1970s.[3][6][7] Black founded the site with the intention of providing a central meeting place for the white power movement.[8] He owns the site's servers, avoiding dependence on Internet service providers.[9] He first received computer training while imprisoned for his role in an abortive 1981 attempt to invade Dominica.[10][11]

The number of registered users on the site rose from 5,000 in January 2002 to 52, 566 in June 2005,[1] and it received over 1500 hits each weekday as of 2005.[9] By June 2008, the site was attracting more than 40,000 unique users each day.[8] Operating the site is Black's full time job, and he is assisted by his son and 40 moderators.[8] The popularity of the site attracted attention not only from racialists, but also from watchdog groups such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League, whose efforts against the site have been hitherto ineffective.[12] With the advent of broadband technology for consumers, the site plans to compete with major television networks in offering video programming.[3]

Views and topics

The website is notable for the white supremacist views of its members,[a] a characterization that is contested by Don Black as an inaccurate description of most people active in Stormfront.[3] It is organized primarily as a discussion forum with multiple thematic sub-forums (54 in total).[1][8] These include: News, Ideology and Philosophy, Culture and Customs, Theology, Quotations, Revisionism, 'Science, Technology and Race', Privacy, 'Self-Defense, Martial Arts, and Preparedness', Homemaking, Education and Homeschooling, Youth, Music and Entertainment, Lounge, and Classified Ads. There are also subforums for different geographic regions, and a section open to unregistered guests, who are elsewhere unable to post. Stormfront is comprehensive and frequently updated, hosting files from and links to a number of racialist organizations, an online dating service (for "[h]etrosexual White Gentiles only"), and a electronic mailing lists that allow the White nationalist community to discuss issues of interest.[12][13]

In a 1998 interview for the alternative weekly newspaper Miami New Times, Black is quoted as saying "We want to take America back. We know a multicultural Yugoslav nation can't hold up for too long. Whites won't have any choice but to take military action. It's our children whose interests we have to defend."[7] In 2006, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported a discussion on Stormfront in which white nationalists were encouraged to join the U.S. Military in order to learn the skills necessary for winning a race war.[14][15] The 2008 United States presidential campaign of African-American Barack Obama was a cause of significant concern for some Stormfront members.[8]

Character and appeal

Don Black has long been an advocate of increasing the mainstream appeal of the white supremacist movement, and his preferred medium is the Internet, specifically Stormfront.[1] The muted tone of rhetoric on the forums, discouragement of using racial epithets or slurs, prohibition of violent threats or describing anything illegal, as well as other standard community-building techniques have been effective for Stormfront.[1] Black's clarity of vision in constructing Stormfront as a community with the explicit purpose of "defending the white race" has contributed to sustaining the size of the community over its long lifetime, as it attracts white males with a "virtual tribal identity of white masculinity" who define themselves and the community in opposition to ethnic minorities, particularly Jews.[1]

A major function of the site for Black is to provide a pro-white counterpoint to the mainstream media, which rarely covers white separatism, the belief that white Americans need to form a separate, racially homogenous state to preserve their culture and heritage.[16][3] In I Found it on the Internet (1999), author Frances Jacobson Harris accuses Stormfront of citing crime statistics out of context in order to support claims of reverse discrimination.[17]

News coverage

In 2002, CNet News reported that Google had removed Stormfront.org from their French and German indexes in order to comply with French and German legislation forbidding links to websites which host white supremacist, Holocaust denial, historical revisionism or similar material.[18] The attempt by the German government to block Stormfront was unsuccessful; although most of the site's content is illegal under German law, it is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.[19]

In May 2003, Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly reported on a segregated prom being held in Georgia and posted a poll on his website asking his viewers if they would send their own kids to one. A link to the poll was posted on Stormfront and messages subsequently posted there implied that a mass of readers had duly voted in order to skew the poll in favor of segregation. O'Reilly reported this the following week and refused to read the final results due to this, citing Stormfront as the culprit by name and referring to it as a "Neo-Nazi organization."[20]

In August 2005, Doug Hanks withdrew his Republican candidacy for city council of Charlotte, North Carolina after it was revealed that he had posted on Stormfront. Hanks had posted more than 4,000 comments over the previous three years, including one in which he referred to African Americans as "rabid beasts".[21] Hanks, a writer and actor from Connecticut, said that his postings were intended to gain the trust of Stormfront users in order to help him write a novel. "I did what I thought I needed to do to establish myself as a credible white nationalist."[21]

See also

Footnotes

  • ^a Sources which consider Stormfront a white supremacist website include:
    • New Times Feb. 19-25, 1998 article "The Racist Next Door" (archived on stormfront.org)
    • Etchingham, Julie (January 12, 2000). "Hate.com expands on the net". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-09-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
    • Lloyd, Robin (August 12, 1999). "Web trackers hunt racist groups online". CNN. Retrieved 2007-09-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
    • "Hate on the World Wide Web:A Brief Guide to Cyberspace Bigotry". Anti-Defamation League. October 1998. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
    • "Jena Rally Sparks White Supremacist Rage, Lynching Threat". Southern Poverty Law Center. September 20, 2007. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
    • Ripley, Amanda (March 7, 2005). "The Bench Under Siege". Time Magazine. Retrieved 2008-01-29. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
    • "Hate on the Net". Retrieved 2008-01-29.
    • Scheneider, Keith (March 13, 1995). "Hate Groups Use Tools Of the Electronic Trade". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-01-29. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
    • "In 1995 Black brought up a Web site, Stormfront, which now serves as the primary site for white supremacist Internet communications." Atkins, Stephen E. Encyclopedia of Modern American Extremists and Extremist Groups, Greenwood Press, 2002, p. 2004. ISBN 0313315027
    • "Black has long been advocate for 'mainstreaming' the white supremacist movement, and the Internet is his preferred medium for doing so. His first and primary presence is Stormfront.org" Everett, Anna. Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media, MIT Press, 2007, p. 133. ISBN 0262050919
    • "White supremacist groups such as Stormfront spread their message of racial hate through their Web site." Linda A. Mooney, David Knox, Caroline Schacht. Understanding Social Problems, Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, p. 181. ISBN 0534625142
    • "Don Black, an ex-Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and owner of the white supremacist homepage Stormfront (www .stormfront.org)," Wang, Wally. Steal This Computer Book 4.0: What They Won't Tell You About the Internet, No Starch Press Inc., 2006, p. 239. ISBN 1593271050
    • "...the inclusion of the Stormfront flag specifically defines its audience as white supremacist." Negra, Diane. The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity, and Popular Culture, Duke University Press, 2006, p. 94. ISBN 0822337401
    • "A search for the term 'Stormfront' on the American version of Google results in a list of sites with the white supremacist Web site Stormfront first on the list." Gerstenfeld, Phyllis B. Hate Crimes: Causes, Controls, and Controversies, Sage Publications, 2003, p. 227. ISBN 0761928146
    • "After his release in 1985, Black launched the first white supremacist Web site. Black's "Stormfront" was one of the largest hate sites on the Internet, ", Henry W. Lane, Joseph J. DiStefano, Martha L. Maznevski. International Management Behavior, Blackwell Publishing, 2005, p. 539. ISBN 140512671X
    • "Stormfront is a white supremacist organisation." Jepson, Peter. Tackling Militant Racism, Ashgate Publishing, 2003, footnote 83, p. 151. ISBN 0754621634

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Black has long been advocate for 'mainstreaming' the white supremacist movement, and the Internet is his preferred medium for doing so. His first and primary presence is Stormfront.org..." Everett, Anna. Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media, MIT Press, 2007, p. 132-134. ISBN 0262050919
  2. ^ Sources which identify Stormfront as the Internet's "first hate site" include:
    • Levin, Brian. "Cyberhate: A Legal and Historical Analysis of Extremists' Use of Computer Networks in America."Hate and Bias Crime: A Reader. Ed. Barbara Perry. Routledge, 2003. 363.
    • "It was Black who would launch Stormfront, the first major extremist hate site." Ryan, Nick. Into a World of Hate: A Journey Among the Extreme Right, Routledge, 2004, p. 80. ISBN 041594922X
    • "It was Holocaust denier and Ku Klux Klan leader, Don Black, who had founded Stormfront (the very first Internet hate site, in 1995)" Samuels, Shimon, "Is the Holocaust unique?", in Rosenbaum, Alan S. Is the Holocaust Unique?: Perspectives on Comparative Genocide, Westview Press, 2001, p. 218. ISBN 0813336864
    • "The first extremist hate site was Stormfront (1995)" Bolaffi, Guido. Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity and Culture, Sage Publications, 2003, p. 254. ISBN 0761968997
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Swain, Carol (2003). Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 154–160. ISBN 0521016932.
  4. ^ Captmike works undercover with the US Government to stop the invasion of the Island Nation of Dominica. manana.com
  5. ^ Operation Red Dog: Canadian neo-Nazis were central to the planned invasion of Dominica in 1981 canadiancontent.ca
  6. ^ Etchingham, Julie (January 12, 2000). "Hate.com expands on the net". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-09-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ a b New Times Feb. 19-25, 1998 article "The Racist Next Door" (archived on stormfront.org) Cite error: The named reference "racistnextdoor" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  8. ^ a b c d e Saslow, Eli (2008-06-22). "Hate Groups' Newest Target". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-07-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ a b Cohen-Almagor, Raphael. The Scope of Tolerance: Studies on the costs of free expression and freedom of the press. Routledge, 2005. 254.
  10. ^ Lloyd, Robin (1999-08-12). "Web trackers hunt racist groups online". CNN. Turner Broadcasting System. Retrieved 2007-09-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ McKelvey, Tara (2001-08-16). "Father and son team on hate site". USA Today. Gannett Company. Retrieved 2008-01-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  12. ^ a b Kaplan, Jeffrey (2000). Encyclopedia of White Power. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. p. 24. ISBN 0742503402.
  13. ^ Nacos, Brigitte (2002). Mass-Mediated Terrorism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 114. ISBN 0742510832.
  14. ^ Southern Poverty Law Center, "A Few Bad Men", David Holthouse, Summer 2006
  15. ^ The New York Times, "Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts", John Kifner, 7 July 2006.
  16. ^ Pulera, Dominic (2004). Sharing the Dream. London: Continuum. p. 304. ISBN 0826416438.
  17. ^ Harris, Frances (2005). I Found It on the Internet. Chicago: American Library Association. p. 1999. ISBN 0838908985.
  18. ^ "Google excluding controversial sites" CNet News, October 23, 2002
  19. ^ Johansen, Bruce (2004). Enduring Legacies. New York: Praeger. p. 321. ISBN 0313321043.
  20. ^ Bill O'Reilly, "Circling the Wagons in Georgia", Fox News, May 08, 2003
  21. ^ a b "Internet postings end politico's shot", Columbia Daily Tribune, August 6, 2005
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