Stormfront (website): Difference between revisions

For other uses, see Stormfront

Stormfront White Nationalist Community is the most widely accessed white nationalist, white pride, and white supremacist forum on the Internet. Its motto is "White Pride World Wide". The site owner refers to Stormfront strictly as a white nationalist website. Its critics and the media, however, often describe it as a Neo-Nazi organisation and accuse it of promoting racism and hate speech. Many of the users in the forum also openly describe themselves as Neo-Nazis. ^{[1][2] [3][4][5]} Stormfront is widely criticized for its Neo-Nazi content, and opponents of the site accuse it of serving as a forum for the advocacy of violence. It has been listed^[6] as a hate site, and a number of internet content filters prevent access to it.^[7]

Although Stormfront claims to prohibit the promotion of illegal activities under United States law, webmaster Don Black has said "We want to take America back. We know a multicultural Yugoslav nation can't hold up for too long. White's won't have any choice but to take military action."^[8]

Stormfront calls itself a "Racialist discussion board for pro-White activists and anyone else interested in White survival". Most of the members of Stormfront say that they are opposed to any form of "race-mixing" between the human races and support various forms of racism. The articles posted there often denounce non-white immigration and strongly advocate such views as white nationalism, white separatism, nazism, anti-Semitism, anti-Arabism and homophobia, and such feelings as white pride.

The Stormfront forum began as a dial-up Bulletin board system in the early 1990s and has been on the Internet since 1995 .^[9] By 1997, Stormfront.org had expanded and began hosting other white nationalist websites.^[10] Stormfront has more than 92,000 registered user accounts as of September 2006,^[11] of which fewer than 24,000 are claimed by Stormfront to be active. ^[12] The webmaster of the site is Don Black, a self-described racialist and former Grand Wizard, or national director, of the Ku Klux Klan.^[13]

Stormfront has a variety of international sections catering to users from Italy, Spain, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Latin America, Netherlands, Baltic & Scandinavia, Serbia, Russia and South Africa. The internal forum activities take place in forums entitled Polls, Poetry, Quotations, Music and Entertainment, Revisionism, Lounge, Classified Ads, eActivism and Stormfront Webmasters, Multimedia, Graphics and Talk. Some form of self-help is given in forums entitled Privacy, Network Security & Encryption, Business and Finance , Self Defense, Martial Arts & Preparedness, Health and Fitness, Homemaking, Education and Homeschooling and Legal Issues.

Stormfront caters to non-Jewish white people of European descent from all across the world, and has sections in various languages, especially Dutch. Posters from the United States are the largest contingent, but other English-speaking countries (the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia) are well-represented, as well as the Netherlands and Flanders. The rest of the posters are from other European countries and Latin America, with a few from South Africa. Prominent posters include or included Vonbluvens, Kevin Alfred Strom, Paul Fromm, David Duke, Jurgen Graf. The website also provides internet radio shows hosted largely by site members.

A section called "Our Legacy of Truth" presents a variety of texts on racist and fascist topics. "1001 Quotes By and About Jews" are presented, as well as text about "Race", "Christian Identity", "Eugenics", "National Socialism" (including various works by Adolf Hitler), and "Viewpoints". Another section called "Text library" presents text on "White nationalist issues", "Affirmative Action and anti-White-bias", "Immigration in America", "Racial Differences", "Revisionism", "National Socialism" and "Zionism & Judaism," as well as other texts.

The creators of Stormfront.org also operate other websites on the Internet, including Martinlutherking.org. The site purports to be an informational resource for students, and others interested in Dr. King's life and works. The material presented is negative in tone. It has pages entitled "Why the King Holiday Should be Repealed!", "Black Invention Myths" and "Bring the dream to your school!". The material provided calls Dr. King "a philanderer, a drunk, a liar, a plagiarist, and a cheater" and "a sexual degenerate, an America-hating Communist, and a criminal betrayer of even the interests of his own people" Stormfront serves as a host to some other white nationalist websites, such as solargeneral.com.

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." ^{[2] [14]}

In August 2005, a candidate for city council of Charlotte, North Carolina dropped out of the race after it was revealed that he had posted on Stormfront. Republican Doug Hanks had posted more than 4,000 times over the previous three years using the name "Snarkie". In one comment he called African-Americans "rabid beasts". 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."^[15]

Stormfront is listed by some hate group watchdog organizations as a white supremacist and hate site, and as a result it's blocked by some Internet filters commonly used in public places.^{[16] [17]} In Germany access to Stormfront is blocked by some ISPs in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.^{[18] [19]} Stormfront also accuses one of the largest American internet providers, AOL, of practicing censorship by blocking its subscribers from accessing Stormfront. Critics accuse Stormfront members of supporting violence, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.

Stormfront and its owner Don Black officially deny any advocacy of Neo-Nazism.^{[citation needed]} Nonetheless, Stormfront is routinely referred to as a Neo-Nazi site. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Stormfront is home to a thriving Neo-Nazi community.^[9] Stormfront has featured the writings of William Pierce, the leader of the Neo-Nazi group National Alliance^[20], and Stormfront administators have censored some posts critical of the National Alliance.^[9] Indeed, Black himself was a member of the American Nazi Party in the 1970s.^[21] Stormfront also hosts a copy of Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf.^[10]

Similarly, Stormfront and its founder vehemently deny any advocacy of violence.^{[citation needed]} Black, on behalf of Stormfront, has signed the New Orleans Protocol, an agreement among White nationalist groups which calls for "zero tolerance for violence". Black discusses his 1987 resignation from the Ku Klux Klan by saying :"I concluded the Klan could never be a viable political movement again. It had a reputation for random and senseless violence which it could never overcome." ^{[citation needed]}

Nonetheless, Black and Stormfront have been accused of advocating the use of violence. In 1981, Black was arrested as he prepared to board a boat stocked with weapons and ammunition to invade Dominica in what he and his accopmplices dubbed Operation Red Dog. Black was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the attempted invasion. Black is a former "Grand Wizard", or national director, of the Ku Klux Klan-- an organization with a long history of violence.

Black and others on Stormfront often envision the possibilty of a future race war, such as the one depict in the novel The Turner Diaries. Such a future race war, and how to best prepare for it, is a frequent topic for discussion on Stormfront. For example, in 2006, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported a discussion on Stormfront which encouraged white nationalists to join the military, in order to learn the skills necessary for winning such a race war. ^{[22] [23]}

As a counter to Stormfront, the anti-racist Web site, Mootstormfront, was founded in February 2006. The site is aimed at being an alternative to the Stormfront forums by providing, according to its motto, "The interface between racism and reality".

• Stormfront home page
• Mootstormfront forum