Stormfront (website)

For other uses, see Stormfront.

File:Stormfront White Nationalist Logo.jpg

Stormfront logo displaying motto and a variation of the Sun cross.

Stormfront is a forum. The site owner refers to Stormfront strictly as a white nationalist website. However, critics often label it as Neo-Nazi and accuse it of promoting racism.. It began as a dial-up Bulletin board system in the early 1990s and has been on the Internet since 1995. By 1997, Stormfront.org had expanded and began hosting other white nationalist websites. Permitted content covers a broad range of racialist, racist, and far right beliefs, including extreme forms such as the belief in global segregation. Stormfront claims to prohibit promotion of activities illegal under the US law. Stormfront has been listed as a hate site, and a number of internet content filters prevent access to it for that reason.

Permitted content includes discussion of activity including ethnic cleansing, including a thread featuring a link to a book titled "Ethnic Cleansing Operations" followed by discussion such as strategic deployment of troops for cleansing of a recently captured village . The legal definition of "genocide" under US and international law includes killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to a group with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. .

Stormfront had more than 92,000 registered user accounts as of September 2006, with fewer than 24,000 being classified as active (an active user account is defined as an account that is not banned and has been logged into within the past 180 days). Many registered user accounts are those of posters expressing opposing views.

The webmaster of the site is Don Black, a self-described racialist and former Grand Wizard, or national director, of the Ku Klux Klan.

Forums

Active forum threads address such topics as pro-ethnic cleansing , Holocaust Denial featuring a 'stickied' thread titled "The Holohoax Thread" , Civil War II strategies and tactics , pro-Nazism , strategies for securing a White homeland including relocating to a state and seceding from the United States , "Self Defense, Martial Arts & Preparedness" , featuring 'stickied' threads titled "What to do (or not do) when the FEDS knock!"; and "Strategy and Tactics". The website also features a Youth forum, featuring a 'stickied' thread featuring an essay that makes a case for an anti-government revolution titled "Why Revolution?"

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, 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.

Members

Stormfront calls itself a "Racialist discussion board for pro-White activists and anyone else interested in White survival" The articles posted there often denounce non-white immigration and strongly advocate such views as white nationalism, white supremacy, white separatism, anti-Semitism, anti-Arabism, and homophobia and such feelings as white pride. Active forum threads address such topics as ethnic cleansing (including positive references to) , Holocaust denial , Civil War II strategies and tactics advocacy, as well as critique, of Nazism , and strategies for securing a White homeland including relocating to a state and seceding from the United States .

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..

Hosted Material

A section called "Our Legacy of Truth" presents a variety of texts on rascist 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".

Controversies and criticism

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".

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."

Stormfront is listed by some hate group watchdog organizations as a white supremacist and hate site, as a result it's blocked by some Internet filters commonly used in public places. In Germany access to Stormfront is blocked by some ISPs in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia . Stormfront also accuses one of the largest American internet providers, AOL, of practicing censorship by blocking its subscribers from accessing Stormfront.

Critics of Stormfront accuse its members of supporting violence, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. .

Reaction

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

Extension of views

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" . Under the headline "Jews & Civil Rights - Who Led The Civil Rights Movement" an excerpt of David Dukes autobiography is reproduced, describing the civil rights movement as furthering "the Jewish right to rule us culturally, spiritually, and politically" and being essentially "white participants, like the Blacks themselves, [...] manipulated in the much bigger contest of the Jewish struggle for power."

Stormfront serves as a host to some other white nationalist websites, such as solargeneral.com .

External links

• Stormfront home page
• Ongoing effort to write the manifesto of White nationalism as endorsed by Stormfront
• Santa Cruz Sentinel: Hate groups thrive in cyberspace
• Anti-Defamation League site on Stormfront and founder Don Black
• "Electronic Storm", SPLC Intelligence Report on Stormfront
• martinlutherking.org