Tracking White Nationalists
As the media hype behind the radicalization of domestic terrorists begins to die down, we must be vigilant and maintain focus on their tactics and their propaganda machine. While 8Chan may have disappeared (for now), they have many more sandboxes to play in and recruit young Americans as they continue their hateful rhetoric and calls to action.
As most of America celebrates the shut-down of 8Chan, far-right extremists remain very active online. Losing a single imageboard website is a mere bump in the road for them. It certainly hasn’t slowed them down as they continue to operate on the overabundance of anonymous websites.
For now, their main focus has shifted. The top-ranked discussions on the message boards at Stormfront were focused on concealing identities while on the web. Andrew Anglin, of the Daily Stormer, put out a call for websites who promote hate to begin hosting their websites on the dark web - but voiced some concerns about readership. In other words, they want to try and hide but they know that doing so will stifle their recruitment numbers, drastically limit their reach, and cut into their funding.
National security experts have recently expressed similar concerns about publicly exposing online domestic terrorist networks. Many argue the unwanted attention will drive them into dark corners of the internet. While that may be the…
