The Forums
Radical-right forums on the Internet, which first appeared in 1996, offer a window into some of the most important ideological and other discussions going on in the racist movement.
While some forums have come and gone, others, like Stormfront and Resistance, are old stalwarts. Numbers of registered users, tabulated for this list in early June 2005, can be deceptive — they grow constantly as new people join up, but also include large numbers of people who no longer participate actively. The dozen radical forums listed represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds that exist.
Aryan Nations
With 869 registered members, this neo-Nazi forum has had relatively light traffic up to now. It is run by a splinter group that broke away from the original, Idaho-based Aryan Nations and is headed by August Kreis of Sebring, Fla. Kreis and another top leader, James Wickstrom, have made much of the idea of neo-Nazi partnerships with Muslim extremists – this site includes an "All Things Islamic" and a members-only "Aryan Jihad" section – against what is seen as a common enemy, the Jews.
Free Your Mind Productions
This forum, run by a new white power music distributor, replaced one owned by now defunct Panzerfaust Records. The new forum was started after Panzerfaust's founder was denounced for being secretly Hispanic. The Panzerfaust site was then hijacked and thousands of posts from Panzerfaust's old message board are now on Free Your Mind. With 4,800 members (counting old Panzerfaust users), this is a relatively busy forum, partly due to a large selection of photos of Skinhead women. It is operated by members of Hammerskin Nation, a violent Skinhead group.
Hammerskin Nation
Started up in late 2002, this forum mostly serves members of the Hammerskins, a particularly violent neo-Nazi Skinhead group. But it's not uncommon to see posts from members of other racist Skinhead groups, including Volksfront and Blood and Honour/Brotherhood 28. The forum's 1,160 members, dominated by members of the Northwest Hammerskins, Confederate Hammerskins and Midland Hammerskins, share talk about music, events and ideology, along with a stream of racial jokes.
Konfederation of Klans
This forum, serving the Mississippi White Knights, the United Knights, the Empire Knights and a few other Klan groupings, was originally started in 2002. But it was shut down in fall 2004, when it had 151 members, and only restarted in April 2005, beginning with a mere eight members. The forum is run by Ralph Viola, also known as Rob Vitter, the imperial wizard of the Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Resistance
Organized by the Resistance Records white power music label of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, this forum was once one of the most important on the radical right, with 3,727 generally very active members. But it lately has been confined to the dwindling number of neo-Nazis who still support the Alliance. As a result – and because forum messages are often censored by its moderators – those who post here are staunch defenders of the Alliance. Some, in fact, have recently posting the closely guarded real names of Alliance defectors.
Skinhead Forum
With 1,154 registered members, this forum is run by Richard Barrett, who leads a racist group called the Nationalist Movement out of Learned, Miss. Barrett, who is often critical of the violence advocated by other radical right groups, is not taken seriously by many in the movement. As a result, despite a total of 4,100 postings over several years, the Skinhead Forum is seen as relatively unimportant.
Stormfront
Appearing in early 1995, the Stormfront site was the first major Internet hate site; its forum, inaugurated in late 1996, was one of the first of its kind. Run by Don Black, a former Klan leader under David Duke, Stormfront is the leading radical-right forum on the Web (see story, p. 50), with an astounding 52,566 members. Although its moderators have censored some posts critical of the National Alliance, it generally has been relatively non-sectarian. Stormfront has been more successful in creating a sense of virtual community than any other radical-right forum on the Web.
Tightrope
Administered by former National Alliance staffer Bryant Cecchini, alias Byron Calvert, Tightrope has 857 members and has been very popular at times. It features threads about politics, history, crime, and education, but also includes a whole variety of commentaries about various sports and leisure activities. The site of which the forum is a part also has photographs, music, jokes and products for sale.
White Power Forum
This forum, with 1,630 registered members, is not connected to any particular group but attracts mostly racist Skinheads and other neo-Nazis. It is clearly not one of the more popular forums, although it has sections for music, events and activism.
White Revolution Forum 14
This online neo-Nazi community is mostly peopled by supporters of White Revolution, a group headed by Arkansan Billy Roper, a former official of the National Alliance who was ejected from that group in 2002. Although the forum, moderated by Roper and Tom Martin of West Virginia, has only 748 members, they are active, posting a total of 14,403 messages since the forum was started.
Vanguard News Network
Similar in many respects to Stormfront, this forum has sections on news, events, movies, family issues, and other matters. In the last year or so, it has become a gathering place for critics of the National Alliance, particularly when they were being censored in the Resistance and Stormfront forums. The site was created in 2003 by Alex Linder, and now boasts 3,287 registered users. VNN has fallen into disrepute because of Linder's recent partnership in the forum with Glenn Miller, a formerly important racist leader who testified against erstwhile comrades.
Volksfront Bulletin Board
Most of this forum's 354 registered members are supporters of Volksfront, a neo-Nazi Skinhead group based in Portland, Ore., and run by long-time white supremacist Randall Krager. But the forum also allows members of other groups to join, so it's common to find postings from members of the Creativity Movement, Hammerskin Nation and other groups, including a sprinkling of European neo-Nazi outfits. The message board also serves as the forum for Blood and Honour USA, a Skinhead group.
