Social media harnessed to expose white nationalists

Associated Press

NEW YORK

One of the social media posts resembled a wanted poster or a missing-persons flier: Photographs of men were arranged in rows, seeking their names and employers.

But the Facebook post wasn’t circulated by law enforcement in the search for a suspect or by relatives looking for a missing loved one. It was an example of ordinary people trying to harness the power of social media to identify and shame the white nationalists who attended last weekend’s violent rally in Charlottesville, Va.

A Twitter account dedicated to calling out racism identified people who attended the rally using photos culled from the news and social media and listed their places of employment and other information. The account with the handle YesYoureRacist was created by Logan Smith of Raleigh, N.C., who said his followers grew from around 64,000 on Saturday to more than 300,000 Monday afternoon.

A website created Sunday dedicated itself to collecting the names, social media profiles, colleges and employers of people photographed at the rally. At least one person has lost his job as a result.

Together, the efforts showed that angry online groups can be used to renounce racism as well as promote it.

THE END OF ANONYMITY?

Nicholas Brody, professor of communications at the University of Puget Sound, said the events show that in the age of social media, “nothing is really anonymous anymore.”

People attending a white supremacist rally decades ago may have had the comfort of knowing that their schools, employers and disapproving family members probably wouldn’t find out about their activity.

These days, not only can information be quickly and widely shared, but a lot of data is available about people on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

COLLEGE STUDENT IS EXPOSED

Peter Cvjetanovic, a 20-year-old college student, was photographed shouting with a group of torch-wielding protesters Friday during a march through the University of Virginia campus.

Thousands of people signed an online petition to have him kicked out of school. Cvjetanovic told a local TV station that he is “not the angry racist they see in that photo,” but a white nationalist who cares for all people.

‘DOXING’

The practice of publishing private or identifying information – such as an address or phone number – about people online in an attempt to hurt, shame or abuse them is known as “doxing.”

In the 1990s, anti-abortion hackers infamously exposed abortion providers’ home addresses, photos and other information on a now-defunct website called the “Nuremberg Files.” Names that were greyed out indicated people who had been “wounded.” A strikethrough meant they had been killed.

Collecting and posting publicly available information, such as a photo of a person attending a public protest, is not the same thing, even if that can still hurt or shame people.