Members be warned: Neo Nazi infestation on ATS

About 4 months ago, it came to the attention of the staff here at ATS that a popular neo-fascist message board had begun to target other popular message boards that allowed serious political and ideological discussions. A link to abovetopsecret.com appeared on a long list of "target sites". The idea was to infiltrate many popular boards and introduce topics that were the best vehicles for their racist ideology.

For months their plan was known to us and even the different ways that these white supremacists would attempt to work. Once these moles had become respected members, they could then privately approach others who may appear to be sympathetic to their cause and recruit them.

However, no discernable change in the general nature of posts on ATS was seen, so we put it down to a false alarm...that is until recently. Since the new year, we've noticed a distinct rise in topics of a racist nature.

The last week has seen an influx of such posters and the proclamation of their ideals. Although we know many of the people who are involved in this, some still are silent or passive, so not all are working to advance their goals yet. However there are also some members who are NOT involved in this group and are just sympathetic to some of the views aired.

What can we do? If we name and ban these malcontents, then they will return under different aliases or send a fresh infestation from their considerable website.

It appears the best action is education.

Be aware that these people are around. In the last 24 hours there have been numerous threads deleted that proclaim their ideology of hate. More are still here as they haven't broken any Terms and Conditions. Its often the slant on an article rather than explicit.

Please consider closely the agenda of other posters before reacting to their threads. Remember there are now people here for whom hate is an agenda, in many forms. Eventually if members react against the posts the vermin will move on.

This is not a post to warn members not to post their thoughts, but to warn members about the agendas of some other posters. We have a very good idea who these people are and want the board members to continue posting as normal, not to feel that they are going to be labeled "neo nazi".

We'd like to take this opportunity to remind all members here on ATS about a few points in our Terms and Conditions.

2.) You will not behave in an abusive and/or hateful manner, and will not harass, threaten, nor attack anyone.

3.) You will not post links to images or use avatars and signatures that are offensive, abusive, disruptive and/or hateful. You will not use avatars or link to images hosted on domains that contain pornography or illegal content.

9.) You will not advertise or promote other discussion boards or websites on ATS without prior written permission from me (Simon Gray). Your will not choose a username that is the same as website domain, sub domain, or URL for which you are associated. You will not use ATS to bash other boards or engage in so-called "board wars".

12.) You agree not to cultivate the membership of the AboveTopSecret.com discussion boards for the sending of private messages (board U2U or e-mail) for the purposes of marketing, mass mailing, or recruitment for other groups (offline or online) such as activist groups or other online discussion board websites. You will not also seek to rally the membership of the AboveTopSecret.com discussion board for any cause without prior written permission from the site owner.

Lastly, and most important, this is a privately owned discussion board community. The administration and senior moderator staff reserve the right to take action against any member who is deemed to be devoted purely to disruption or whose actions represent behavior contrary to community building.. This action may include complete banning of your username and IP address.

The eyes of staff have been open to this for the last month, now it's time that the eyes of our members should be too.



Edit: Added some links for convienience.

[edit on 28-1-2005 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

It's going on this second. This is not cool.

I've noticed a lot of this too just in the last few days.

Yup, thats what the warning is about.

I note that often they link to libertyforums as the source of their hate, see it for what it is....

So why is it happening? Right now there's a thread asking why jews get so much sympathy. What the heck does that have to do with ATS? What kind of question is that?

Boot those A-holes off

We addressed this topic initially here

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Some of us thought this action was not really the best, but personally it showed them as the cowards they are.

Indeed we can act on threads if people object to them, but we don't want to slide over the line to censorship. We have deleted over6 threads in the last couple of hours (most posted by someone wanting to go out in a blaze of glory, and was banned)

Thank you for handling this in a mature and sensible manner Netchicken.

It should've been handled like this from the beginning.

maybe it's just because of the 60th Anniversary of Auschwitz and the whole harry thing that this is happening?? Jewish conspiracies have been a staple of this board for as long as i've been here...

thanks,
drfunk

What has always impressed me about the membership of ATS was thier ability to see and smell when someone was offering up a load of Crap.

I am not the least bit surprised that none of them took up the offer to stand up. Its been my experience that these guys put up a good show when in a group, but one on one, they are cowards that like the shadows.

I've noticed a lot of this too just in the last few days

I thought I was just being paranoid myself, glad someone else noticed
and I'm not going insane.

What do you do? Ignore them and they will go away, or give them as
much s*** as you can, till they go.

Sad universe we live in.

Its been on longer than that. On their site at the end of last year they started a program of deliberate inflitration of major websites, listing them, and outlined how they were going to act. We were warned then what was going to happen.

Instead of becoming a new member posting crap and getting banned, the stratagy is to come in quietly build a reputaion and then slowly revel their true ideology. This way they hope that the mods would have less power to control them, as they have developed a base of sympathetic niave board members.

Also its not necessarily for them to advertise their site, just push their ideology. We have been waiting for them to emerge from the woodwork, and i think the Holocaust was their trigger, probably because they can't hold back on that topic. We countered their attempts to influence the board earlier by posting the truth about topics such as the holocaust. But now as they push forward so we have to be more overt as well.

If you don't like their slants or agandas then post a refutation of their ideology in the threads. Enough of them will reduce their posts to the drivel it is.

I think it may be worth mentioning that if you receive any u2u’s from someone asking you to join their Neo-Nazi group that you use the button to alert the ATS staff members. Be sure to include the text of the u2u including the name of the person that sent it.

Originally posted by drfunk
maybe it's just because of the 60th Anniversary of Auschwitz and the whole harry thing that this is happening?? Jewish conspiracies have been a staple of this board for as long as i've been here...

thanks,
drfunk

Ya but this time we have direct proof that some of them are being posted by Neo-Nazi's and supporters of whatever ilk. Hate of any form should not be tolerated and I applaud the staff for taking a pro-active approach. I have emailed everyone I know about this as well as a few message boards on the list in question until I was informed that such actions were already taken. These FSer people think they are sneaky but they aren't and hopefully if we shout long and loud enough the media will get a wiff and expose the whole scheme to everyone. You thought the printing press could be a dangerous tool, the internet could be even more so....

And on another note, this is not the only strategy they are using. They are also actively recruiting people online in a game call Counter-Strike. Server name was either [DoD] or [DoH] something like that.

[edit on 28-1-2005 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by Netchicken
About 4 months ago, it came to the attention of the staff here at ATS that a popular neo-fascist message board had begun to target other popular message boards that allowed serious political and ideological discussions. A link to abovetopsecret.com appeared on a long list of "target sites". The idea was to infiltrate many popular boards and introduce topics that were the best vehicles for their racist ideology.


[edit on 28-1-2005 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

I guess my questions are: How did this come to the staff's attention? Who was visiting these sites and why? Is the problem deeper than it appears on the surface?

Maybe I am in just one of those paranoid states, I've been known to do that from time to time.

This site has appeared in an Op/Ed article I believe. Not the first time this neo-nazi "haven" has come to light. Searching for the article now, I believe it was written by Dbates.

Yea, there are some members of LibertyForum that are very racist. But! There are a lot of informative articles on that site. In fact, speaking purely from a political sense, LibertyForum kicks the crap out of ATS.

I'd like to add, what if we don't ban these members and they start posting racist articles and they start linking to ATS on other forums? Are we going to be branded as a racist site as well? Probably so.

[edit on 28-1-2005 by Jamuhn]

Thank you for the heads up, i replied to the Neo-NAZI cult thread about 10 mins ago then stumbled on this thread.
I went back to delete my post but a Mod got there first. Hehe you buggers are quick ill give you that.
Thank you for trashing a potentialy volatile thread. That's what i call good Moderation

Looking back on some threads there has been an up surge of pretty extreme viewpoints lately. Glad you guys are on the ball with this. I just hope this dosent turn into a Witch Hunt though.

[edit on 28-1-2005 by Janus]

I think we should just nip it in the bud before things get to out of hand with them.

Iv forwarded the information about the "people", I use this term loosely, to a few friends, and posted them on a few XMB modifcation boards (where alot of admins for boards frequent) to let everybody know to look out for them. I told them to U2U me for the original link on the "people's" site.

People like these really need to have their heads checked, when will they learn that skin color is not a viable way to judge a person.

We hope that as well Janus. We left that thread for a long time as bait to see who bit. The originator of it was the guy who went nuts and spammed the board before we banend him. We had a bit of bait around over the last few days

Originally posted by Janus
Thank you for the heads up, i replied to the Neo-NAZI cult thread about 10 mins ago then stumbled on this thread.
I went back to delete my post but a Mod got there first. Hehe you buggers are quick ill give you that.
[edit on 28-1-2005 by Janus]