Spectre Unmasked: Racist 'Alt-Right' Podcaster Used To Be Local Reporter

I wanted to believe he wasn't anywhere near that far gone.

He didn't go anywhere. My first interaction in 2004 reminded me of being spat on by the schoolyard bully. The conversation was about the behavior of whites towards american indians.

I greatly respect your reflection here. Let me just add that to my mind, WF was not generally more permissive in those days. It was just more permissive in one direction. A poster who regularly and seriously called for the murder of all Christians, for instance, would not have prospered -- but several posters were doing the same for Muslims. I say 'would not have prospered' and not 'would not have been allowed', because I am not sure the latter would have been true; but it certainly never came up, because of the former. And I share the guilt for that to the extent that I ever influenced opinion on this board: I too was arguing for a 'general freedom of speech' at the time, and not realizing that this effectively excluded many opinions by its blindness to the implicit bias with which those freedoms were used.

Regardless, I still hold that more freedom is better than less freedom. Would it profit anyone to hide what Storm is? Or is it better to have it out in the open for all to see?

It's not the freedom to do so that is the problem. It's that too many people keep quiet when they should be denouncing bullshit. The problem is silent acceptance.

We weren't too silent, it's just that the storm front was too loud. He fucking defined the place.

It's not like he hid it very well in the first place. But most of the board ignored the shit I said, the shit Mewa said, what Vandy said, what Chup said, what Actormike said, what Crosis said, what TKO said, to say nothing of the other posters who walked away in silent disgust. We've lost both Nick and Amaris over this racist shit because neither wants their real life names attached to this shit and I don't blame them.

What some of you call freedom of speech, many saw as harrassment. My God, that shit he spewed at an underaged teen girl is despicable. People wanted Ted Wolf gone for less.

what specific freedom are you protecting here guapa? storm's freedom to post freely?

The freedom of expression. Declaring that someone may not express themself because you find it offensive is a very slippery slope to stand on. Far better to use the disinfectant effect of sunlight and exposure to allow people to show you who and what they really are.

Are you talking about now or then?

If sunlight was the best disinfectant, Trump wouldn’t be President. He got more media coverage than any other candidate in 2016.

Both. More freedom is always better than less.

Trump won in part because of that. All the free "Trump is horrible" press allowed him to more fully connect with his base. As a result, at least for me personally, a few of my "friends" are now known to me to be complete fuckin' idiots.

If we go that way, then EVERYONE on the board would need to denounce that speech. Not just the ones to whom racist and homophobic remarks are directed. Even the bullshit thrown at Tererun.

With storm's exposure as being abusive to talkahuano and on the SPLC hatewatch report you still want to give him a platform?

Funny how your commitment to "freedom of expression" didn't extend to Starguard starting Cleopatra threads in the Red Room, or baba getting a bit too spammy. Those types of expression resulted in bans under your ownership.

But when it's white nationalists sexually harassing minors, suddenly you pretend like you've got principles.

I would not give him a platform. But I would also not deny him one. Remember, when you're abusive to someone in a public space, you are in turn opening yourself to abuse. You counter a bully by beating the shit out of them, not by pretending they don't exist.

How did that work with Storm?

He's gone, isn't he?

^
He is, and so are all the quality posters his joke-y racist routine ran off.

Not due to any pushback from the leadership or membership. He got bored of the place and moved on. Go look at his drop by thread where he was welcomed with open arms (including by me, I have since removed my ‘like’).

It could be argued that this board and others’ embrace of his racist and misogynist ‘trolling’ convinced him that deep down a lot of people agreed with it.

Did we help radicalize him?

He definitely appears to have gone underground, even IRL.

The reporter-y searches I've done on him (which usually yield at least some results) have come up empty.

Disregard.

I just remembered that he went by a pen name with his writing.

Considering white supremacists are now being charged with crimes, I'm not surprised he's gone underground.

He's unpublishable by anything but alt-right sites. Is that what you mean by underground? He didn't go underground, he was no longer desired.

Unless he's paranoid. I'd give that high probability.

Or he's avoiding his wife and/or girlfriend.

I'd go the other way... his cult of personality here entrenched the same Lord of the Flies group mentality that elected Trump. Catchy derogatory nicknames, over the top cartoonish racism, macho posturing, and then just human enough to be relatable.

Putin should hire the guy...

Well, there are various degrees here...

I didn't call this place "Stormfront-lite" for nothing during the Obama years...
The open permitted racism was the reason i hardly posted here for close to a decade...

Thank you. It's genuine, I assure you.

I have a general rule when it comes to free speech. That being, some version of, "How you truly feel about the freedom of speech is reflected in how you treat speech you loathe and abhor."

I unequivocally loathe the words said by and ideas behind White Supremacist persons and causes. My duty is to say that publicly and repeatedly. Do we, as a society, not require all Muslims to publicly prostrate themselves and apologize for the bad acts of terrorists? If that's right and just in some people's minds, then surely the silence of well-meaning white people regarding white supremacists is equally offensive because, at the end of the day, that's what white supremacists and NAZI's are. They're terrorists and they need to be treated as such.

We absolutely provided a safe space to help him develop and practice his routine, and supplied him with a steady group of adoring fanboys to encourage him.

I wouldn't say "publicly prostrate" or even apologize for the bad behavior of others. But, we definitely need to call them out when we see it. Shame them. and let others know that not everyone agrees with or tolerates that.