On Hate-Filled Web Sites, ‘Wake-Up Call’ Gets a Volatile, Divided Reaction

On the Web pages and in the Internet chat rooms that serve as all-night echo chambers for the rants of white supremacists, Buford Furrow’s “wake-up call to America” may not have roused racists quite as passionately as he had hoped.

At WhitePrideNet--a Web site that carries a monolithic black graphic of a steel cross and a fiery quote from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche--a recently added “news flash” was blunt in its response to Furrow’s alleged shooting Tuesday of three children and two staffers at the Granada Hills Jewish community center.

“An act of stupidity carried out by a lunatic,” said the site’s owner.

From the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 through last month’s Midwest killing rampage by white supremacist Benjamin Smith, neo-Nazi and racist computer devotees have used the Internet as an instant sounding board to fawn over and quibble about the murderous acts committed by their brethren.

Their reactions are rarely unified, a fragmentation--as disjointed as the supremacists’ volatile belief systems--evident again in the days since Furrow walked into the FBI’s Las Vegas office to surrender.

“They can’t stop talking about it, but they can’t seem to agree on what it means,” said Jordan Kessler, an Internet monitor for the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith who spent seven hours Friday snooping on hate group Web sites from his New York office. “You hear everything from ‘Buford’s a hero’ to ‘He’s hurt the movement.’ What you don’t hear is any shred of regret, guilt or shame.”

As some skinheads argued in chat rooms this week over whether Furrow was a secret government agent or simply a “punk” who walked “sheepishly into the FBI office UNARMED,” as one anonymous messager complained, more vitriolic extremists were hailing Furrow for purposely targeting innocents.

From his Nationalist Observer Web site, San Diego neo-Nazi militant Alex Curtis beckoned followers to a hotline phone number trumpeting his approval of Furrow’s “lone wolf” tactics.

“This is known as the hit-and-run,” Curtis oozed in faux-radio announcer mode over his hotline, “and will probably become a favorite among Aryan combatants.”

Net Hate Sites Grow Over Time

Internet hate sites have mushroomed from a mere handful four years ago to nearly 245 these days, said Joe Roy, who directs intelligence operations for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a watchdog group that monitors and pursues legal actions against neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan factions.

So-called white pride sites commingle in a thriving Gothic wasteland that mirrors the Internet’s mainstream growth.

On the “Alt.Politics.White-Power” news group, a writer who identified himself as “David Johnson” issued this invective:

“Be afraid, Jewboy, let the executions begin. . . . All Jews in Amerika must leave or die.”

Because news groups are open to anyone, the message was soon answered by a flurry of furious replies. “Yes, and you can keep showing us how ‘superior’ you are by shooting some more grannies and preschoolers,” mocked “anOOnie.” Only one other racist joined in to support Johnson, and he too was quickly overwhelmed by Web “flames.”

At night, however, in the secrecy of more guarded chat rooms on the Internet relay channels, white supremacist sympathizers with pseudonyms such as “Dr. Mengele” and “Arynna” talked openly about their admiration of Furrow--even if some questioned his timing, tactics and targets.

On a “KKK” chat room on the IRC--the Web’s unchaperoned real-time meeting rooms--conversations seethed in arguments and anonymous calls for more violence. Near midnight Thursday, a white supremacist who called himself “Modulus” wondered if “people are starting to wake up,” perhaps prodded by the Granada Hills shootings.

“I guess I’m a pessimist,” replied “DeadNextDoor.” “I only see it martyring the Jews even more.”

A “KKK” site guardian who signed on as “Suriv” warned: “Stop it ‘bout the killing here or be banned.” Even on such free-access sites, it seemed, some extremists worry that heated talk of racist killings might jeopardize their access to the Web.

Despite such cautions, the presence of hate groups on the Internet is unshakable. Kessler laments that obscure klan groups and neo-Nazi sects that once had difficulty paying for newsletters for their sparse memberships can now “beam out their drivel to 100,000,000” Web users.

Still, most watchdog groups caution that racist Web sites have grown no faster than the Internet itself. “It would be a lot scarier if the rest of the Net was growing slowly and these guys were outpacing them,” said Mark Pitcavage, an Ohio hate group watcher who trains law enforcement officials in anti-terrorist tactics.

And while they acknowledge that extremist sites often brim with raw exhortations to commit violence, hate group monitors are reluctant to urge government or private crackdowns by Internet providers. Even racists, they concede, have constitutional rights to free speech.

Internet sources say that FBI agents have monitored chat groups in the past--and some speculate that authorities are prowling hate channels as well.

And as barbed and inflammatory as their Web conversations are, Roy added, hate groups are no stronger than their paltry numbers.

“There’s a lot of anger, sure, and they have to be watched. But most of the time, talk is as far as it goes.”

Braun reported from Washington and Beckham from Chicago.