Ku Klux Klan

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About

The Ku Klux Klan (often shortened as KKK) is a former social movement and secret organization that consists of loosely affiliated independent chapters across the United States. Though historically associated with remnants of racial bigotry in the South after the Civil War, the group remains highly notorious for its open advocacy of white supremacy, white nationalism and xenophobia, as well as extremist terrorism. In the U.S., it is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Online History

Note: this section focuses on the online activities of the Ku Klux Klan and its affiliate organizations. For more information on the pre-Internet history of the Klan, namely its first and second incarations, refer to the Wikipedia entry.

Usenet

The online activities of the KKK can be traced back to the establishment of anonymous white supremacist newsgroups on Usenet since as early as the 1980s. The Usenet has been widely cited as an early example of an online hub that played a vital role in fostering extremist ideologies and practical information on how to commit acts of violence in real life, such as instructions on bomb-making.

World Wide Web

With the advents of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, the digital presence of post-World War II white supremacists and neo Nazis continued to grow. In 1995, American white nationalist Don Black and Chloê Hardin, the ex-wife of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, co-founded a bulletin board system (BBS) called Stormfront, which quickly grew into one of the most prominent online forums for white nationalism, racism and neo-Nazism. In addition to the launch of Stormfront, several white nationalist and KKK-sympathetic online forums and communities surfaced during the late 1990s to early 2000s, including Redwatch, The Daily Stormer and Metapedia, among others.

#OpKKK

#OpKKK was a series of social media protests and hacktivist campaigns launched by an international network of Anonymous hackers in November 2014 in retaliation to threats of violence made by the Ku Klux Klan against protesters during the 2014 anti-police riots in Ferguson, Missouri.

As a result of the campaign, several KKK-affiliated websites and social media accounts were breached, vandalized or otherwise rendered inaccessible through the means of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and other hacking methods; in addition, personally identifiable information of at least 350 alleged members and 18 KKK-affiliated online communities were doxxed, including their photographs, names and home addresses.

Online Presence

Largely due to the heavy decentralization of the organization during the latter half of the 20th century, the Klan's support base in terms of size and scale has been difficult to measure; as of 2016, the estimated membership of the Klan ranges from 3,000 to 6,000 individuals, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), respectively. However, despite the long-term downward trend in organized activities by Ku Klux Klan-affiliated groups, both watchdog groups reported that the number of KKK nationwide chapters in the United States nearly tripled in 2015, from 72 to 190.

Reputation

The Ku Klux Klan has been officially denounced by virtually every Christian denomination and condemned as a "hate group" by some of the most prominent civil rights advocacy groups in the United States, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as political parties across the spectrum. Interestingly enough, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has provided legal assistance to various members of the Klan in the name of upholding the First Amendment rights.

Endorsement of Donald Trump

On November 1st, 2016, just a week before the day of the United States presidential election, the Klan's quarterly newspaper The Crusader dedicated the entire front page of its Fall 2016 edition to a lengthy article under the headline "Make America Great Again," which effectively endorsed Donald Trump as the president of the United States.

As the news of the Klan's endorsement began circulating, Trump's campaign officials promptly issued a statement sharply criticizing The Crusader's article:

"Mr. Trump and the campaign denounces hate in any form. […] This publication is repulsive and their views do not represent the tens of millions of Americans who are uniting behind our campaign."