Hate groupAtomwaffen, extremist group whose members have been charged in five murders, loses some of its platforms

By A. C. Thompson and Ali Winston

Published 6 March 2018

At least four technology companies have taken steps to bar Atomwaffen Division, a violent neo-Nazi organization, from using their online services and platforms to spread its message or fund its operations. The action comes after ProPublica reports detailing the organization’s terrorist ambitions and revealing that the California man charged with murdering Blaze Bernstein, a 19-year-old college student found buried in an Orange County park earlier this year, was an Atomwaffen member.

At least four technology companies have taken steps to bar Atomwaffen Division, a violent neo-Nazi organization, from using their online services and platforms to spread its message or fund its operations.

The action comes after ProPublica reports detailing the organization’s terrorist ambitions and revealing that the California man charged with murdering Blaze Bernstein, a 19-year-old college student found buried in an Orange County park earlier this year, was an Atomwaffen member.

Activists and journalists with other media outlets have criticized the tech firms — among them chat services, web merchants, social media channels and gaming platforms — for enabling the outfit, which has members in 23 states and Canada, records show.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happened since ProPublica reported on 23 February that chat logs used by Atomwaffen showed members celebrating Bernstein’s murder. Bernstein was gay and Jewish, and Atomwaffen members took to calling his accused killer, Samuel Woodward, a “one man gay Jew wrecking crew.”

Discord
Discord was designed to allow video gamers to communicate with one another while immersed in multiplayer online games, but over the past year it has been co-opted by white supremacists who have used it to share bomb-making manuals, plot the violent confrontations in Charlottesville, Virginia, and, in the case of Atomwaffen, revel in the killing of Bernstein.

Scattered across the country, Atomwaffen members relied on Discord to disseminate confidential information and make organizational plans. 

After ProPublica obtained more than 250,000 Discord messages posted by Atomwaffen members and reprinted excerpts of those messages as part of our 23 Feb article, Discord quickly shut down the group’s server.

Discord’s terms of service “specifically prohibit harassment, threatening messages, or calls to violence,” the company said in an emailed statement to ProPublica. “There were a handful of servers that violated these ToS recently and were swiftly removed from the platform. We will continue to be aggressive to ensure that Discord exists for the community we set out to support — gamers.”