The video was originally a clip from an old WrestleMania appearance by Trump. It had been edited by a user who goes by the name "HanA**holeSolo" on the online bulletin board Reddit, a largely unregulated community whose users are free to post whatever content they want to the site.

By Monday, CNN had identified the person behind the HanA**holeSolo account and attempted to contact him. In a lengthy apology posted to Reddit, he asked CNN not to publish his identity, a request that CNN obliged because it said the user had "showed his remorse."

But to Andrew Auernheimer, CNN's decision not to identify the Reddit user made no difference.

Auernheimer, who goes by the name "Weev," is a notorious hacker who also set up a comment system on the Daily Stormer neo-Nazi website. Claiming that CNN had engaged in "blackmail" by investigating the account, Auernheimer rallied a neo-Nazi army of trolls to target CNN staffers with online abuse:

Just like CNN tracked down [HanA**holeSolo] and used media exposure as a bludgeon against him for posting (truthful and funny) things we don't like, we are going to begin tracking down their families as a bludgeon against them for publishing (seditiously fraudulent) things they don't like. CNN, this is your one singular chance to walk back this behavior of public blackmail. You have one week to fix this.

Within hours of issuing his call for a hate campaign, Auernheimer's post had comments with the personal information of multiple CNN staffers and their family members, as well as images and videos of people with CNN's logo superimposed over their faces being shot in the head.

"We didn't make these rules — you did — and now we're going to force you to play by them," wrote Auernheimer. "Hope you enjoy what is coming, you filthy rat k*ke bastards. Kill yourselves, k*ke news fakers. You deserve every single bit of what you are about to get."

Auernheimer's response to CNN's investigation has shocked politicians and citizens alike. Extremists, however, are increasingly seeing the internet as a weapon for intimidation.

In April, we filed a lawsuit against Andrew Anglin, founder of the Daily Stormer, for using his web forum to orchestrate a harassment campaign to terrorize a Jewish woman and her family in Montana.

"We intend to hold him accountable," said SPLC President Richard Cohen of Anglin, "and to send a strong message to those who use their online platforms as weapons of intimidation."

But as Keegan Hankes wrote for the SPLC's Spring 2015 Intelligence Report, "the most violently racist internet content isn't found on sites like Stormfront and VNN anymore." Until just recently, Reddit hosted forums such as "CoonTown," "GasTheK*kes," and "WatchNi**ersDie." Videos on the site showed black men being hit with hammers, burned alive, or lynched. In more than one forum, users applauded the violence and agitated for more.

As Hankes wrote in 2015, extremism and hate are part of the Reddit ecosystem:

Reddit has been hailed as the last bastion of free speech on the Internet, an unregulated and vibrant community of users who post whatever they want and rely on the community around them to police their content. ...

This idea of user-policed communities that contain high-quality, diverse content is part of the ethos Reddit has worked hard to project. "We power awesome communities," reads the graphic atop its "about" page.

But awesome communities for whom?

As extremists turn to mainstream websites to spread their ideology and intimidate others, it's imperative that the operators of these sites take a stand against it.

We don't tolerate hate and bigotry in our communities. We shouldn't tolerate it online.

Thanks as always for your support,

The Editors

P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable this week:

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