Chat logs obtained from message boards used by neo-Nazis and other far-right groups show a concerted effort to compile private information on leftist enemies and circulate the data to encourage harassment or violence. The messages were obtained by an anonymous source, who infiltrated and gained the trust of white nationalists and other right wingers and has been leaking the material to Unicorn Riot, a “decentralized media collective” that emerged from leftist protest movements. The chat logs originate from various web discussion communities hosted by the provider Discord and closed to the public. The communities, which have names like “Vibrant Diversity,” “Ethnoserver,” “Safe Space 3,” “4th Reich,” and “Charlottesville 2.0,” range from having 36 users to 1,269 users. The most active, with nearly a quarter million messages over seven months, is “Vibrant Diversity,” a neo-Nazi community forum that includes a channel called “#oven,” where users share racist memes. The 4th Reich server, the second most active, has 130,000 messages over the course of four months, and includes a channel called “#rare_hitlers,” where users share propaganda posters and other glorified media from Nazi Germany. The “Charlottesville 2.0” server, which contains 35,000 messages, is where the Unite the Right hate rally in Charlottesville was organized. This article is based solely on chat logs from a community called “Pony Power” (Unicorn Riot published the logs yesterday). The Pony Power server has 50 users, and the chat logs contain just over one thousand messages, posted over the course of 10 days and ranging in topic from far-right politics to advice about digital and operational security to debates about the legal limits of online behavior. The primary activity on the Pony Power server is posting private information like names, photos, home addresses, and phone numbers of dozens of anti-fascist activists. Victims of the outings, also known as “doxings,” described reactions ranging from terror to anger to annoyance and have variously turned to friends and family for support and locked down their accounts. They said the Pony Power doxing campaign is just the latest in a series of online efforts by neo-Nazis and their allies to marginalize their opponents. The information compiled on Pony Power hasn’t yet been distributed to the larger right-wing extremist community. However, doxing efforts associated with prior online hate campaigns have forced targets to leave their homes in the face of death threats, rape threats, and other forms of harassment. And those attacks were mounted even before President Donald Trump came to power on the back of racist attacks against his predecessor, against Mexicans, and against Muslims, and before he embraced white nationalists or encouraged violence against protesters at campaign rallies. People chatting on the Pony Power server spoke openly, as though behind closed doors, often using offensive slurs. So be warned, some of the following conversations are hard to stomach.

Scope of the harassment campaign During the 10-day span that the Pony Power chat logs cover, from August 17 to August 27, so-called “alt-right” members collected private information from over 50 anti-fascist activists from the states of California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. The information collected often included photographs, social media profiles, home address, phone numbers, email addresses, date of birth, driver license numbers, vehicle information, place of employment, and in one instance, a social security number. The justification for doxing these people normally put forward in Pony Power was that they were part of a loosely-structured left-wing movement against fascism known as “antifa,” which has put up some of the most militant opposition to the far right, or because they’re judged sympathetic to antifa, or because they’ve been seen at protests deemed “communist” by the far-righters. The members of Pony Power often brainstorm methods to increase the effectiveness of their harassment campaigns. One user called “oxycolton” wrote that “we’ve had a lot of people dox antifags but it doesn’t hold,” apparently meaning that the information is lost, in part because they don’t yet have a database to keep track of everything. “Klaus Albricht,” the most prolific user on the server, suggested a way to accelerate doxing efforts. “We need to separate states by regions and have a set amount of people work on it by region of doxxing antifa, and then work on other regions, or have multiple different teams per region.” Although this group has collected private information on over 50 anti-fascist activists, it’s unclear how much of it has been made available to the wider right-wing extremist population. “Lupus_Dei – NC” asked if they should post the dox of an enemy to Gab, a social network for hate speech, or if they should wait until they have a full database. User “B1488” responded, “Full database. Dont want to go out all half-cocked.” Selecting targets As the neo-Nazis and their allies were preparing for the “Say No to Marxism” rally in Berkeley on August 27, local anti-fascists were busy organizing a counter-protest. Albricht posted a flier for this counter-protest, and asked, “So who is going to be there to stand up against Antifa? This is a good chance to dox them so we can have an idea who they are.” He suggested looking at the counter-protest Facebook page and doxing everyone who was attending, as well as everyone who liked the post. The crew on Pony Power did not just target antifa; anyone who engaged in activism against racism seemed to be fair game. “Lupus_Dei – NC” posted a link to the Safety Pin Box, which describes itself as “a monthly subscription box for white people striving to be allies in the fight for Black Liberation.” With the link, Lupus_Dei posted the message, “These white allies need doxing.” Organizations that research hate groups, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, and any leftist groups that work against fascism, were also mentioned as potential targets. Some of the users feel that doxing anyone that disagrees with their politics isn’t effective enough, and that they need to focus on bigger fish. The user “NSJW” suggests that they should dox journalists and the leadership of activist groups. The next day, NSJW points out a specific journalist that they want to dox because the journalist wrote an op-ed NSJW disagrees with. User “zayl777” suggests doxing “Marxist professors.” A few days after zayl777’s comment, Albricht wrote that “it’s time we start mapping out the liberal teachers of universities,” because many people who join antifa come from liberal universities. Harassing a 22 year old college student because of her shirt A user asked, “Can we get a doxx on this?” and linked to the Facebook page of a 22 year old college student. In her cover photo, the student is wearing a shirt that says “punch more nazis,” and the photo itself is framed with the words “good night alt-right.” “That woman looks Jewish,” someone commented. “Fuck, she looks as Jewish as Barbara Shekel,” someone else added. During this conversation, Albricht described how he tricks suspected antifa members into revealing their IP address by sending them a malicious link. “What happens is the person goes through our link to an actual website, and from there this website logs the IP as it redirects the person without them knowing through their IP tracking website,” he wrote. “It’s perfect to capture these people’s IP addresses from now on.” IP addresses can sometimes be used to ascertain someone’s approximate or specific physical location. Two hours later, Albricht says he has almost completed doxing the woman. “That one is very active. I have found loads of information. Expect a IP if I can get her dumbass to click the link,” he wrote. “Also there is 2 other people who admitted that they liked her shirt, and that they are either getting one or already have one, so I will be getting their dox too just for future reference if you’d like?” Then he listed the target’s full name, age, current address, college major and the university she attends, and her username on several social media sites. “I never clicked the link because it seemed hella sketch,” the woman told me when I reached out to her. The Intercept has granted her anonymity because she’s a victim of a harassment campaign. “Basically some random guy messaged me on Facebook saying that members of 4chan [a popular hub for troll campaigns], or the alt-right, don’t remember which he said, were doxxing people who had admitted to being antifa and I should check out this link for details,” she continued. “I checked out his profile and it was just full of alt-right propaganda so I was like yeah, okay not falling for that and didn’t click the link and instead just blocked him.” I asked why she thinks Pony Power users might be doxing her. “I’m not going to rallies or like super connected to any main Antifa work,” she said, “so my best guess would be because I told some Nazi sympathizers on twitter to go fuck themselves, because I’m a member of more left leaning and antifa supporting Facebook groups, and because I’m more vocal on Twitter about my distaste for Nazis.” Since I contacted her, the woman has locked down all of her online accounts. She has also warned friends who commented on the photo in which she wears the anti-fascist shirt. “I’m annoyed because I’m going to have be paranoid about everything that I do for a while now, and annoyed because I haven’t even done that much to warrant a doxxing, aside from probably just hurting the feelings of someone in the alt-right,” she said. “I’m also terrified because they have my address, and it’s not just myself who’s at risk, but now also my parents who live here as well,” she told me.