Stormfront (website)

Stormfront is a neo-Nazi Internet forum, and the Web's first major racial hate site. The site is focused on propagating white nationalism, Nazism, antisemitism (especially antisemitic conspiracy theories), Anti-blackness, Islamophobia, Holocaust denial and white supremacy.

Stormfront began as an online bulletin board system in the early 1990s before being established as a website in 1996 by the former Ku Klux Klan leader and white supremacist Don Black. It received national attention in the United States in 2000 after being featured as the subject of a documentary called Hate.Com. Stormfront has been the subject of controversy after being removed from French, German, and Italian Google indices; for targeting an online Fox News poll on racial segregation; and for having political candidates as members. Its prominence has grown since the 1990s, attracting attention from watchdog organizations that oppose racism and antisemitism.

In August 2017, Stormfront was taken offline for just over a month when its registrar seized its domain name due to complaints that it promoted hatred and that some of its members were linked to murder. The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law claimed credit for the action after advocating for Stormfront's web host, Network Solutions, to enforce its Terms of Service agreement, which prohibits users from using its services to incite violence.

Stormfront began in 1990 as an online bulletin board supporting the white nationalist David Duke's campaign for United States senator for Louisiana. The name "Stormfront" was chosen for its connotations of a political or military front, such as the German Nazi Sturmabteilung (also known as storm troopers or SA) and an analogy with weather fronts that invokes the idea of a tumultuous storm ending in cleansing. The Stormfront website has been registered at Network Solutions since 1995 and was created in 1996 by Don Black, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and a member of the National Socialist White People's Party. Black first received computer training while he was imprisoned for his role in an abortive 1981 attempt to overthrow the government of Dominica.

Although Stormfront became the first website associated with white supremacy, its founding as a private cyberspace medium for white supremacy was based on the earlier online bulletin board system Liberty Net. Liberty Net was implemented in 1984 by Klan Grand Dragon Louis Beam and protected by four password-protected computers that took the FBI two years to decrypt. Liberty Net's code-accessed message board contained personal ads along with recruitment material and information about the white power movement. Liberty Net's success as a computer platform led to Stormfront's establishment and later conversion into a website.

Until this point, attempts at using the Internet as opposed to bulletin boards have had limited success for the white pride movement, but Stormfront developed a following with the growth of the Internet during the 1990s. By 1999, nearly 2,000 websites associated with white supremacism existed, with the recruitment power of reaching millions across the United States.

The website has received considerable attention in the United States, given that, as of 2009, it had over 120,000 active members.

The 2000 CBS/HBO TV documentary special Hate.com focused on the rise of hate groups online and included input from Don Black, the founder of Stormfront. Narrated by Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), it featured interviews with Black and his child Adrianne as well as interviews with other white nationalist groups and organizations. Black had participated in the hope that the broadcast would show some sympathy towards the white nationalist movement, but Hate.com focused exclusively on the group's tactics and not its grievances.