Far-right extremists have been organizing online since before the internet – and AI is their next frontier
In a thought-provoking exploration of the evolution of far-right extremism, historian Michelle Lynn Kahn highlights how neo-Nazis and other far-right groups have adeptly leveraged technological advancements since the 1980s to spread their ideologies. Beginning with print propaganda, these groups utilized newsletters and books like Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and William Pierce’s “The Turner Diaries” to radicalize followers. However, the limitations of print—such as cost, distribution challenges, and censorship—prompted these extremists to embrace the burgeoning digital landscape. As early adopters of home computing, they transitioned to online bulletin board systems (BBSes), allowing them to share information and propaganda more efficiently and reach a broader audience. The first such platform, the Aryan Nations Liberty Net, was established in 1984, marking a significant shift in how far-right ideologies were disseminated.
With the advent of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s, far-right groups further capitalized on the unregulated nature of American internet platforms. Websites like Stormfront emerged, becoming hubs for hate speech and violence, with the Southern Poverty Law Center linking nearly 100 murders to the site alone. In response to growing global scrutiny, particularly from European governments, American white supremacists exploited their First Amendment rights to provide a safe haven for international extremists seeking to bypass censorship. Today, the rise of artificial intelligence represents the latest frontier in this ongoing battle; far-right groups are now using AI to create targeted propaganda and manipulate media to further their agendas.
As Kahn emphasizes, combating this global spread of online extremism requires a concerted effort among governments, NGOs, and tech companies. The challenge lies in keeping pace with the innovative tactics employed by far-right extremists, who have historically been at the forefront of exploiting technological advancements. The ongoing struggle to balance free speech with the need to protect society from hate and violence continues to pose a critical question for policymakers and communities alike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-TD8mCY3Hw
Neo-Nazis, like these in Orlando, Fla., organize on social media today but were early adopters of precursors to the internet in the 1980s.
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
How can society police the global spread of online far-right extremism while still protecting free speech? That’s a question policymakers and watchdog organizations confronted as early as the 1980s and ’90s – and
it hasn’t gone away
.
Decades before
artificial intelligence
,
Telegram
and white nationalist
Nick Fuentes’ livestreams
, far-right extremists embraced the early days of home computing and the internet. These new technologies offered them a bastion of free speech and a global platform. They could share propaganda, spew hatred, incite violence and gain international followers like never before.
Before the digital era, far-right extremists radicalized each other primarily using print propaganda. They wrote their own newsletters and reprinted far-right tracts such as
Adolf Hitler
’s “
Mein Kampf
” and American neo-Nazi
William Pierce
’s “
The Turner Diaries
,” a dystopian work of fiction describing a race war. Then, they mailed this propaganda to supporters at home and abroad.
I’m a historian who
studies neo-Nazis and far-right extremism
. As
my research
shows, most of the neo-Nazi propaganda confiscated in Germany from the 1970s through the 1990s came from the United States. American neo-Nazis exploited their free speech under the First Amendment to bypass German censorship laws. German neo-Nazis then picked up this print propaganda and distributed it throughout the country.
This strategy wasn’t foolproof, however. Print propaganda could get lost in the mail or be confiscated, especially when crossing into Germany. Producing and shipping it was also expensive and time-consuming, and far-right organizations were chronically understaffed and strapped for cash.
Going digital
Computers, which
entered the mass market
in 1977, promised to help resolve these problems. In 1981,
Matt Koehl
, head of the National Socialist White People’s Party in the United States, solicited donations to “Help the Party Enter The Computer Age.” The American neo-Nazi
Harold Covington
begged for a printer, scanner and “serious PC” that could run WordPerfect word processing software. “Our multifarious enemies already possess this technology,” he noted, referring to Jews and government officials.
Soon, far-right extremists figured out how to connect their computers to one another. They did so by using
online bulletin board systems
, or BBSes, a precursor to the internet. A BBS was hosted on a personal computer, and other computers could dial in to the BBS using a modem and a terminal software program, allowing users to exchange messages, documents and software.
After personal computers became commonplace but before the internet, people connected online via bulletin board systems.
Blake Patterson/Flickr
,
CC BY
With BBSes, anyone interested in accessing far-right propaganda could simply turn on their computer and dial in to an organization’s advertised phone number. Once connected, they could read the organization’s public posts, exchange messages and upload and download files.
The first far-right bulletin board system, the
Aryan Nations Liberty Net
, was established in 1984 by
Louis Beam
, a high-ranking member of the
Ku Klux Klan
and
Aryan Nations
.
Beam explained
: “Imagine, if you can, a single computer to which all leaders and strategists of the patriotic movement are connected. Imagine further that any patriot in the country is able to tap into this computer at will in order to reap the benefit of all accumulative knowledge and wisdom of the leaders. ‘Someday,’ you may say? How about today?”
Then came violent
neo-Nazi computer games
. Neo-Nazis in the United States and elsewhere could upload and download these games via bulletin board systems, copy them onto disks and distribute them widely, especially to schoolchildren.
In the German
computer game KZ Manager
, players role-played as a commandant in a Nazi concentration camp that murdered Jews,
Sinti and Roma
, and
Turkish immigrants
. An early 1990s poll revealed that 39% of Austrian high schoolers
knew of such games
and 22% had seen them.
Arrival of the web
By the mid-1990s, with the introduction of the more user-friendly
World Wide Web
, bulletin boards fell out of favor. The first major racial hate website on the internet,
Stormfront
, was founded in 1995 by the American white supremacist
Don Black
. The civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center found that almost
100 murders
were linked to Stormfront.
By 2000, the German government had discovered, and banned, over
300 German websites
with right-wing content – a tenfold increase within just four years.
In response, American white supremacists again exploited their free speech rights to bypass German censorship bans. They gave international far-right extremists the opportunity to
host their websites
safely and anonymously on unregulated American servers – a strategy that continues today.
Up next: AI
The next frontier for far-right extremists is AI. They
are using
AI tools
to create targeted propaganda, manipulate images, audio and videos, and evade detection. The far-right social network Gab created a
Hitler chatbot
that users can talk to.
AI chatbots are also adopting the far-right views of social media users. Grok, the chatbot on Elon Musk’s X, recently called itself “
MechaHitler
,”
spewed antisemitic hate speech
and
denied the Holocaust
.
Countering extremism
Combating online hate
is a global imperative. It requires comprehensive international cooperation among governments, nongovernmental organizations, watchdog organizations, communities and tech corporations.
Far-right extremists have long pioneered innovative ways to exploit technological progress and free speech. Efforts to counter this radicalization are challenged to stay one step ahead of the far right’s technological advances.
Michelle Lynn Kahn has received funding from the National Humanities Center, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, American Historical Association, and American Jewish Archives.
